EVERY INNOVATION HAS TO FIGHT FOR IT'S LIFE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 11371, 24 April 1915, Page 8

EVERY INNOVATION HAS TO FIGHT FOR IT'S LIFE.

(By ELBERT HUBBARD.)

There is a common tendency to cling to old ways and Every innovation, lias to fight for its life, and every good thing lias been condemned in its day and generation. And the reason men oppose progress is not that they hate progress, but that they love inertia. Even as great a man as John Ruskin foresaw that tie railways would ruin England by driving the stage coaches out of business ana killing the demand for horses, thus ruining the farmer. Thomas Jefferson tells us in his biography of a neighbour of his who was " agin" the public schools, because " when everybody could read and write, no one would work." Bishop Berkeley thanked God there was not a printing press in Virginia, because printing presses printed mostly lies, and their business was to deceive the people. In the time of Mozart musicians wore classed with stablemen, scullions and" cooks. They ate below stairs, and their business was simply to amuse the great man who hired them, and his assembled guests. The word business was first used in the time of Chaucer to express contempt for people who were useful, rhe word was then spelt "busyness. _ In those days the big rewards were given to men who demoted their lives to conspicuous waste and conspicuous leisure. Ho who destroyed most was king by divine right. And everybody took ins word for it. Even yet we find that if you would go in " good society you had better not shoulder a trunk, sift ashes, sweep the sidewalk or carry a hoe on your shoulder. They used to say that to light cities by gas would set them afire. Elect ricitv was dangerous, and to put up wires was to invite the lightning to come into our houses and kill us all dead. A few years ago any man who advertised in the newspapers was looked upon with and even yet we have associations of professional men who stamp with their disapproval any individual among them who advertises. Such a one is called an "irregular." But within five time great changes have occurred in tlie matter of advertising. In all the promfrrent cities tnere are clubs devoted to the study of advertising as a science. The subject is taught in the schools and colleges, and' publicity is regarded now ns eminently right, beautiful and necessary. ! Advertising is stating who you are, where you are and what you have to offer the world in the way of commodity or service. And the only man who does not advertise is "the 'one who has nothing to offer, and he is a dead one—whether he knows it or not. Yes, it is a fact thai if we look book through history, wo will find that every good 'and beautiful tiling jias at one time or another been under the ban, and assailed as an evil. And the argument seems to be this: —lf "vou think i thing is right, never mind "what rhe many uiy, stick to it, AVork for it, ike i'.->r it. die Jor it—that way umnoi laiuy