--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 3 number: 11 published: 1900-09 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations, "Notes," *Improvement Era* 3, no. 11 (September 1900): 865–868.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera311unse transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers. identifier: improvementera311unse start_page: 865 end_page: 868 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1900-09) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera311unse publication_year: 1900 note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1900, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # Notes NOTES. Faithful are the wounds of a friend; but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful. — Proverbs. "Hunger, rags, cold, hard work, contempt, suspicion, unjust reproach, are disagreeable; but debt is infinitely worse than all." After all, the kind of world one carries about in oneself is the important thing, and the world outside takes all its grace, color and value from that. — Lowell. "He is dead whose hand is not open wide To help the need of a human brother; He doubles the length of his lifelong ride Who gives his fortunate place to another; And a thousand million lives are his Who carries the world in his sympathies — To give is to live!" Be courteous. Courtesy, as a mere business quality, is worth its weight in gold. A courteous salesman outsells his surly and unaccommo • dating fellow-salesman three times over. A courteous man always predisposes people in his favor; he creates everywhere an agreeable impression; makes people willing to serve and anxious to keep him. Many a man of very ordinary mental force has achieved striking success in business, simply because of the kindliness of his spirit and the courtesy of his manner. — Success. "The Romans, commanded by Julius Csesar, fifty-five years B. C, entered Great Britain, occupied the country, and for nearly five hundred years dwelt in comparative peace with the native Britons. After the lapse of almost five centuries, the Saxons continually invaded the island until they possessed the whole of it. The Romans were driven out of the country, and the natives who escaped destruction from the cruel Saxons fled into Wales. Hence, the Welsh people are descendants of the Britons. One of the most powerful of the Saxon tribes was that of the Angles, and the part of Britain where they settled was known as 'Angleland,' afterwards changed to 'England.' The language known 866 IMPBOVEMENl ERA. as English, and which is spoken by many millions of the most cultivated and energetic people in the whole world, is really the Anglo-Saxon tongue modified and enriched by words from another language." We cannot know the future; then why worry over it? It may be even brighter than we think. Every cloud has a silvery lining. Our faces should be a mirror reflecting only brightness. The gleaming of a pleasant smile, the warm pressure of the hand, the loving word spoken at the right time, counts for so much. It does not pay to become cynical. The Congress for Christian Archaeology, at the recent convention in Rome, by formal resolution, expressed its desire that the famous crypts under the Vatican be opened to the researches of specialists. It is, per- .haps, not generally known that underneath the basilica of St. Peter there are long galleries, a subterranean church, incomparably richer than the church above ground. Here, among other things, was discovered, in a kind of dark cellar, a massive granite block, which proved to mark the grave of Otto II; then, too, statues of bishops, masterpieces of Ghiberti* and a large number of bas-reliefs, in which the artistic hand of Mino da Fiesole was detected. "Good manners play a most important part in business. Deportment, good manners and deference beget confidence. A young man is liked who has respect for his employers; and unobtrusive confidence in himself is a great support. It makes him pleasant and attentive to others. There are men you can transact business with, and men you cannot. The successful man is the one who has a pleasant, magnetic personality. Such traits are worth cultivating. The man who interests me least is the one who, when you ask him if he can do a certain thing, replies: 'I do not know;' or, 'Can I have some help in it? I think it will interfere with my other work;' or, 'When do you wish it done?' — instead of going straight ahead and trying to do it. I would sooner have a young man fail to complete an undertaking in a specified time, than hesitate to undertake it. Hesitation shows a lack of ambition. When you are asked to do something, ask no questions, but shoulder your task, and bend every energy to carry it to successful termination." — W. A. Nash, N. Y.Bank President. Nations, like individuals, sometimes make heroic struggles for life. The Creek Indians, a tribal sub-division of the old Muskhogean stock, who are of the full blood, have withdrawn from the regular Creek government in Indian Territory and have established a pure Indian govern- NOTES. 867 ment of their own with Chinnubie Halfo at the head. No white persons or half-breeds will be permitted to live with the full bloods, and the full-bloods will keep to themselves and away from settlements where the others live. The government is to be run according to the ancient law of the tribe. The Seminoles are disposed to make the same movement. It is not thought that the United States government will attempt to prevent the new government being put into operation, but if it does, the Indians are expected to sell their lands and remove to Mexico, negotiations looking to a movement of that kind have been under way for some time. Dr. Louis Kolpsch, recently a traveler in famine-stricken portions of India, writes: "One-half of India today is a great charnel house, in which countless thousands have already perished of cholera, plague, dysentery and starvation, and as many more are doomed to a like fate. Twenty thousand new cases of cholera weekly, with seventy-five per cent mortality, representing fifteen thousand deaths every seven days; plague on every hand, dysentery mowing down its victims right and left, and starvation staring millions in the face, reaping a harvest unprecedented, sums up the horrible story." An Indian correspondent for a London paper writes: "In Central India the affliction is the deepest. The fields are void and barren, and without people. The cracked earth, burnt to a mahogany brown,shrieks for rain. Not a patch of green anywhere, not a blade of grass. The leaves of the trees, withered, frizzled,twisted, have fallen off the naked branches. In entire villages not a living creature can be seen, save, perhaps, an emaciated bullock breathing out its life in the company of a starving crow, that watches for its last gasp from an adjacent dung heap. Half the population, those still able to walk or stand, have gone off to the relief camps; the other half have laid themselves down to die in silence in hovels and dark places." I invite every young man to read Emerson's essay on Compensation earnestly and critically. It will tell him that compensation is a natural law which follows him from the cradle to the grave, and from which he cannot escape, and if he is wise he will not care to. He will learn that for every hour he labors he will be fairly paid sooner or later, and that the longer the reward is withheld the greater it finally becomes. It accumulates like compound interest and can never become outlawed. Ask any successful man regarding the truth of the above. I will risk his answer. So do not think your employer can finally cheat you. Time will pay you back. Who are to be the leaders twenty-five years hence when those now on the top round shall have passed away? There will 868 IMPROVEMENT ERA. be more places of responsibility to be filled then than at present. Who will fill them? It will be the young men who are now working conscientiously and doing all they can to forward the interests of their employers, and at the same time to build up a noble character. Let us not then be impatient for a quick success, remembering that he arrives none the less surely who gets there by a slow train. Personally I do not measure success by money, though not despising the latter. There are no low positions in life — all are important, and the man who can do the work he is asked to do, and do it perfectly, is a success, I care not what his salary may be. — Saturday Evening Post. ^ At the Paris Exposition there will be a selection of Indians from America, who will doubtless create much interest to the men of Europe. The Indian will study the Exposition in all its details, and when he returns to the Far West he will make a word-picture of it to his companions who remained at home, and they will see it in their imaginations as he saw it in reality. "The poetry in the Indian soul is proverbial," says a writer in the Woman's Home Journal. "His every word is poetry. He speaks in blank verse, and his language is descriptive, picturesque and rhythmic. He has no arbitrary words in his lexicon. Each word has a meaning to him aside from mere sound. He loves oratory, and his sentences are framed in parables. Fifty of the finest specimens of men, women and children will be selected for the trip. They will comprise members of the royal families and personages of high rank in several Indian nations — the chiefs, the princesses, the head councilmen and the great medicine-men. Among the Sioux are found the most perfectly formed people. The men are athletes, and the women are graceful and beautiful. Next to them physically are the Winnebagoes, who unquestionably are the strongest mentally of all the Indian tribes. Then come the Apaches, the most savage fighters and the most treacherous, whom General Miles named the human tigers. Then there are the Chippewas, the Tuscaroras, the Pottawatomies, the Navajos and the Cheyennes, all embracing the best of the remnant of a once powerful people."