---
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: 5
number: 8
published: 1902-06
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* 5, no. 8 (June 1902): 635.'
source:
  url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera0508unse
  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: improvementera0508unse
start_page: 635
end_page: 635
rights:
  status: public-domain
  basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1902-06)
  source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera0508unse
  publication_year: 1902
  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 1902, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright.
---

# Notes

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NOTES.


        Character is the one thing whose foundations go down to the world's
granite; and when to character we add culture, we come into an inherit-
ance more durable           than time, and richer than the kingdoms of this
world.     Edwin Markham.

        And in reviewing the lives of the great, we can only say that failure
is the selection and       emphasis of secondary and important things in life,
and that success is the skill          in   selecting   the essential and converting
one's offices and honors upward into character and service that abide and
are really worth while.          Dr. Rillis.

        To be able to throw the searchlight of a superb personality before
us, wherever we go through life,    and to leave a trail of sunshine and
blessing behind us; to be loved because we scatter flowers of good cheer,
wherever we move,           is   an   infinitely   greater achievement   — a grander
work    —than   to pile up millions of cold, unsympathetic, mean, hard dol-
lars.     Success.


        And after all it is the people that constitute a State.          Let me quote
a few lines on that subject:
                     What constitutes a State?
                Not high-raised battlements or labored mound,
                  Thick wall or moated gate,
                Not cities proud, with spires and turrets crowned,
                     Not bays and broad-armed ports,
                Where, laughing at the storm, rich navies ride;
                  Not starred and spangled courts,
                Where low-browed baseness wafts perfume to pride.
                     No!   Men, high-minded men,
                With powers as far above dull brutes endued,
                     In forest, brake, or glen,
                As beasts excel cold rocks and brambles rude;


                       *****
                     Men who their duties know,
                But know their rights, and knowing dare maintain.

                     These constitute a State.       Hon. B. S. Rodey, N. M.