Being Good for Something

Being Good for Something

ANK S. HARRIS, I'll. I>., PROFESSOR OF AGRONOMY, UTAH STAT'.AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE

The day of high honor for mere negative goociness haspasse !. No one denies that the absence of bad should not receivedue credit ; but in this day of action, the world expects a man tobe more than a mere lump of inert clay. There is work to bedone and the man who is able and willing- to do this work is theone to whom the world is anxious to pay homage. Respect isdoubtless due one who fails to do evil, but in order to be honore.lhi the highest degree one must not only refrain from evil, but hemust, in addition, accomplish something of positive value. Themotto of righteousness has changed from simply "being good" to"being good for something."

There was a time when one who di 1 not have to work wasconsidered very fortunate; in fact, it was quite the fashion toboast of idleness. An aristocracy was developed composed ofthose who could afford to do nothing; the man who worked waslooked on as an inferior being. This is now changing, and themost wealthy are proud to boast of industry and thrift. Thedistinction of being "above" work, because of family connections,01 inherited wealth, is losing its charm. At present the aristocra-cy of accomplishment, resting" on the firm base of dignified labor,is rapidly becoming" the respected class. The world is less inter-ested in the wealth of a person's great grandfather than in whatthe person himself has accomplished, and what he is able to do.The center of interest has shifted from being something to doingsomething. Some people are still satisfied to live on the reflectedglory of ancestors ; but the progressive spirit of the day sym-pathizes but little with such an attitude.

There is work in the world for every man ; so why wastetime in getting at it? Every young man has his own peculiarcapabilities. He is by nature fitted to do something, and he shouldbe restless until he gets about his life's business, or begins to pre-pare himself for it. He must consider his natural inclinationsand the opportunities that are open, and when he has made uphis mind what to do, he should not waste time drifting about frompillar to post in an aimless fashion, but should begin at once on hiswork. Nor should he be satisfied with being only "pretty good"in his profession ; he should strive to be an expert. In this dayof opportunity every man may be master of some kind of work.

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and one should be ashamed to go through life in company withhimself unless he can develop the self-respect that comes onlythrough mastery.

The vocational department of the Y. M. M. I. A. offers asplendid opportunity for every "mutual" worker to get expertadvice regarding his life's work. Too many boys are letting thisopportunity pass, and I am afraid some of them will wake up, afterhaving spent the best part of their lives drifting, to find that theyare first class failures, when it comes to special skill in doing theworld's work. They will find themselves able to do only thethings that can be done by the great mob of unskilled and oftenunemployed laborers who are often a menace to every community.

I wish something could be said and done to make young menrealize how important it is for them to attain an industrial in-dependence, by being able to do some necessary work exception-ally well. No boys in the world are naturally better than thosereared in the valleys of the mountains ; but if they would competewith the world, they cannot be satisfied with mere lack of bad-ness. They must in addition have active ability to accomplishsomething. This is the highest type of virtue.

LOGAN, UTAH

Popular Novels

We read that the New York Times recently induced twenty-eight of the most popular novelists of the United States and Eng-land to state which in their opinion are the six best novels in theEnglish language, and their answers resulted as follows. Thedate is the year when the novel was published, and the parenthesisgives the number of votes each received:

Vanity Fair, by William Makepeace Thackeray, 1846. (14)

Tom Jones, by Henry Fielding, 1749. (11)

David Copperiield, by Charles Dickens, 1850. (7)

The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, 1850. (7)

Robinson Crusoe, by Daniel Defoe, 1719. (6)

Ivanhoe, by Sir Walter Scott, 1820. (4)

Lorna Doone, by R. D. Blackmore, 1869. (4)

Tess of the D'Urbervilles, by Thomas Hardy, 1891. (4)

Tristram Shandy, by Laurence Sterne, 1759. (4)

The remarkable thing about it is that these novelists havesuch a poor opinion of each other and their contemporaries as notto name a single novel of a modern writer. Only one in the lictnamed is alive—Hardy, and he is well up in the 70's.