Editorials from the Hearst Newspapers Part 51

THE MONKEY AND THE SNAKE FIGHT

We wish to tell you of the monkey and the snake fight, described by a witness in the Lah.o.r.e Tribune. ----

Before men arrived on earth, when all the animals were racing for supremacy, the monkey seemed to have the smallest chance. No one would have guessed that the descendants of this feeble, defenseless little brute would eventually rule the earth, killing off tigers, lions and the other huge monsters at pleasure.

We have before called your attention in this column to the fact that the monkey, or some animal like him, had the honor of contributing our proud human services as the world's rulers BECAUSE HE COULD USE HIS BRAIN.

That fight between the monkey and the cobra ill.u.s.trates this quite clearly.

The monkey was a little monkey, with scarcely enough muscle to strangle a hen.

His little black finger-nails could hurt n.o.body. His teeth were fit only to nibble fruit or to chatter in rage at his fellow monkeys.

This monkey had the misfortune to annoy a huge cobra.

Mr. Cobra is the most dangerous, the most formidably armed, of all living animals. He is a solid ma.s.s of muscle, gifted with lightning speed. The slightest touch of his fangs means death.

The brain of the cobra is about as big as a mustard seed. The brain of the monkey--even a small one--is several hundred times as big as the brain of the largest snake. We refer to the cerebrum, the front brain, which does the thinking.

The monkey annoyed the snake, and the snake chased him. Mr.

Monkey, shrieking and chattering, rushed over the ground until he came to a rock. He stood still in front of the rock.

The snake dashed its head at him to annihilate him; the monkey jumped to one side and let the snake beat its head against the rock.

Over and over, this operation was repeated, the monkey with lightning speed avoiding the dart of the snake, and the snake, with never-ending stupidity, das.h.i.+ng its head against the rock.

Eventually the powerful, dangerous snake was stretched out at full length, bleeding and tired out.

The monkey was not bleeding and not tired. He was extremely cheerful. He seized the snake by the neck, just back of the head, and placidly proceeded to rub its head off on the stone.

When he had rubbed the head to a pulp. incidentally destroying its primitive brain, he left the dead snake lying there, and gratefully accepted the Indian corn and sugar-cane donated by the admiring humans-his relatives-who had witnessed his performance. ----

The monkey used his brain--the snake did not.

The monkey did not say, but he might as well have said:

"You need not wonder that my half-sister, Eve, crushed the serpent's head. We monkeys and humans have soft hands and no poison sacs, but WE KNOW HOW TO MAKE OUR BRAINS WORK, and that means that we rule creation."

TOO LITTLE AND TOO MUCH

Here is a quotation from a very wise person called Aristotle.

This Greek philosopher was the teacher of Alexander the Great, and incidentally he has been the teacher of millions of men since he began to talk philosophy, more than twenty centuries ago.

"First of all, we must observe that in all these matters of human action the too little and the too much are alike ruinous, as we can see (to ill.u.s.trate the spiritual by the natural) in the case of strength and health. Too much and too little exercise alike impair the strength, and too much meat and drink and too little both alike destroy the health, but the fitting amount produces and preserves them.... So, too, the man who takes his fill of every pleasure and abstains from none becomes a profligate; while he who shuns all becomes stolid and insusceptible."

The next time you fall into a philosophical mood, and begin reviewing the causes of your troubles, see if you can't find some useful suggestion in the common-sense statement of Aristotle we give today.

How about the "too much" of one thing and "too little" of another?

Are you quite sure that you don't do too much talking and too little thinking?

Are you sure that you don't do too much drinking and playing and idling, and too little reading?

Are you sure that you don't do too much of things you like that do you no good, and too little of things that you ought to like, and that would help you to succeed? ----

We believe that every one of our readers has some friend or brother or son who can be really helped by the reading of this quotation from the old Greek wise man.

You can state to any young man or woman to whom you send this advice that the man who gave it formed the character and judgment of Alexander, the world's most successful young man.

DO YOU FEEL DISCOURAGED?

A young man lost his money in stocks the other day and killed himself. Other young men lose heart when things go against them and drift through life helpless, useless derelicts. Let us give such men a bit of advice:

Don't let failure discourage you. Almost all the brilliantly successful characters of history have known early trials and reverses. The great philosopher, Epictetus, was a slave. Alfred the Great wandered through the swamps as a fugitive and got cuffed on the ears for letting the cakes burn. Columbus went from court to court like a beggar to try to raise money for the discovery of the New World and when he finally won the favor of the Spanish Queen he was so poor that he could not go to court until Isabella had advanced him money enough to buy decent clothes.

When Frederick the Great was fighting all Europe he fell into such desperate straits that he carried a bottle of poison about with him as the last way of escape from his enemies. If he had taken that dose the whole history of our time would have been different. Instead of shaking a "mailed fist" at the world, young William of Hohenzollern might have been a mediatized princelet on the lookout for an American heiress; there might never have been a Leipzig or a Waterloo, as there certainly would not have been a Sedan, and the heirs of Napoleon might now have been ruling over an empire covering all Central Europe, from the Tiber to the Baltic.

n.o.body ever had greater cause for discouragement than George Was.h.i.+ngton had when he led the straggling remnants of his army across the Delaware in December, 1776. But in the very darkest hour, when absolute ruin seemed inevitable and a British gallows appeared the probable ending of his career, he struck a blow that cleared the way to the highest place in the world's history.

Andrew Jackson was born in a cabin, suffered every sort of adversity, lost his mother and two brothers from the sufferings of war, was cut with a sword for refusing to clean a British officer's boots, and grew up almost without education.

Abraham Lincoln, poor, ignorant, sprung from the lowliest stock, deprived of all advantages for culture or for money making, distressed by domestic troubles, might have had some excuse for discouragement. But he kept on, with what results the world sees.

If ever there was a man who seemed doomed to failure it was U. S.

Grant in the spring of 1861. He had cut loose from the profession for which he had been trained, and, after drifting from one occupation to another and failing in all, he was now, at thirty-nine years old, a clerk in a country store and unable to make ends meet at that. Three years later he was Lieutenant-General of the armies of the United States, and five years after that he was President.

Solon said it was never safe to call any man happy until he was dead. Unhappiness is equally uncertain. If you are poor now you may be rich to-morrow. If you are unknown now you may be famous to-morrow. If you are even in the penitentiary now you may be running a street-car system to-morrow.

So don't be discouraged if your fortunes are in temporary eclipse. The savage is in despair when the sun goes into the moon's shadow, for he thinks that some monster has swallowed it, and that there will never be any daylight again. But to the astronomer an eclipse is merely an interesting opportunity to make scientific observations. Be as sure of the coming of daylight as the astronomer is, and your moments of darkness will trouble you no more than his trouble him.

TWO KINDS OF DISCONTENT

Emerson says:

"Discontent is the want of self-reliance; it is infirmity of will."

Another individual, at least as solemn if not as wise as Emerson, says:

"Discontent is the foundation of all human effort."

Both are right, for there are two kinds of discontent.