The True Citizen: How to Become On e Part 24

Exaggerated individuality makes a man impracticable. But the danger of our times is to copy after others, and thus destroy our force and effectiveness. Live, then, like an individual. Take life like a man--as though the world had waited for your coming. Don't take your cue from the weak, the prejudiced, the trimmers, the cowards;--but rather from the ill.u.s.trious ones of earth. Dare to take the side that seems wrong to others, if it seems right to you; and you will attain to an order of life the most n.o.ble and complete.

THOMAS JEFFERSON.

For the last one hundred years, one of the first historical facts taught the youth of American birth, is that Thomas Jefferson wrote our famous Declaration of Independence. His bold, free, independent nature, admirably fitted him for the writing of this remarkable doc.u.ment. To him was given the task of embodying, in written language, the sentiments and the principles for which, at that moment, a liberty-loving people were battling with their lives. He succeeded, because he wrote the Declaration while his heart burned with that same patriotic fire which Patrick Henry so eloquently expressed when he said: "I care not what others may do, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death."

In all nations men have sacrificed everything they held dear for religious and political freedom. Their names are justly written in the book of fame; but in the front rank of them all, we place the brave signers of the Declaration of Independence, with Jefferson in the lead.

The acceptance and the signing of this doc.u.ment by the members of the Continental Congress was a dramatic scene, seldom, if ever, surpa.s.sed in the annals of history. As John Hanc.o.c.k placed his great familiar signature upon it, he jestingly remarked, that John Bull could read that without spectacles; and then, becoming more serious, he began to impress upon his comrades the necessity of all hanging together in this matter.

"Yes, indeed," interrupted Franklin, "we must all hang together, or a.s.suredly we shall all hang separately."

The Declaration of Independence placed the American colonies squarely upon the issue of political freedom. Its composition was a master-stroke which will continue as a lasting memorial to the head and heart of its author.

[Footnote: See "Thomas Jefferson," by J. T. Morse, Jr. (in American Statesmen Series), and "Domestic Life of Thomas Jefferson," by Sarah N.

Randolph, his great-granddaughter.]

x.x.xIV.

THE IDEAL MAN.

MEMORY GEMS.

From the lowest depth there is a path to the highest height.--Carlyle.

A man seldom loses the respect of others until he has lost his own.

--F. W. Robertson

There are certain things we feel to be beautiful and good, and we must hunger after them.--George Eliot

The man who thinks himself inferior to his fellows, deserves to be, and generally is.--William Black

It is characteristic of small men to avoid emergencies; of great men to meet them.--Charles Kingsley

Every man has characteristics which make him a distinct personality; a different individual from every other individual. It is an interesting fact that a man cannot change his nature, though he may conceal it; while no art or application will teach him to know himself, as he really is, or as others see him.

If the idea of humanity carry with it the corresponding idea of a physical, intellectual, and moral nature--if it be this trinity of being which const.i.tutes the man,--then let us think of the first or the second elements as we may, it is the third which completes our conception. Let us praise the mechanism of the body to the utmost; let it be granted that the height and force of our intellect bespeaks a glorious intelligence; still our distinctive excellence and preeminence lies in moral and spiritual perfection.

There are those who think and speak as if manhood consisted in birth or t.i.tles, or in extent of power and authority. They are satisfied if they can only reckon among their ancestors some of the great and ill.u.s.trious, or if n.o.ble blood but flow in their veins. But if they have no other glory than that of their ancestors; if all their greatness lies in a name; if their t.i.tles are their only virtues; if it be necessary to call up past ages to find something worthy of our homage,--then their birth rather disparages and dishonors them.

That these creatures lay claim to the name and the attributes of man, is a desecration. Man is a _n.o.ble_ being. There may be rank, and t.i.tle, and ancestry, and deeds of renown, where there is no intellectual power. Nor would we unduly exalt reason. There may be mental greatness in no common degree, and yet be a total absence of those higher moral elements which bring our manhood more clearly into view. It is the combination of intellectual power and moral excellence which goes to make the perfect man.

The world wants a man who is educated all over; whose nerves are brought to their acutest sensibility; whose brain is cultured, keen, and penetrating; whose hands are deft; whose eyes are alert, sensitive, microscopic; whose heart is tender, broad, magnanimous, true. Indeed, the only man who can satisfy the demands of an age like this, is the man who has been rounded into perfectness by being cultured along all the lines we have indicated in the foregoing pages.

This education must commence with the very first opening of the infant mind. Our lessons will multiply and be of a still higher character with the progress of our years. Truth may succeed truth, according to the mental power and capacity; nor must our instruction cease till the probationary state shall close. Our education can finish only with the termination of life.

Every one is conscious of a most peculiar feeling when he looks at anything whose formation or development is imperfect. Let him take up an imperfectly-formed crystal, or an imperfectly-developed flower, and he can scarcely describe his feelings. The same holds true as to the organization and structure of the human body. Who ever contemplates stunted growth, or any kind of visible deformity, with complacency and satisfaction? And why should we not look for full mental development, and for the most perfect moral maturity? If what is imperfect const.i.tutes the exception in the physical world, why should it be otherwise in the world of mind and of morals? Is it a thing to be preferred, to be stunted, and little, and dwarfish, in our intellectual and moral stature? Or do we prefer a state of childhood to that of a perfect man? If the mind is the measure of the man, and if uprightness const.i.tutes the n.o.blest aspect of life, then our advancement in knowledge and in righteousness should appear unto all men.

There is a G.o.d in the meanest man; there is a philanthropist in the stingiest miser; there is a hero in the biggest coward,--which an emergency great enough will call out. The blighting greed of gain, the chilling usages and cold laws of trade, encase many a n.o.ble heart in crusts of selfishness; but great emergencies break open the prison doors, and the whole heart pours itself forth in deeds of charity and mercy.

The poor and unfortunate are our opportunity, our character-builders, the great schoolmasters of our moral and Christian growth. Every kind and n.o.ble deed performed for others, is trans.m.u.ted into food which nourishes the motive promoting its performance, and strengthens the muscles of habit. Gladstone, in the midst of pressing duties, found time to visit a poor sick boy whom he had seen sweeping the street crossings.

He endeared himself to the heart of the English people by this action more than by almost any other single event of his life; and this incident is more talked about to-day than almost any of his so-called greater deeds.

Not what men do, but what their lives promise and prophesy, gives hope to the race. To keep us from discouragement, Nature now and then sends us a Was.h.i.+ngton, a Lincoln, a Kossuth, a Gladstone, towering above his fellows, to show us she has not lost her ideal.

We call a man like Shakespeare a genius, not because he makes new discoveries, but because he shows us to ourselves,--shows us the great reserve in us, which, like the oil-fields, awaited a discoverer,--and because he says that which we had thought or felt, but could not express. Genius merely holds the gla.s.s up to nature. We can never see in the world what we do not first have in ourselves.

"Every man," says Theodore Parker, "has at times in his mind the ideal of what he should be, but is not. In all men that seek to improve, it is better than the actual character. No one is so satisfied with himself that he never wishes to be wiser, better, and more perfect."

The ideal is the continual image that is cast upon the brain; and these images are as various as the stars; and, like them, differ one from another in magnitude. It is the quality of the aspiration that determines the true success or failure of a life. A man may aspire to be the best billiard-player, the best coachman, the best wardroom politician, the best gambler, or the most cunning cheat. He may rise to be eminent in his calling; but, compared with other men, his greatest height will be below the level of the failure of him who chooses an honest profession. No jugglery of thought, no gorgeousness of trappings, can make the low high, the dishonest honest, the vile pure.

As is a man's ideal or aspiration, so shall his life be.

But when all this has been said, it still remains true that much of the difference between man and man arises from the variety of occupations and practices,--a certain special training which develops thought and intelligence in special directions. All men meet, however, on the common level of common sense. A man's thought is indicated by his talk, by verbal expression. Mental action and expression is affected by the senses, pa.s.sions, and appet.i.tes.

Whatever great thing in life a man does, he never would have done in that precise way except for the peculiar training and experience which developed him; and no single incident in his life, however trifling, may be excepted in the work of rounding him out to the exact character he becomes.

The poet is really calling for what we regard as the ideal man, when he says:

"G.o.d give us men. A time like this demands Strong minds, great hearts, true faith and ready hands: Men whom the l.u.s.t of office does not kill; Men whom the spoils of office cannot buy; Men who possess opinions and a will; Men who have honor--men who will not lie; Men who can stand before a demagogue And scorn his treacherous flatteries without winking; Tall men, sun-crowned, who live above the fog In public duty, and in private thinking."

x.x.xV.

WHAT CONSt.i.tUTES GOOD CITIZENs.h.i.+P.

MEMORY GEMS.

A great nation is made only by worthy citizens.--Charles Dudley Warner

Nothing is politically right that is morally wrong.--O'Connor

The n.o.blest principle in education is to teach how best to live for one's country.--G. T. Balch

The good citizen will never consent that his voice and vote shall sanction a public wrong.--A. M. Gow

Let our object be, our country, our whole country, and nothing but our country.--D. Webster

An old English picture represents a king, with the motto beneath, "I govern all;" a bishop, with this sentence, "I pray for all;" a soldier, with the inscription, "I fight for all;" and a farmer, who reluctantly draws forth his purse, and exclaims with rueful countenance, "I pay for all." The American citizen combines in himself the functions of these four. He is king, prophet, warrior, and laborer. He governs, prays, and fights for himself, and pays all expenses.

It is neither desirable nor possible, however, for men to be wholly independent of one another. Their very nature reveals the fact that they are intended to be a.s.sociated in the bonds of mutual intercourse and affection; and such forms of a.s.sociated life we see all about us, in the life of the family, the community, and the nation.