Class _ 3 J J 0±J> Book_ ll' Gopyiight N° . ao3 COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. Character Building By C S. Coler, M. S. Cloth, Price, $1.00 What we want to appear in character, we must put into our schools. If, as teachers and parents, we permit selfishness, dishonesty, and sham in children, we need not be surprised if we see these things in society and in the world, — From the Author's Preface. Contents I. Aims in Character Building II. Psychology of Character Building IIL Ethics of Character Building IV. Methods in Character Building V. Growth in Character VI. Habit, In Relation to Character Building VIE. Study, In Relation to Character Building VHL Education, In Relation to Character Building IX. The Parent, In Relation to Character Building X. Character and American Citizenship XI. Inspiring Thoughts and Helps The following subjects have been carefully considered by the author : Discipline, Acquisi- tion, Assimilation, Appreciation, Aspiration, Ex- pression, Consciousness, Will Power, Conscience, Duty, Methods of Teaching, Habit, and Moral Instruction. Several teachers have ordered copies for their pupils — others have used it as a text-book in the class-room. One teacher ordered twenty-four copies to present to her graduating class. Dr. W. H. Scott, Professor of Ethics and Psychology ir Ohio State University ', Columbus, 0. t in commenting upon the merits of the book, writes: " Your book on ' Character Building' is inspiring. I do not see how an intelligent young person can read it without being lifted into the realm of higher ideas and noble purposes. Every teacher will Jin J it full of help. 1 ' HINDS & NOBLE, Publishers 31-33-35 West 15th St. New York City School Books of Aft Publishers at One Store Ethics for Schools Being a Treatise on The Virtues and their Reasons ESPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR USE IN HIGH SCHOOLS, ACADEMIES AND SEMINARIES BY AUSTIN BIERBOWER • i Author of " The Morals of Christ 11 » ■■> » » New Revised EdJtAcvji HINDS & NOBLE, Publishers 31-33-35 West 15th Street, New York City the library of congress. Two Copies Receiveo APR 20 1903 Copyright Entry CLASS °~ XXc. No. COPY B. COPYRIGHT, 1888, BY GEORGE SHERWOOD & CO. COPYRIGHT, 1903, BY HINDS & NOBLE PREFACE. In this volume the author has succeeded in pro- viding for the teacher a text-book that may be used by his classes with results of a most practical kind. Moral training implies more than merely to catalogue the virtues. The true teacher will wish his pupils to know not only what the virtues are, but will also desire them to know the reasons which render beautiful, or wise, or even profitable, the practice of the virtues severally. u Be good and you'll be happy " is very well. But many a boy or girl who does not respond to this well-worn generality will consider seriously, if presented to him in simple, intelligible language, the advantage there is in acquiring, and holding fast to, a given virtue. This treatise then, designed for moral training in the public schools, and presenting the science of Ethics with its latest applications in lucid, untechnical language, aims especially to impress the practical bearing of the moralities in a manner that will convince young people of the reasonableness, the appropriateness, and the prac- ticability of each of the virtues. 8 PREFACE. The author avoids those controversies, imported usually from other subjects, which do not properly belong to Ethics. Moral instruction is often excluded from the public schools on account of the different religions represented and the lack of text-books acceptable to all the sects. This exclusion has provoked assaults on our public school system which, if successful, might imperil its very exist- ence. In presenting systematically that morality which is common to all enlightened peoples, it really is not necessary to notice religious differences. So that this book may be used with equal approval by all of the sects, by the orthodox and the unorthodox. This volume is intended to supersede one by the same author entitled " The Virtues and Their Reasons/' which has been carefully revised in the preparation of this. Chicago, Jcmuary 1, 1902. CONTENTS. INTRODUCTORY. Page. 1. — A Practical Science - 17 2.— Classification of Duties 19 PART FIRST. DUTIES REGARDING OTHERS CHIEFLY. CHAPTEE FIEST. KINDNESS _ 23 I. — In General 23 1. Preliminary 23 2. Love 26 3. Sympathy 29 4. Unselfishness 32 II.— Special Loves.. 35 1. Family Love 35 2. Friendship 38 3. Sentiment 39 III.— Faithfulness 41 IV. — Accommodation 42 1. Deference 42 2. Politeness 44 3. Respect , 46 V.— Beneficence 50 1. Generosity 50 2. Charity 53 VI.— Forgiveness 56 VII. — Regard for Feelings 58 9 10 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. Pass. VIII.— Opposite Feelings 61 1. Insolence 61 2. Conceit 62 3. Disputatiousness 64 4. Fault-finding 66 IX. — Cheerfulness 70 X.— Speaking Kindly of Others _ 75 XI. — Thinking Kindly of Others. __ 79 1. In General _ _ 79 2. Confidence 80 3. Gratitude .__ 80 XII. — Vices Antagonistic 82 1. Hate _ 82 2. Envy 84 3. Anger 86 4. Cruelty 88 (1). In General 88 (2). PracticalJoking 89 (3). Hazing 90 (4). Dueling 91 (5). Corporal Punishment . 94 (6). Cruelty to Animals 95 a. In General 95 b. Sport .•—- 97 CHAPTER SECOND. Page. TRUTH 100 I. — Veracity 100 II.— Candor 105 III. — Prejudice 107 IV.— Bigotry 110 V. — Hypocrisy Ill VI.— Perjury 112 VII.— Bribery 114 CONTENTS. 11 CHAPTEE THIBD. Page. HONESTY 115 L— In General __ 115 II.— Theft... 117 III.— Cheating __ 118 IV. — Employer and Employe .-_ 121 V.— Promises _ 123 VI.- -Gambling.. _ 126 1. In General 126 2. Raffling. _ 127 3. Parlor Games 128 4. Betting 130 5. Speculation 131 VII.— Blackmail __ _. 132 VIII.— Reparation 133 CHAPTEE FOUETH. FAMILY DUTIES -. __ _ 135 CHAPTEE FIFTH. PUBLIC DUTIES-.. - ~~ 137 I.— Principles _ , 137 1. In General 137 2. Equality __ 138 3. Liberty... 140 (1). In General — 140 (2). Tolerance _. 143 (3). Persecution _ 145 (4). Strikes ._ ..- _ 146 (5). Anarchism _ 147 (6). Socialism 149 II.— Patriotism 151 12 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. Page. III.— Special Duties 153 1. Taxes 153 2. Jury Duty _ 154 3. Military Duty 155 4. Public Education 157 5. Voting.. 159 (1). In General 159 (2). Party „ 161 (3). Election Frauds 162 (4). Intimidation 164 6. Submission to Authority 165 7. Rioting 166 IV. — Cosmopolitanism 167 V. — Care for Posterity 169 PAKT SECOND. DUTIES REGARDING SELF CHIEFLY. CHAPTER SIXTH. Fags. SELF DEVELOPMENT 173 I.— Education - 173 1. In General 173 2. Physical Training 177 3. Health Keeping 179 II. — Courage 181 III. — Independence 185 IV. — Large-Mindedness -- — - 186 V. — Ideality 188 CHAPTEE SEVENTH. INDUSTRY 190 I— Energy 190 II. — Perseverance _. 195 III. —Decision - 200 IV. — Earnestness 204 CHAPTEE EIGHTH. SELF SUPPORT...,., 206 13 14 THE VIKTUES AND THEIR REASONS. CHAPTEE NINTH. Page. SELF CONTROL .-_. 209 L— Will Power 209 II. — Prudence _ 212 III. — Self Restraint _ 215 1. Moderation 215 (1). In General 215 (2). Gluttony 217 (3). Amusements 220 (4). Cupidity 222 (5). Self^Sacrince 224 2. Patience _ 226 3. Modesty 228 4. Demeanor _ 229 IV. — Selecting Thoughts ._ 232 1. In General 232 2. Reading 235 V. — Habit Making _ 237 CHAPTEE TENTH. TEMPERANCE.... 240 I. — In General 240 II. — Moderate Drinking 243 III. — Teaching to Drink _ M6 IV. — Prohibition 248 V. — Opium, Cocaine, Etc _ _ 250 VI.— Tobacco 251 CHAPTEE ELEVENTH. SELF RESPECT 253 I.— Honor 253 II. — Chivalry... 255 CONTENTS. 15 Page. IH.— Dignity... 257 IV.— Pride 258 V. — Neatness 259 VI. — Cleanliness _ 260 VII. — Vices Antagonistic _._ 262 1. Meanness 262 2. Cowardice.. 266 3. Jealousy 269 4. Vulgarity « 272 (1). Coarseness 272 (2). Profanity.. 273 (3). Slang '. 1 275 5. Morbidness 276 CHAPTER TWELFTH. PURITY 278 CHAPTER THIRTEENTH. CONSCIENTIOUSNESS 283 I. — In General _ 283 II. — Integrity 286 III. — Scrupulousness _ 288 IV. — Artificial Duties 290 V.— Conflicting Duties 292 INTRODUCTORY. 1.— A PEACTICAL SCIENCE. Ethics, Moral Philosophy, or the Science of Duty, contemplates that course which we call right and deem best. It reaches to all conduct, since there is a best way of doing everything, and it is wrong to act differ- ently. Some cases of right and wrong, however, are so generally recognized as to be specially known as virtues and vices, and with these the science of Morals has chiefly to do. We recognize right by our judgment of what is best, and by a feeling — conscience — which indicates, as the result of many impressions, what we ought to do, and impels us thereto. As to what constitutes right, thinkers differ; some maintaining it to be a course in harmony with the necessary order of things ; others, the will of God, as revealed in Revelation or Nature ; others, utility, hap- piness, or the general good of mankind. This ques- tion leads into Speculative Philosophy, which we shall not here enter. It is enough now to observe that, whatever men's opinions touching the ground of right, 2 I? 18 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. they all deem those things right which are thought best for men, and consider that course morality which will bring them most happiness. Accordingly, when people are asked to do right, they are asked simply to do what is best for them- selves. Duty never conflicts with interest, if rightly understood; but it must be the interest of all, and not of self only, and one's whole interest, and not a part only. One man's welfare rarely conflicts with an- other's, if his entire welfare is taken into account, and not a present advantage only, or narrow view of advan- tage. All our interests, when taken together, harmo- nize with the like interests of our fellows, and the conduct which conduces to this general advantage is the subject of Ethics. It will appear from these discussions that every special virtue secures some good to the individual practicing it, as well as to others; so that morality is simply good living, or conduct in harmony with the laws which conduce to the advantage of society. Each man's conduct, to be moral, must be for the good of all, of which he himself is one. As most of one's advantages come from society, his interest, like that of others, requires society to be well conducted, so that his duties to others reflect back in advantages to self. Though we often fail to see the advantage of virtue to self, or even to others, a wider view, or deeper INTRODUCTORY. 19 insight, discloses the fact that no virtue is without its advantage, and no vice without its punishment; and, though we can not ordinarily have in mind the reason of morality, but must act from the general rules of virtue, or from conscience, the reason is always to be had when sought. As every virtue stands on a foun- dation of reason, as well as of advantage, the impulses of Conscience have all a ground in our intelligence. At least the virtues here discussed (which are univers- ally recognized as duties) will be seen to have a suffi- cient reason in some advantage to the parties con- cerned. 2.— CLASSIFICATION OF DUTIES. We here divide duties into two general classes : I. Duties Regarding Others Chiefly. II. Duties Regarding Self Chiefly. As the duties to others, however, have, as just stated, an advantage also to self, and those to self have an advantage also to others, the classes here made are not strictly exclusive. The same is true of the smaller subdivisions. The virtues so overlap, and run into one another, as to make up one morality, instead of separate and independent virtues. Any one of them, if followed to its remotest connections, will be found to involve all the rest, and 20 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. if fully set forth, to exhibit the whole ; for the laws by which they are regulated are universal. The dissection of morality into its members would destroy its life, did we not recognize the division to be only mental, and so preserve its unity. In the first class, however, are placed those duties which more immediately contemplate others, and in the second those which chiefly affect self. PART FIRST. DUTIES REGARDING OTHER? OHIEFLI. CHAPTER FIRST. KINDNESS. I. IN GENEKAL. 1.— PRELIMINARY. There are some general conditions of thought and feeling which lie at the foundation of all morals, and constitute what may be called moral states, as kind- ness, love and sympathy — terms nearly synonymous, which express the feeling with which we should regard our fellow men. We shall treat, in the first chapter, of this general state of good feeling under the head of Kindness, which embraces, in its widest sense, all the rest. It has, however, like the other terms, its special meaning, distinguishing it from them, which we shall also note. First, then, of kindness, or heart-tenderness, as a general state. Kindness, or love, which is the sum of all the vir- tues, is the feeling of benevolence which the good man has toward all men, desiring their welfare and sorrow- ing for their misfortune. Underlying virtue generally, 23 24 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. and itself the chief special virtue, it tends, in its wide results, toward all moral ends. Dominated by it, one can do no wrong, since every wrong can be resolved into some unkindness, and will tend to all good, since every good is kind. As good- will to men it would end war, oppression, dishonesty, deceit and impurity, and, instead, would make men feel like brothers, with a common interest and mutual preference. Eevolting from every wrong as repulsive, it tends to every virtue as inclination ; so that it would suffice, as already said, to exhaust the whole subject of this treatise, if ade- quately presented. The kind man, being good at heart, does good spontaneously, impelled thereto by his nature, with little need of consideration or effort. Good by im- pulse, he has but to see pain to want to relieve it, to know wrong to want to right it, and, in general, to see an opportunity for good to want to embrace it. Instead of waiting to be convinced in order to have a benevolent purpose, he unerringly flies to the right on feeling, which is quicker than thought. The chief characteristic of kindness is a participa- tion in others' pleasures and pains — rejoicing in their happiness and suffering in their sorrows. As if feeling with others' hearts, the kind man has a life in common with many, being actuated by the sentiment which makes mankind one. Appreciating all life as KINDNESS. 25 his own, he is in unity with nature, and, feeling what is remote, he enlarges himself by bringing the world within his grasp ; so that the kind man is deemed one of "great soul" — big-hearted and liberal-minded — incapable of anything mean on which vice can take hold. This being so, it becomes the object of Ethics to engender this kindly feeling as the most general guar- antee of morality, and so io pursue our good intentions with the force of good feeling. This may be done by concentrating the will unswervingly upon it, and keep- ing the resolution to be continually kind. Kindness greatly multiplies our enjoyments, as one thereby not only enjoys his own pleasures, but those of others, and so is practically rich, since what belongs to all is also his; for in the only sense that one can really have anything — in enjoying it — he has all things ; whereas, one who can enjoy only what is his own is poor, as no man's possessions are alone enough for happiness. Kindness in itself is also a pleasurable feeling. We can not love others without being ourselves happy, it being the nature of love to be happy. For, though love is of others, the feeling is in us, so that while we think of them we enjoy the feeling ourselves ; as the flame in the lantern, which lights the outside, also, at the same time, heats the lantern. 26 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. 2— LOVE. Kindness is nearly synonymous with love, so that love, in its widest sense, has already been discussed. But kindness takes many forms, like water, which may be snow, or dew, or clouds. Under love we speak specially of warmth of feeling for others. Kindness may be cold or hot ; it may take on the form of tender- ness or concern; it may show itself as sweetness, politeness or charity ; but when it is on fire we call it love. Love, being thus of many varieties and degrees, can appear as an enthusiastic sympathy for any class — for parents, brothers, sisters, children, friends, lovers, or for the world. The loving nature has a warm feeling for whoever is thought about, and good will may be as extensive as thought. For love is the most perfect sympathy with man, and though we may love special ones when we think of them, we should love all when all are contemplated. As the sun warms whatever it shines on, we should send out our warmth of feeling to all of whom we think, making compassion ever accompany attention. For, we need no more be indifferent to any than hate them, and we would not, if we understood their thoughts and feelings, which would, instead, call for sympathy. The demands for self are not sufficient to exclude thought for the race. Men have always LOVE. 27 time to love, which is the only duty that goes to all, and which Christ characterized as all duty. The spirit of love is to be always in a condition to feel warmly toward others, so that when they are brought to our attention our affections will embrace them. Action, moreover, should flow from love as its most general source, and be the expression of a desire to do good to somebody — family, friends, country or the world — which embraces nearly all the virtues. Everybody, then, should love, and in that love should not confine himself to one person or one kind of love. One can, without much virtue, love a lover, or attractive person of the opposite sex, but if love go no farther, it is only passion. He should love with warmth his relatives, friends, country and, if he has a soul great enough, the world. The true lover is a Jover of many. One can not love one well who loves one only, his affections not having exercise enough to be strong or pure. We should love especially those who need our love, and not merely those who can command it. If one has no great love for men, or concern for their welfare, he should cultivate it by thinking of them more, and understanding them better. For one can not know another well without loving him. The word "acquaintance" is nearly synonymous with "friend." All we know we are interested in, and the more inti- 28 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. mate we become the more friendly we are. Cynicb and Pessimists, who love least, are mostly recluses, who see men through reports, instead of face to face. Nobcdy can be unkind to one whom he well knows, most vices being, as Plato says, the result of igno- rance. It is our duty, therefore, to know men well enough to love them. After we thoroughly love a few, we find ourselves gradually loving all, or enlarging our inter- est in mankind ; for nothing grows faster than love, or spreads wider, its exercise driving out hate and break- ing down barriers of separation. Love will generally keep pace with knowledge, being a harmony with na- ture as much as is truth. Love, moreover, has its own enjoyment, like kindness generally. While it does most for others, it self-enjoys. Its feeling is the pleasantest in our na- ture, and the greatest good known. It goes farthest to make happiness, and is itself the most unmixed happiness ; for love can not coexist with misery, but expels pain as it does hate. It is synonymous with "feeling good," and is the most lasting and least wearing of pleasures. Enjoyment in eating can be had but three times a day, and then but a little while. The pleasures of drunkenness are only occasional, and are followed by pain, like the pleasures contained in all the vices. Love's pleasures, however, are intense SYMPATHY. 29 without being exhausting, and reach from childhood to age. Endless in variety, too, they can coexist without jealousy or mutual limitation. For love of wife, child, brother, friend, countryman, race and an- imals can all be felt at once. To build up a loving nature 3 therefore, is a sure way to happiness, as well as to virtue, as one then carries most of the conditions of happiness with him. Others are worth more to him if he loves, and he is worth more to himself. He is also more apt to be loved, since a loving nature, expressing itself in the face and conduct, is pieasing to others, so that love is reflected back as love. 3.— SYMPATHY. Sympathy is another synonym for kindness, cover- ing nearly the same ground. We use it here specially to emphasize that feature of kindness which enters into others' feelings and enjoys or suffers their states, rejoicing with the happy and suffering with the sad, as if one's feelings were not all in himself, but his nerves ran outside of him to report back to his heart the pains and pleasures of others. Sympathy is sensitiveness to the consciousness that is in the world, or a flowing of our souls into all life, by which a oneness of feeling is realized. It takes on others' moods, feels the pleasures and pains in others' 30 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. bodies, makes us larger than ourselves — a part of humanity — and, reminding us that we are not, as individuals, entirely separate, renders us sensitive, as well as conscious, of the oneness of the race. A sympathetic man can not see another smile with- out smiling, the expressions of the face being catching. One's readiness to follow others' feelings, and be at one with them, is the great reconciler of the race. There is a natural tendency in men to feel together, as well to co-operate together, feeling uniting them as much as opinion divides them; so that the charities make men brothers when their differences would make them enemies. For it is easier to make one of your feeling than of your mind, more being persuaded by senti- ment than by argument. A leader has but to show feeling to have followers, a heart disclosed causing other hearts to cluster about it. It is of the first importance, then, to have a lively sense for others, and to enter strongly into their feel- ings. Did we thoroughly feel with men we should rarely be displeased with them, as contact with feel- ings begets approval, instead of antagonism. Two minds coming together as naturally love as two elec- tric currents make light, and to enter into close rela- tions with other minds is the greatest guarantee of morality, as of love. Learn, then, to live in others, feeling as they do, SYMPATHY. 31 and so to possess their means of happiness as well as your own. One who carries others' burdens carries also their pleasures, and gets strength enough from their joys not to feel grievously their misfortunes. The sympathetic man takes to others something to make pleasure for himself, for, in rejoicing with them, and for them, the joy, which is in himself, is pleasure to him, notwithstanding the object of it is without. To enjoy others enlarges the sphere of one's enjoy- ment, carrying him out over more life, and making more of the world sensitive to him. A great man has thus great pleasures, as well as great thoughts, sym- pathy being the principal source of the enlargement of pleasure. He who feels most takes most of nature up into himself, and thus enlarges himself by additions from the outside world. One is as large as the space which his sympathy covers, appropriating as much as he loves. Where indifference or hate commences his limitations begin, and beyond that he is not. Sympathy, moreover, begets sympathy, starting its kind wherever it goes. We naturally return love for love, as the mirror reflects light, so that the sympa- thetic ones are the loved ones. To awaken an interest one must show an interest. Love, like a telegraphic current, flows two ways. Sympathy, going in circles, alights wherever there is something sympathetic to 32 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. conduct it; so that it is important for morals, as for happiness, to be in the current of others' feelings, and feel along with the race. 4. -UNSELFISHNESS. Sympathy runs naturally into unselfishness, which is but another synonym for kindness. It is the nature of all love to be self -forgetful, and under this negative form we shall consider it. Unselfishness does not consist in neglecting self, but in thinking much of others, and, though to give attention to others is, to that extent, to withdraw it from self, this alone is not the virtue meant, but may be simply inconsiderateness. The spirit of unselfish- ness is to be ever ready to consider others and bene- fit them without thought of self. Unselfishness is not necessarily self-sacrifice, but, as it is to our advantage to be unselfish, the unselfish man enjoys his own life more than does fhe selfish one. For, to be quick to think of others, and to seek their relief before we have time to think of self, is not only a great virtue, but great delight. With this self -unconsciousness one finds it easier to relieve another than to see him suffer. Instead of shutting himself up to appetite or avarice, and deem- ing it enjoyment, he wants to get out of himself to do for others. He who lives in and for himself is like UNSELFISHNESS. 33 one dwelling in a tomb, who had better, for that pur- pose, be dead. All life seeks something external, and the greatest lives extend farthest from self, and take in most of the world. In society, especially, should one not think of self, thus appropriating feelings due to others for his own advantage. Some can hardly think of self without thinking of others, just as some can hardly think of others without thinking of self. A generous man is more unselfish in his own business than a selfish one is in helping others. When doing our duty to others we should not regret it as wasted time, but do it as eagerly as when working for self. We owe love to our disinterested deeds, and should perform our duties to others as pleasures. To grudge what is not for self is to suffer others' pleasures, instead of enjoying them, and so to reverse the order of virtue. For, as the unselfish man is the hap- piest of men, because he enjoys others' joys, the self- ish man is the unhappiest, because he suffers from so many things that are not his own. Envying others for what they have is one form of suffering their enjoyments, instead of enjoying them. The envious man suffers from a disease which he has not. He not only takes on the ills of life, but makes torments out of the pleasures. Since few of the many things in the world are ours, it is important to learn to enjoy what 34 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. is others', and not to suffer from all else but our own. While our feeling is all in us, so that we alone enjoy it, the selfishness consists in thinking of our own enjoyment at such times, and not of the person calling out the feeling. While all love is a feeling in us, it is accompanied by thoughts of another (the one loved). And while this feeling is enjoyable in the person having it, he who loves for this pleasurable sensation in himself, and not for the object thought of, is selfish in his love, which is then but lust. He loves himself, instead of the other, enjoying the tick- ling sensation felt in his body when thinking of an admired object, which is about as meritorious as the pleasure of being drunk. In all forms of benevolence we may do good to others unselfishly or selfishly. We may relieve the poor and at the same time think lovingly of them, or relieve them and think of some return in reputation, gratitude, or relief from importunity. The unselfish man wants no compensation for his beneficence, find- ing satisfaction enough for his deeds in the happiness of the ones benefited. SPECIAL LOVES. 35 n. SPECIAL LOVES. 1.— FAMILY LOVE. We have thus far spoken of love in general. There are also special loves, or love for particular persons, according to their relation to us. While we can love all men with that general feeling of kindness or sym- pathy which should go out to the race, and which we may call humanity, we must love those more with whom we come more in contact, whose merits, wants, and sufferings we specially know. We thus love parents, brothers, sisters, and other relatives; also neighbors, friends, and countrymen. We have a dif- ferent kind of love for different classes and characters — for the good, the congenial, the benefactors, the suffering, the poor, and the absent. This is not necessarily selfish love. Though the loved ones are nearer us in some respects, the love may be just as generous as the love for the remote. We can love only what is brought to our attention, and those mentioned are simply better known to us, or more in our minds. Members of our family are with us daily, and for most of our lives ; our intercourse with them is intimate ; we know their feelings and wants, and we have seen many of their acts of love. We love them more, therefore, because we see in them more to love, 36 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. and we love them oftener because we oftener think of them. We also return their love, or love them out of gratitude ; for among the many causes of love is good- ness, and no goodness is better known than goodness to us. Thus we have special reasons and opportunities to love parents. Our life is due to them; they have cared for us through the years when we could not care for ourselves — usually a third of life ; they are the first known to us, and the first whose love we know; our interests are united, and, being of one flesh, we consider ourselves in great part one. Hence parents and children specially love each other, which love becomes the strength of family and the source of further enjoyments. The noblest persons think most highly of parents, deeming their fathers the noblest of men and their mothers the tenderest of women — a judgment not necessarily prejudiced, since children know their parents better than they know others, and better than others know them, so that they see more good in them. If others are nobler, these are yet noble enough for all their appreciation, so that more nobil- ity could hardly call out more. One seldom has occasion to consider whether his parents have faults, because he is never done appre- ciating their virtues, so that the time does not come FAMILY LOVE. 37 for criticism. If one does not think highly of his parents, it is not because they are unworthy, but because he is, few characters being so defective as an ungrateful or undutiful child. One who does not love his parents can not well take on any virtue, there being a disorder in his faculties themselves; whereas one who, with constancy, is true to his parents, always inspires hope for the other virtues. The love of brothers and sisters is much the same as the love of parent and child. Growing up around the family hearth, it is the offspring of intimate asso- ciation and oneness of blood and interest. This fam- ily-loving is the training-school for world-loving in after years, the family being the world in general for people in early life, where all the virtues are started in embryo. Commencing with love of parents, brothers and sisters, one naturally extends his love to relatives more remote, from the same cause. They are simi- larly connected by blood, and similarly associated with him in early life, though in varying degrees of intimacy. We love all near relatives, and especially those who are much with us — uncles, aunts, cousins, grand-children, etc. — love being naturally the result of association as of thought. Our family, however, soon shades off into Strang- 38 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. ers; blood becomes thin, and after a few degrees are passed we drop them as relatives, to love them as neighbors, friends, or simply as part of mankind. We are all in some degree related, but the ties are too numerous to follow, with either our feeling or thought, except for a few degrees. 2.— FRIENDSHIP. Among those not related to us, or only remotely so, we select congenial characters for friends; although friendship is often the result of accidental association. "We have said that two persons can hardly know each other intimately without loving; and, since every per- son must know some, everybody has some friends. Persons thrown much together, besides knowing each other well, and mutually sympathizing, have much in common. They engage, like brothers and sisters, in the same sports, have the same acquaintances, know one another's secrets, take one another's advice, and in many other ways identify their life. Friendship is an artificial relationship, where circumstances make brothers of people. We like to be with those who appreciate us, and understand us, to whom we can con- fide and apply for help, and who are interested in what we are interested. And these we often find outside of our relatives. Our associates in business, our neigh- SENTIMENT. 39 bors, and those having like tastes usually make up this class, so that a special love springs up between them and us. This is not in derogation of any other love; for, as we have said, love does not diminish by being divided, but strengthens with its exercise toward many ; so that we can love our family more by having others to love. Nor is friendship necessarily selfish, since it is a love simply for those who are most known, and shuts out the love of no others. For he who loves special ones most, loves the world most. 3.— SENTIMENT. The most intense of the special loves is the love between the sexes, which, beginning in courtship, ripens in conjugal love. So prominent is this affection that it is preeminently known as love ; so that to many the word love suggests no other meaning. All-absorbing, it is the greatest motive in life, feeding the ambition of youth and mould- ing its ideals. Starting most fancies, it is the subject of nearly all romances, plays and poems. It does most to sweeten life, and, if perverted, does most to embit- ter it. In this affection one most completely lives in an- other's life, losing himself in her welfare and making common cause with her. It is the intensest of all feel- 40 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. ings, and the most lasting, giving the greatest happi- ness and the most continuous happiness. Strengthening men for the virtues to which it exalts them, it is the affection which every one should feel at least once in life, if only to know the full range of virtue. In ideal- izing its object one sees how great human worth may be, and tends toward it. Tet its intensity makes it, like dynamite, most dan- gerous. Overrunning its borders like a flood, it, like a flood, does measureless damage. Vitiated, it makes the most deadly corruption; misdirected, it commits the most irretrievable blunders. Important as it is to love, it is equally important to love right — with purity, con- stancy and judgment. The noble lover is the noblest of men, the silly lover the silliest, and the depraved lover the beastliest. For love is a fire that may warm or consume. As a virtue it preserves, as a vice it de- stroys, as a folly it caricatures. It is one of the first duties of youth, then, to love wisely ; not too hastily, lest it be broken off with pain ; and not too passionately, lest it rush to ruin. Youth need rarely be exhorted to love, as the impulse is strong enough by nature; so that the duties of love are largely those of restraint, instead of encouragement. This is a matter in which to show one's self-control, or power of will and capacity for government. Love should minister to one's welfare, and not his woes. FAITHFULNESS. 41 With the many vices which it may feed, it may drain the virtues, instead of supplying them, and be a source of weakness instead of strength. While men should direct all their powers they should specially guide this, since without sense love has the effect of vice instead of virtue. III. FAITHFULNESS. The most common virtue exercised, and required, in the special loves is faithfulness, which is being true to yourself and to your friends. In all the relations just mentioned men confide in one another, and trust to them interests — telling them their secrets, and placing them- selves in each other's power. To keep faithfully such trust is the duty of friend- ship; to abuse it is the vice of treachery. Honor, pride, manliness, all require, as well as does kindness, that we be true to our friends. For while we should be true to all, we are under special obligations to serve those whose interests and feelings are confided to us. The welfare of society depends largely on confidence. Men can do little as individuals, and so must co-operate much, and the bond of this co-operation is confidence, — the giving to each 42 THE VIKTUES AND THEIR REASONS. of a part to do with reliance by the rest that he will do it. To betray this trust is to attack the basis of society. The confidences of friendship are among the first and most frequent in life, and in them we get our schooling for business and political confidences. One who confides in us creates for us a duty by surrender- ing something of which he would himself have other- wise kept the care. One sins against much, therefore, who is not faithful to his undertakings. In fact faith- fulness, in its widest sense, embraces all the virtues, since duty in its entirety is but faithfulness in what- ever is imposed upon us, and to all who impose it. IV. ACCOMMODATION. 1.— DEFERENCE. One of the most natural manifestations of kind- ness, is the adjustment of self to others. We must all do this in society, each giving up many of his prefer- ences that all may get along better together. Ac- commodation is the sacrifice made by one for the benefit of all. It is no less, however, for his own benefit, since like sacrifices are made for him, which DEFERENCE. 43 mutual sacrifices bring many advantages to society as a whole. One should be careful, therefore, to yield all that he may yield with honor, and effect others' convenience whenever it may be done safely. We should cultivate a love for others' satisfaction. We thus not only get along well with them, and make them love us, but obtain the pleasures of politeness, hospitality and refinement of feeling. In preferring one another we often prefer our own interests, which lie partly in others, and depend on their like deference to us. There is, therefore, often more pleasure in giving up than in having our own way, it being a great delight to see others enjoy themselves, and recognize that we are the source of their happiness. No enjoyment is greater to the hospitable man than his guest's. He enjoys more giving a dinner than he would eating it, and takes more pleasure in showing his garden than in looking at it. All worthy pride is founded on the satisfaction which our character and possessions give to others. One who can not gracefully defer, not only makes himself unpopular, but knows nothing of a large part of life's enjoyments. Successful public and business men invariably have this grace ; — they love to please the people, and do not feel inconvenienced in deferring to them. This deference is commonly in small matters, and, 44 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. as is usual in small matters, the graces please excess- ively, while the vices offend excessively. One who neglects such courtesies is disliked as mean. Few get more respect than those who yield in trifles. While courage consists in asserting one's self when principles, or great interests, are involved, gentlemanliness consists in yielding at other times. One who can make more by giving up than by retaining, is foolish not to give up; and to learn how to yield is as important as to learn how to hold on. While we should often, indeed, for the good of others, defer in great matters also — which is beneficence — we should never fail to do so in indiffer- ent ones, which is politeness. The amenities are a great interest in life, although, like the components of the shore, they are singly but trifles. Trifles we should triflingly yield, rather than heroically maintain, and learn to defer without discom- fort. There are so many crossings of small interests that we should acquire a positive pleasure in yielding them, in order to avoid attrition. Our antagonism should be reserved for great occasions— for evils and not annoy- ances. Those who fight over little things are quar- relsome, whereas those who engage in great contests are champions. A pugnacious man can not be a great general, who, first of all, must be generous. POLITENESS. 45 2.— POLITEISTESS. Politeness naturally grows out of deference, and is a virtue, which, though important, may be had cheap. It costs little to be courteous, since it is simply deference in small matters. We yield nothing, and yet are always yielding. To bow, smile, or speak kindly, is not difficult, and with practice becomes as natural as to breathe. And yet these attentions please and make friends — always imparting more in pleasure than they cost in effort. First impressions are dependent mainly on them; and, as many are met only once, or for a short time, our politeness gives them the only im- pression they ever get of us. As a smile calls out a smile, and kindness is reflected back in kindness, politeness does much to make happiness among occa- sional acquaintances. For, meeting such persons, we say they are delightful, and parting we say we have enjoyed ourselves. To wear a smile is to have a great power in society, making often all the difference between a popular and unpopular person. The smiling one is much in de- mand. The polite man only is considered a gentleman, and politeness and good breeding are synonymous terms. To be polite is to appear elegant and digni- fied, and finally to become so; for one can not long, or habitually, appear honorable without developing a 46 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. sincerity in it, and so really becoming what he seems; and, in turn, honor, most constantly feeds politeness, and uniformly guarantees it. None but the sincere man can be unfailingly polite ; so that politeness, if it is not itself a great virtue, implies one. The genuinely polite are polite to all; not to the great alone, which is sycophancy, or to the beautiful, which is gallantry (and may be selfishness), but to the poor and the stranger, from whom no advantage can come. The true gentleman is a gentleman to his servant, and you need meet him but once to know it. Politeness is easy enough in polite society, where it is often the only object of meeting, and the vulgar may be polite there ; but in every day life, with all kinds of men, and under every circumstance of irritation, to be polite is to be a gentleman with power. 3.— RESPECT. Respect is a kind and manly appreciation and treatment of others. In this feeling we let down our selfishness, and pay due deference to the merits of others. To be thoroughly respectful, we must put ourselves in others' places, and see them as they see themselves. It is easy to have respect for one's self, and to enter into such self-respect of another is our generous privilege. To respect another as ourselves, as well as to love another as ourselves, is our RESPECT. 47 duty. Nearly all hate and antagonism come from not understanding others from their own standpoint. If we knew how they see things, they would not seem so foolish or wrong to us. We should give all men credit for sense and good intention, and should act on that credit until we learn differently. Everyone is entitled from us to what we think we are entitled to from him. Our conduct toward another should be based on the supposition that he is as good as we are. If it is not true, he likely thinks it is true, and we are under no obligation to remind him of his mistake. And whatever may be our own importance, it is not for us to show it or enforce it on society. Justice, of which respect is the mental expression, is founded on the equality of men, and that equality should be borne in mind when we deal with our neighbor. The poorer or weaker one is, the more is our respect worth to him, and to be respectful to the lowly and suffering comes nearest a virtue. To respect the great is easy enough, but to give equal respect to the unfortunate, who can make no return, has something of manly generosity. In this spirit we should treat others' opinions with respect. When we disagree with men, we should remember that they have minds like ourselves, and may be equally convinced of their views. Respect for 48 THE VIETUES AND THEIE SEASONS. another's opinions is no unfaithfulness to our own. Except when arguing with him, we need not treat his views as wrong. Much strife comes from an injudi- cious or premature clashing of opinions. Opinions should not be made to clash, except in the battle of argument. They are not a subject on which to attack character. And in arguing against others' views, the discussion should be impersonal and with good humor. Opinions are not usually held except upon some good reason, or what seems such; and when they are founded on prejudice or ignorance they are least of all a subject for attack, since their owners are not in a condition to hear arguments as good as ours. Just as in polite society (as at a banquet) we do not discuss our antagonistic interests as guests, so in ordinary intercourse we should not bring our thoughts into battle. There is a place for the clashing of minds as for the clashing of interests, and at other times we should not let men know that we deem their views worse than ours. Antagonize a man only when you have an opportunity to show him he is wrong, and do not scatter your strife all through life. Every man is apt to think he is more nearly right than any- body else, and you will get along better by not reminding him of his mistake. Though we should never yield the right to think or argue, we should dispute only at the right time. RESPECT. 49 By respecting others you will get their respect, and you will have many friends among those who do not know how little you think of them. If you treat oth- ers as if you appreciated them as much as they do themselves, they will conceive a high opinion of your judgment, and return a like respect to you as due to great intelligence. And all this can be done without hypocrisy, since the mere negative tributes of respect are commonly received as the homage of admiration. To get along well with men, we must treat them at least as equals, for then we will never know how badly they may think of us. We should remember, too, that we are not perhaps ourselves as important as we think, and that others are quite as apt to be as great as they think they are, as we are to be as great as we think we are. For excessive self-esteem may be in us as well as in oth- ers. It is no little acquisition to learn the greatness that is outside of us, and to appreciate in others what we have not in ourselves. For on this our respect should be founded — the value of others — and it should be an expression of that universal love which appreci- ates and enters into the feelings of all mankind. 50 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. V. BENEFICENCE. 1.— GENEROSITY. It is not enough, however, to show our regard for men in minor matters; but love should go beyond respect and trivial accommodation to practical aid, and, if need be, to sacrifice for their material benefit. Born for mutual helpfulness, we should give of our substance when that is needed. Beneficence, or good- doing, has always been deemed a comprehensive virtue. And though all our conduct should be for somebody's good — our own or others' — there are special calls upon us to relieve misfortune. When others can not help themselves, it is our duty to help them. The help needed should be forth- coming as the duty of the strong to the weakness of the race. Half of mankind must thus help the other half along, if they are to be got along, and everyone should consider whether he is doing his share in keeping up the unfortunates in the journey of life. Weakness calls loud to strength for help, and he who has no ear for this call had better have none for music or gayety. To be sensitive to the cry of dis- tress is a necessary qualification for refinement as well as for virtue. Men have what they have only as part owners. GENEROSITY. 51 Everybody in need has a claim on it until satisfied; and from the possessions of the race the wants should be supplied. All property is the result of men's com- bined work; and everybody is entitled to it to the extent of a living. No man earns all of what he pos- sesses. Thousands have contributed to his store, and some claims remain over on it. Besides the claims of the whole, in the form of taxes and assessments, there are many undefined and indefinable claims which can be enforced only through conscience. All property is held subject to many rights of others — to be taken for public uses, to support the poor, to maintain asylums, and other benevolences. But, in addition to this, many co-laborers, who have never received their reward in society, have some just claims which we should privately recognize — some who have done well, and yet remain poor, or who have earned their share and lost it in the general scramble for labor's products ; and these claims upon our property should be paid as dues, and not as charity. We all have the duty of generosity, — to help along in many ways those who are not so low as to be the re- cipients of alms. A father thus helps his sons through life ; brothers help one another as long as any of them have means ; friends help one another by loans, and by procuring them work. This spirit of helpfulness we should always feel, and not be satisfied with our own 52 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. competency merely. We need such help ourselves at times, and men are all beneficiaries on one another. The richest need the help of others as patronage, which is often bestowed as a favor, as much as is the aid of the great. One should feel specially bound to help those who are out of employment — to lend them something for their necessities, and to do this without security, or expectation of its return. The duties of lending are extensive ; and he who never lends is about as mean as he who is always borrowing. We should try to always have something on hand for loans, and never be so hard up as to have nothing with which to help a friend. What men may thus do for one another — in helping them to opportunities — is more important than what they give in charity. If people were helped more they would not have to be fed so much. By keeping our fellows up in respectable work we can keep the number of beggars down. The greatest charity is that which keeps men above the need of charity. Generosity should prevent the necessity for alms. Unless one is generous he does not repay the aid which has been given him; for no one has reached his present position unaided. Each one stands on the shoulders of many, and should be willing to bear others up in turn. The wealthy or fortunate should show their gratitude by making others fortunate. Axd-giv- CHAEITY. 53 ing should be a recognized virtue — the assistance by the fortunate of others that they also may be fortunate. It is not enough to help men in their misery; we should help them out of their misery. By giving them such alms as will leave them mendicants we do a less service than by giving them chances that will put them to the side of helpers instead of helped. The aim of society should be to give all an equal chance, so that there shall not be such differences in men, and so but little need of alms-giving. We want to reduce the unfortunate classes by making men more fortunate as a whole ; and for this a generous system of helps is required. As we can never help ourselves suffi- ciently, we should never help ourselves only. 2.— CHARITY. There are, however, some who will always remain poor, unable to keep up in the march of life. These must be aided in their misery ; and we should feel it a privilege to relieve their wants. He who feeds the poor eats with many mouths ; and we should be glad that others have appetites when we are sated, so that our meals may be enjoyed beyond our capacity to en- joy them. As long as there are men who can not be anything but beggars, there should be a compassion in men that can not be satisfied except by alms-giving. Nor should we inquire too closely whether the suf- 54 THE VIRTUE3 AND THEIR REASONS. ferers are deserving. Anybody in misery is deserving of aid, and we should be charitable in our opinions as well as in our gifts. Few can find begging so agree- able as to take to it from choice. It is generally mens last resort, and some great sorrow lies behind every appeal for alms. Hence if you can not give, be kind; and never be rude to the poor until you know that they have no rea- son to beg. While we should preferably help the needy to work, we have no right, when we are not do- ing so, to aggrieve them in their present mode of get- ting a living. Begging should be discouraged chiefly by aid to something better, and not by making the way of the beggar harder. The well-to-do will never know the suffering of the assisted classes; and while some can not get along because of lack of energy, most fail because of lack of ability. We should be tenderly careful of the feelings, as well as the wants of the poor, since many are in need after heroic efforts to keep up in life. A word may now crush them, as all their strength has been exhausted before they have given up to be recipients of charity. Those who are called upon for charity should be thankful, first, that they are not themselves subjects of charity, and again that they can do something to relieve misery. Whoever has more than he needs has CHARITY. 55 enough for charity, and out of his superabundance somebody should be supplied. As one knows not how all of his property has been amassed, he may, in giving alms, be only paying his dues ; since many a beggar has helped build up the wealth of the millionaire. Where by the intricacies of business, thousands have contributed to our store, thousands have claims on it if in need. For the laborer never releases all his rights to the possessions of others, but retains a lien for his livelihood, which the wealthy should always rec- ognize and honor. We should look upon charity as a duty rather than a merit, and often as a business obli- gation rather than a gratuity. We are all made partly out of the work which has reduced others to want. By getting so much for ourselves we have not left enough to go round ; and when the unfortunate comes back for a share of this we should not begrudge him his pittance. Especially if we are not sure that our gains have been honest should we be careful about refusing to others in need. Every rich man who has wronged others should see in the poor his creditors. If we owned absolutely, and by just title, our pos- sessions, our charity would be pure generosity, where- as it is now partly a reparation ; since in the present con- dition of society many do not deserve what they have. Instead of inquiring whether the needy are deserving poor, we should ask whether we are deserving rich. 56 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. VI. FOKGIVENESS. The impulse of kindness is to forgive, and not hold unkind feelings against those who have wronged us. To be resentful is more painful to the unforgiving than to the unforgiven; and the happy can not afford it. The generous man does not care long for an injury- done him. The injury should be repaired, and the injurer forgiven. The only precaution we can take is against his having an opportunity to injure us again; but it never helps an injury to be revengeful toward the person committing it ; whereas forgiveness is often the best guarantee against its repetition. One can not easily wrong a forgiving disposition, which tends to create justice in the unjust. To forgive an injury is often the quickest way to get rid of it, for when it is out of the mind it is usually out of power. To revolve an injury in our thoughts is to multiply it, since it increases by as much as it is felt. We have no right to remember a wrong longer than to right it, or a wrong-doer longer than to pro- vide against further wrong. Beyond the remembrance that is necessary to profit by experience we should keep no evil in mind, but learn to think only of the good and be happy. To avenge a wrong is no remedy 1 FORGIVENESS. 57 for it; and dwelling upon it only puts us more in the power of the wrong-doer. Hence forgiveness has always been deemed a virtue, and the forgiving man one of superiority. To rise above our wrongs is a great achievement in charac- ter, and is often the best way to triumph over our enemies ; for we thereby make ourselves impregnable against them. He who can be injured by every insult is a frail man, exposed to the mercy of his inferiors ; whereas one who can keep a noble mind amid bad men's doings is immeasurably removed from their power. Mercy has always been esteemed in the great, — to have power to avenge and not to use it. When a loss is suffered we should remedy it, or dismiss it from the mind, and not prolong it by memory. Those who injure us rarely intend to, but do so without much thought, most injuries being accidental. When men understand us they rarely antagonize us, nearly every quarrel being the result of misunder- standing. Did the injuring one know our situation, he would likely sympathize with us; and did we understand his purpose, we would see in it a rational aim instead of an unkind wish. It is important to be well informed before we avenge ; and vengeance, like war, should never follow except on the heels of ear- nest efforts for an understanding. If we let the wrong-doer alone he will soon punish himself, whereas 58 THE VIETUES AND THEIR REASONS. if we hasten to punish him we will take his punish- ment on our own heads. It is a frequent saying of Plato's that it is better to suffer a wrong than to com- mit it, the punishment of wrong-doing being surer than the profit of it. The injured one is soon over the injury, whereas the injurer gets a wound by the reaction which sticks permanently to his character. One can not do wrong long without becoming a wronged man, as wrongs nearly always revert upon the wrong-doer. The bad man is always looking in a glass which reflects what he does, so that injury is usually self-avenging. He who takes up arms against another commonly wounds himself, and the avenger should remember the words of Napoleon, " Never interfere with your enemy when he is making a mis- take." VII. REGARD FOR FEELINGS. One of the most important manifestations of kind- ness is a regard for the feelings of others, or cau- tion against giving them internal wounds. The feelings are the most sensitive part of man, trans- cending in delicacy the nerves, so that they need special protection. We can often say what will REGARD FOR FEELINGS. 59 give deeper pain than anything we can do. Un- kindness spoken goes more directly to the heart than unkindness acted (as meaning is more subtile and penetrating than violence). We should, therefore, be as cautious of our words as of our blows. One who will not strike a woman may hurt her more with a slap from the tongue, cruelty being now generally in the form of a coarse treatment of people's fine feelings. The sins of the tongue have, accordingly, been always signaled as most dangerous. Much of our bad conduct is in speech, as well as of our good. The tongue is the most used implement in war as in industry. It is habitually going, and, if normally used, always carries a meaning ; and its words may be poison or balm. To strike with the tongue may, like the viper's, be the deadliest blow we can give. As a weapon it should be used sparingly, and only as a tool be left loose. Nothing is gained by harshness that can not be gained by gentleness, a little thought always finding kind expressions that are powerful ; so that coarseness, being without reason, is a folly as well as a vice. It defeats its purpose, moreover, in bringing back more bad words, instead of eliciting good deeds. Words, like animals, breed according to their kind. An unkind word begets a litter of brawl- 60 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. ing, whereas pleasant words call out a profusion oi sweetness. Genuine kindness, however, looks beyond words to the feelings; and we should see in dealing with others that their feelings are made pleasant. We can offend by apparently soft speech which contains concealed stings ; so that we should consider how our words will affect the heart and not the ear. When bitterness is conveyed by politeness, it is the most exasperating. True politeness looks beyond the appearance to the feeling produced by our conduct. As some men, and especially some women, are highly sensitive, we should, when we must deny or antagonize them, do so tenderly. A request refused is often welcome if the refusal be gentle. If we can not grant a favor we can give kind words ; and if we do not show our sympathy we should, at least, not display our harshness, but conceal a defect when we can not exhibit a virtue. Employers in particular should be kind to their employes, avoiding overbearing language and conduct ; since the real gentleman is a gentleman to his subor- dinates. One who shows his superiority with inso- lence thereby proves himself unfit to be a superior. No man has a right to more power than he can use with kindness. He who does not respect the feelings of those under him is too little for his position. Inso- INSOLENCE. 61 lence always marks incompetence in office. Men love those with whom their feelings are safe — who do not bring tears or mortification, but may be approached with confidence. VIII. OPPOSITE FEELINGS. 1 .—INSOLENCE. I shall consider next the vices resulting from want of kindness, or antagonism to it. I have just spoken of insolence as the opposite of a regard for the feelings of others. It has, however, still further demerits. If not one of the greatest vices, it is one of the most offensive. It shows lack of sympathy or appreciation, and is founded on self- conceit — another disagreeable vice. To feel your importance is to acknowledge a weakness to yourself, while to show it is to confess such weakness to others. Insolence never evokes the esteem it would draw from others ; but calls upon itself the contempt it would impart. It never makes a friend, or has any desired effect. If you are graceless enough to think you are superior to others, do not shamelessly show it ; for you will generally prove thereby that you are not. 62 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. People like modest men, and consideration for others goes farther than imperiousness over them. Insolence has no authority, but generally begets revolt. In employers it causes strikes, in the army it excites insubordination, and in every position it takes away confidence in one's leadership. To control men we must attract and not repel ; whereas insolence is a repellant force, the forerunner of division. For what can not hold men's good opinion has no power to keep them together ; and they who would have influ- ence must not begin by making themselves disagree- able. To show that you feel above those about you is a signal for everybody else to think differently ; for none think well of those who think ill of them, opinion being mutual as well as love. The insolent man gets unpopularity cheap, and self is insolence's only admirer. 2.— CONCEIT. We have said that insolence is founded on conceit, which is a high opinion of self, as insolence is a low opinion of others. Men do not like to see one think too highly of himself, any more than they like to see him think too lowly of them. Self-conceit is the posi- tive form of insolence, and implies contempt for others by way of comparison with self. To dwell much on our own importance is as offensive to others as it is pleas- CONCEIT. 63 ing to us. Like insolence, it is essential selfishness, being usually at tlie expense of kindly thought about our fellows. The noblest characters are so interested in other men and things, and particularly in great matters, that they have not time to dwell much on self; and their ideals are too high to be much pleased with themselves when they do. A conceited man must have a low standard to think that he fills it; and from others he gets the credit of littleness. Men like the generous man, who hardly knows, or cares, what kind of man he is. The greatest virtues are not developed by entertaining yourself with yourself, but by doing good without much thought of self. Conceit is the opposite of that self-forgetfulness which is so admired in the lover. He who loves self has a poor lover, and poor loved one. He has also a poor love. It is a kind of illicit love ; for love is nat- urally for others, and when turned to self is a sort of unnatural affection. To be in love with self is a spe- cies of self-abuse; and about the only advantage such lover has is, that he has no rivals, and neither feels nor excites jealousy. Self-conceit is pride in virtues which one has not, and so is a vanity founded on an error. One loves himself for what he is not, and having a monopoly of that love is without sympathy ; for self-conceit never 64 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. yet attracted an admirer. Whatever may be one's opinion of self, he should not show it. The world is not interested to know; and, besides, it thinks it knows better than he does. One should never have selfish- ness enough to dwell complacently on his own merits, which is poor food for satisfaction, and is about as profitable as to feed on one's appetite. 3.— DISPUTATIOUSNESS. One of the most disagreeable of the unkind habits is the tendency to cavil. In times when men disagree so much, it is important to learn not to obtrude our differences. We should disagree in silence, as well as in love, and not be punctilious about little errors. In conversation especially, where accuracy is not required, it is hypercritical to persist in setting men right. We should look at the substance of what is said, and agree with the spirit of men's remarks, rather than contest their utterance. . Most that is said is intended for our entertainment ; and to criticise it is like examining too closely a gift. We should school ourselves to look through much inaccuracy of expression to the meaning of the speaker, and to agree with him in mind when we can not in language. Many disputes arise from mistaking the sense by looking too carefully at the words of the speaker. Fighting over words — " logomachy " — has DISPUTATIOUSNESS. 65 always been deemed ungracious. Help the short-com- ings of a friend's rhetoric by your own superior logic, and learn to see meaning when it is not accurately expressed, and to recognize agreements in language that expresses differences. Minds should commune, and not tongues ; and we should be able to look through the language to the thought. Since we know most that others tell us, we should supply what is lacking in their statements out of our own knowledge. Quarrels between husbands and wives, between brothers and sisters, and between near friends, who are supposed to know each others' thoughts, should all be avoided by this liberal method of interpretation. If others persist in being mistaken, it is not our province to correct them ; and, as men who make mis takes like to adhere to them, a correction avails little to one who already knows he is wrong. Men do not reason candidly when they want an error to prevail; and we should not have the folly to dispute with such. Successful conversationalists are able to see truth through false statements, and to agree with facts inac- curately expressed, and so to be complacent amid great differences of opinion. The good humor of the aver- age talker is worth more than the amount of truth he has, and an error should be no cause for strife. We should be willing to see others mistaken, and be a little more careful about ourselves. 5 86 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. If our own utterances are disputed we should, out of charity for the disputant, express ourselves again; and if we are still misunderstood, we should practice the grace of being misunderstood with patience. If we tell the truth as accurately as we can, we are not responsible for the deception if others do not see it; and our pride should not take offense at their stu- pidity. Say plainly what you mean, and leave your words to their fate. It is not your duty to follow after your statements to compel respect for them. The wise man must learn to be complacently disagreed with; and his equanimity should not be disturbed by misap- prehension, whether it be because of another's or of his own incapacity to be right. 4.— FAULT-FINDING. Of a like character with disputatiousness is the vice of fault-finding, except that it is more general. As the first is a fault-finding touching what men say, the latter extends also to what they do. Being out with the world, some men can not be pleased, which is a fault of their nature, rather than a merit of their understanding. For fault-finding comes less from see- ing what is faulty than from failing to see the good in it. It results from lack of sympathy, and is rather an expression of hate than of indignation. In a world where good and evil are so plentifully FAULT-FINDING. 67 mixed, it is unfortunate to have an eye only for the evil, which, like the buzzard's looking for carrion, misses more sights than it sees. The good may be contemplated as easily as the bad, and usually is, except by morbid dispositions, just as men who may eat either fruit or leaves, do not generally eat leaves. We should dwell on faults enough to correct them, especially in ourselves; but beyond this we should ignore them, like other disagreeable things, especially in others. To dwell on faults is to develop a tendency to be displeased. Evils are not generally instructive facts, any more than they are enjoyable ones, and so may, without loss, be forgotten, or left unlearned. The faults of friends especially may be overlooked, without loss to us or them. In a world with so many objects of contemplation, the most desirable only should be selected. For while one may, with equal facility, appreciate the good or bewail the evil of life, and while it is a matter of choice with which he will occupy his mind, there is this difference, that the thought of the good makes him happy, and of the evil miserable ; and since consideration of the evil is no more advantageous to others, we are not justified, except in rare cases of great wrong or misfortune, in especially considering it. Pessimism, or inclination to dwell on evil, is a mat- 68 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. ter mainly of disposition, and results not from a juster estimate of evil, but from turning the eyes specially toward it. The optimist might see the same if he looked for it; but the wisdom of knowledge lies in the choice of subjects, as well as in their consideration. While we should see truth when we can, we should also look for it, as for gold, in paying quantities. The knowledge that is not worth knowing is a great item in life, as well as the deeds that are not worth doing. For there are two objects in learning, — one to get knowledge, and the other to be made happy by it — and knowledge that is worthless is like anything else worthless, to be rejected. We need not know all that is in the sewers and family closets, or regale others with it. Evils untold do not grow by their silence, though evils repeated multiply by their circulation. The fault-finder is unkind, both in dwelling on the faults of others and in aggravating them by exposure, thereby often creating the faults which he tells. His information being rarely new, either to the hearer or person spoken of, is not so much a discovery of the faults of others as a disclosure of his own. And, for the same reason, it does not produce as much dislike for the one found fault with as for the fault-finder. For, one who states disagreeable things, is himself disagreeable. Not only do men like those bearing good news, and, to that extent, dislike the carriers of FAULT-FINDING. 69 evil news, but he whose mind is full of amenities acquires a pleasing look from the habit of his thought, while he who habitually thinks of the unpleasant, gets an unpleasant look, — the expression and manner being nourished by what they feed on. Displeasure passes by habit into displeasingness, so that one who is much displeased soon displeases. We should, accordingly, instead of showing need- less displeasure when things are not to our liking, pre- serve a kindly satisfaction, learning to see faults without being much troubled by them, and especially without troubling others with them. For faults may be known without being felt; and they should pass lightly through the mind when we can accomplish nothing by entertaining them. Learn, therefore, to bear with little defects, rather than feel enough annoyed to speak of them, always considering whether their mention will cause less pain to others ihan their cure will bring advantage to self. And learn, instead of finding fault, to praise freely, and to suggest changes for improvement rather than defects for complaint. People will do more for you if encouraged to do better than if scolded for not doing well, the best cure for an evil being to point out a better way, instead of bewailing what is. To be pleased when things are not to your liking, is to gracefully triumph over inconvenience, and is often 70 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. the best way to make them satisfactory. When peo- ple see that you do not complain, they try to please you, whereas for the scold they would rather make more trouble than relieve what exists. Lead, instead of drive, as people do not willingly antagonize kindle forbearance. IX. CHEEBFULNESS. The sum of the graces is cheerfulness, which con- duces as much to the happiness of others as of self. It is being in harmony with things, and at peace with human nature. It comes not only from looking at the good, which is mixed with all evil (as well as found pure in great quantities), but from appreciating it when we have it. Cheerfulness is largely in our own power ; for, though some are by nature more inclined to cheerful- ness than others, this disposition may be developed by habit, until cheerfulness becomes natural to any per- son. One oan determine to let nothing unduly dis- turb him ; and when both a pleasant and a painful aspect of a subject are possible, he can persist in look- ing at the pleasant, which should always be done, CHEERFULNESS. 71 as we have seen, when there is no remedy for the other. For when evil can not be remedied, the next best thing is to make it ineffective — that is, to keep it out of our feeling, so that, like untasted gall, it shall not be bitter. For there is much cause of sorrow that need not have its effect. The bad eggs need not all be smelt. If so much happiness is going to waste, some unhappiness should also be wasted. Like a phy- sician who can go through an epidemic, and not catch the disease, we should learn to go through trouble and not take it. There is such a thing as quarantining ourselves against unhappiness. Thinking of a remedy, when things are not to our liking, is the best prescription for cheerfulness. The hope which this gives prevents most of the pain, and our absorption in the task cures the remainder. Re- lieving an evil is a form of happiness, as well as of util- ity ; and after success we feel better than if the evil had not been. If the evil is incurable, we should dis- miss it from thought, as we do the dead from our eyes, and think of something good. There are subjects of thought within our reach that will always make us happy, and also of conduct; so that being happy is a duty as well as a privilege. What we shall feel, as well as what we shall do, is subject to the will ; and one thing that all should provide for themselves is a 72 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. cheerful disposition, or permanent possibility of hap- piness. He whose happiness can not be upset is the most secure of men; for he holds fate in his own hands. To have by nature that which all are striving for, is a short way to the goal of life. As we are all seeking happiness, we should know that it is within us, and only needs to be brought out into appre- ciation. There are many cheerful people who can take pleasure out of anything, or even out of nothing ; whose eyes and ears are always open for something to smile at, and to whom laughter is as natural as breath- ing. Their faces are bright, their voices are sweet, their manner is pleasing. If sorrow touch them, it remains but a short time, when their joy returns. They find pleasure everywhere lying loose, and pick it up as quickly as a miner does gold. Alert to discover humor, they find something to amuse in nearly every- thing. Their senses are all alive to the pleasing, and pleasures flow in through them as their natural chan- nel. Nearly all sights to them are beautiful, nearly all sounds are musical, and what is ugly is apt to be funny, and so to please as wit when it can not as art. The painful is viewed as a kind of joke (on Nature or on somebody), and a keen sense of the ridiculous filters some enjoyment from it. Such a disposition is worth a fortune ; for it is that which a fortune is meant to CHEEBFULNESS. 73 bring — happiness — so that if we already have the happiness by nature, the means are less important. A cheerful disposition is, indeed, largely the result of health and pleasant circumstances ; but if obtained without these, it dispenses with their need; for he who is happy thereby defeats the ill-fortune of nature; so that it is more important to be happy than to be wealthy, healthy, handsome, or anything else whose only purpose is to make men happy. Cheerfulness is a short road to happiness. It is a race which we win by being at the goal when we start. We have said that cheerfulness is a duty. It is a duty not only to self, but to others. For others enjoy the cheerful man as much as he enjoys himself. Smiles, delight, humor, all are contagious ; and a cheerful man, like leaven, raises the spirits of the whole company. Happiness is catching, as well as goodness, and one can be happy for many. Man can not easily smile alone. Any one who starts a wave of joy makes it vibrate to the farthest limits of his company ; and as no duty is greater than to make men happy, cheerfulness is a summary way of doing many duties at once. A smile is a message of good will to others. It touches the electric key which sets a whole circle to being pleased. Cheerfulness makes cheerful, and multiplies our happiness in others. It is the most pleasant way of making others happy, as well as 74 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. the most effective. Begot of sympathy it begets more sympathy than anything else. It is an exhorta- tion to happiness by showing an example. Much of our need of company is that we may exchange pleas- ures. Two persons can borrow of each other more cheerfulness than either of them has. In fact two men can hardly look each other in the face without laughing. The cheerful man has a great power in society. As an orator he gets attention by his quick sympathy ; his good fellowship makes him desired as a com- panion ; men like to trade with him, and women are more apt to love him. We naturally like those who make us feel good, and demand their company as a part of our pleasure. A happy-making man is a public benefit; and to have one around is a cheap way of getting enjoyment. There is a great demand for some one to turn our surroundings into pleasures. Cheerfulness, then, as a duty to others, is a large part of Ethics. To make them happy by our own happiness is better than to make them so by what costs us pain. Enjoying for the sake of others is better than working for the sake of others. We too commonly regard duties to others as sacrifices, instead of pleasures. They may be profitable to us as well as to them, and naturally are so in a well ordered society. SPEAKING KINDLY OF OTHEKS. 75 The duty of cheerfulness ought thus to be a grate- ful one, and it is strange that it is ever neglected. Nothing is more pleasant than setting an example in happiness; and if one is such an abortion of nature as to find it too irksome to be happy, he should not have been born. Like all other virtues cheerfulness is a type of the general principle of morality, that what is good for others is best for ourselves. SPEAKING KINDLY OF OTHEES. An important form of kindness is kindly speaking ; and, important as it is to speak kindly to others, it is nearly as important to speak kindly of others. Men are often more sensitive about what is said of them than about what is said to them, since unkind- ness spoken in their presence may be resented or cor- rected, whereas if spoken in their absence it remains unrepaired. Hence, the back-biter is meaner than the brow-beater. He is also deemed cowardly, since the inference is that not having the courage to speak evil to one's face he takes his absence for it. As we should mention defects only to remedy them, there 76 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. is no excuse for disclosing them when the person to be benefited is not present to take advantage of it. Criticism, if fair, is, indeed, allowable, but only for a good purpose, and then only in kindness. To habitually criticise, or to criticise for the love of the fault, and not of the person, is a low vice ; since faults, as we have seen, are not very profitable inform- ation, being private and of no wide application. "We should not try to make others good off our neighbors' vices, but, when inclined to speak unkindly, should consider how the one spoken of would like it, who is most concerned, and determine whether our criticism will benefit others more than it will harm him. Men love their reputation next to their lives, and the slan- derer is near akin to the murderer. That a disagreeable thing is true is no justification of its utterance, any more than that a poison is genuine justifies a murder committed with it. There is an old law maxim that the greater the truth the greater the libel; and morals should be more sensi- tive than jurisprudence in discriminating against unkindness. There are truths which need not be known. Men's private affairs should be as much their own as their money; and to give away their secrets is as bad as to give away their clothes. Men have prop- erty in truth, when it concerns them only. We all want others to think well of us, for which we spend SPEAKING KINDLY OF OTHEKS. 77 our money and make our displays — dress, build, beautify, entertain, and do whatever calls for admira- tion. When men speak ill of us they attack all this, especially if they speak it to our acquaintances, as they commonly do. Many would rather be attacked by a highwayman than by a slanderer ; for the robber would destroy less, and would run greater risk in his attack. Before saying anything about others, con- sider whether you would say it to their faces, or whether they would care to have it said. Men can be particularly unkind in saying mortify- ing things. It is not necessary, in order to wound one's feelings, to say what is bad. It is enough to reveal what is private. Each family has its household matters that should be deemed sacredly its own. The tattler who scatters these in the street is as unkind as such a mean person can be ; and his low gossip should be avoided as beneath manliness. Eespect one's privacy, and be more careful not to talk than to tell the truth about secrets. We do not owe the world anybody else's secrets. No grace is more admired than that which speaks well of others. Besides averting endless difficulties it makes many friends. We readily conclude that he who speaks kindly of others will speak kindly of us, and so easily give our secrets to those who never reveal secrets to us; whereas one whom we know to be ?8 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. false to another we can never trust ourselves, as we are aware of the important fact that he can be false. We can not but reflect, when one speaks ill of an absent one, that we will be the absent ones when he next talk&j. Trueness is no respecter of persons, but an absolute grace, and will be true to all. We need not expect one to be truer behind our back than he is to another to our face. One always leaves a better impression by speaking well of others, than by speak- ing ill, even if the ill be interesting gossip. We can usually see the unkindness of one who injures another as readily as if he injured us ; and we give him no more credit for goodness than his worst act entitles him to. Unkindness spoken of another is a confes- sion by the speaker, and he will be judged by the hearer as if it were spoken about him instead of to him. THINKING KINDLY OF OTHERS. 79 XI. THINKING KINDLY OF OTHERS. 1.— IN GENERAL. To think kindly of others is scarcely less grateful to them than to speak kindly, or act kindly. Men do much for our good opinion, and to withhold it is to defeat their work. More persons care to have us think well of them than to have us do well to them; for, while beneficence is limited to a few, benevolence may be to all. The least we owe any man is a good opin- ion, and we fail in a great duty if we depreciate him without cause. The obligation of good thoughts is imposed by mankind as a whole, and arises from the very condi- tions of society, as will appear in the next section. If we think badly of men, it is more the result of a bad heart than of a good judgment. It shows faulty lack of knowledge ; since men, if known, seem not as bad as when unknown ; and we owe to everybody knowledge enough not to think ill of him. We should make it a habit of judgment to think well of everybody until we learn the contrary, and, when one fault is proven against him, to allow him the remaining virtues until they likewise are disproven. We think well of our 80 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. friends; and everybody should be deemed friendly till known otherwise. 2.— CONFIDENCE. We should, therefore, have confidence in mankind. Much confidence is required for the purposes of society ; and to be mistrustful disqualifies for life. One will lose more opportunities by want of confidence than he will save by uniform security. Caution is indeed necessary when risks are taken; but to have so much caution as to take no risks, is to lose all, instead of imperil a part. Where not interested we should especially be slow to doubt men. Give every one the credit of good intentions, and assume that he will do his best. By extending to him your confidence, you will get his confidence, and know him well enough for your pur- poses. We should understand men before impeaching them, and not be so much on guard against human nature as never to learn it sufficiently for our ad- vantage. 3. — GRATITUDE. All such forms of kindness as gratitude we should freely accord, since every man has received much. A thankful heart doubles the favor, as well as qualifies us to cheerfully return it. The pleasures of gratitude GRATITUDE. 81 are among the great values of society; and to hold men kindly in our hearts is to smooth the way of life. Were we as thankful for what we have received as the favors of society deserve, we should think more kindly of men generally, since nearly everything comes from some source unknown. Our ancestors, our prede- cessors and our contemporaries have all done some- thing for us, which we can return only in gratitude to the race. A thankful heart is always worthy of more, whereas the ungrateful are not entitled to what they have. One who thinks badly of his kind does not appreciate what has been done for him, or adequately return thanks therefor. When we have received all from others, we can not, without ingratitude, think badly of all but ourselves. Thankfulness is little to give, but much to deny. One who withholds it is not richer thereby, but he keeps it to his own impoverishment. Gratitude en- riches the heart, while its absence alienates respect. That which nobody wants, nobody is willing to see another withhold. To enrich self, gratitude must be imparted to others. The expression of thanks is a a great part of life's sweetness, conveying as much pleasure to others as the feeling of them does to self. The thankless person knows not some of the greatest pleasures of life, just as he imparts them not. 6 82 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS* XII. VICES ANTAGONISTIC. 1.— HATE. Of the vices which stand opposed to the kindly virtues we have already spoken incidentally. It remains to speak of a few specially, and first of hate. For hate there is no place in life, and no excuse. It is not the proper feeling to have for anything. What we can not love we should pity — pity being the appropriate affection for all wrong-doers. As we should not avenge, but prevent their wrongs, so we should feel toward them not enmity but caution. Hate has no utility. It gives no pleasure, fur- nishes no protection, reforms no depravity. It is sim- ply a disagreeable sensation which undermines our own character. One can not feel good and hate, but as love implies pleasure, hate implies pain ; so that if one has simply his own happiness in view, he should avoid hate as unprofitable. One can not have great dislike for another and at the same time feel satisfac- tion with himself. Nor is there any corresponding action for hate that is at all useful. Its impulse is to kill, wound, insult or otherwise injure, which are all acts to be shunned ; and when they are necessary, as in war, HATE. 83 there are other feelings to impel us to what should be done, as the instinct of self-protection or care for society. We should never injure another except for his good, or that of the public, and then only from a sense of duty, and not ill-will, as a surgeon amputates a limb, or an officer restrains a burglar — always as a less evil. And as this should be done for the safety of society, we should act from love of the society, and not hate of the offender. We hang a criminal not for committing murder, but that murder may not be com- mitted, and the penalties for wrong-doing should all be imposed for the benefit of the people, and not for vengeance on the criminal. The sufferings of the wrong-doer are no compensation to the wronged. Did less severe measures deter from crime we should not punish at all. Pain must be justified by its necessity. And so, too, while private offenders against our interests may be punished, and also children and pupils for violating commands, it should be to reap the advantages of correction, and not to avenge the wrong ; and the punishment should be without hate, and, if not with actual love, at least with a sense of utility. Toward the offender, however bad, we should have only regret or solicitude, as for a beast not responsible for his offense. For wrong-doers are partly impelled by forces outside of them to wrong, being largely the instruments of their surrounding? 84 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. and of inherited impulses. While we should hold men to their responsibility it should be to insure their integrity, and not to gratify our yindictiveness. Enmity, or ill-will, is pure sin. To wish mis- fortune to others, or take delight in their sorrow, is without a redeeming feature. To be a hater of happiness is to be as bad as one can be. Desiring one's defeat when he intends wrong, and resisting him, even to death, may be justified. But the motive must intend some good. We should never wish or act for pain on its own account. Jesus so disapproved of hate that he called it murder ; and in all religions the term is applied to Satan, or the principle of evil. Indifference to others is bad enough, being wholly without merit ; but hate goes farther, and adds vicious- ness to worthlessness. Christ forbade enmity even toward enemies, and asked love for them even when injuring us. Hatred contains nothing to which one can make a generous appeal ; and, being simply desire for evil, the action to correspond must be bad. If anything should be hated without any admixture of love, it is hate. 2. — ENVY. Envy is a form of hate, and has no legitimate place whatever. Feeling bad at another's success is pure malevolence. For, bad as it is to hate others for ENVY. 85 doing bad, it is immeasurably worse to hate them for doing good. While, however, envy is a wishing of evil, it commonly takes the negative form of regretting good. Congratulation, and not grudge, should be our feeling at others' prosperity. Want of sympathy is bad enough ; but positive displeasure at men's happiness is pure iniquity. If the success of another wrongfully interferes with our own, or with the general good, we may of course regret it, which is not envy but prefer- ence. But to be displeased because he is a rival, or because we have failed, is such a low vice that one never acknowledges it, being ashamed of his own meanness. We should not only never act from envy, but never feel it. Generosity toward a rival is a manly senti- ment, and to wish well to another at our own expense the loftiest grace. It is better, however, not to think of self in contemplating others' enjoyment (and least of all to assume that it will conflict with ours), but to be pleased with it because it is enjoyment. The envi- ous man is necessarily unhappy, because continually aware of something above him ; for, being too little to accomplish much himself, such a one must habitually see himself outdistanced. Envy is, moreover, in itself, a disagreeable feeling — a compound of hate and jealousy, which are both 86 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. disagreeable, It is a union of two vices, and appears? aj an abortion of mingled pain and shame. 3. — ANGER. Anger is likewise a useless and dangerous vice. It rarely serves a good purpose, but injures both self and others. If men were meant for strife, it might be beneficial; but since fighting has almost disappeared from civilization, it has now no legitimate outlet in action. Like a wooden stove, which consumes only itself, it is a mind in conflagration, self -destroying its power. Anger is usually hate on fire, and is the stimulating of a feeling that should have no existence at all. If it is wrong to hate, it is worse to inflame that hatred. One may, indeed, be angry at wrong, or from a sense of indignation; but anger usually rages against persons, and not things; and as a feeling against wrong - doers it is neither agreeable nor profitable. One has more satisfaction who is calm, and has the further advantage of seeing better how to prevent or remedy the wrong. Anger is simply losing one's pres- ence of mind at a time when a mind is most needed, and passes for a fit of insanity (for to be u angry "and "mad" are, in common parlance, identical). Anger gets little respect from either friend or foe, and usually falls into the power of its antagonist, instead of gets ANGER. 87 him in its power. It is a weakness which uses up one's strength, rather than a power employing it; so that what is done in anger is usually regretted as failure. It is the common cause of quarrels, injuries, and even murders, and not of heroic achievements or great victories. The general is rarely angry, the leader must keep cool, the diplomat must conceal his feelings. Even as indignation, anger is not the proper feel- ing for wrong, but regret, with consideration for a remedy. To expend your force on antagonistic feel- ing leaves you little opportunity to remedy the wrong ; for wrongs should be remedied, and not avenged ; and hence cool judgment and deliberate action should take the place of impulse. Anger has too much the char- acter of a vice to be an avenger of virtue. It carries too much hate to be a messenger of love. It disquali- fies for action, instead of prepares. One should not turn himself into a madman to act where deliberation is required. It is giving up your control to circum- stances, so that it is only chance if you accomplish your purpose. If anger is less guilty than hate, it is only because it is insane hatred, instead of deliberate, the hatred of a fool being less responsible than of a sane man, though not less injurious. 88 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. 4. — CRUELTY. (1) — In General. Cruelty, or the infliction of pain, is the most direct conflict with kindness. It is unkind enough to wish pain; to cause it is the extreme of unkindness. Cru- elty is hatred put in action, and adds to a bad wish a bad will. Deliberate cruelty is short of murder only in degree ; enough of it will produce death. Practiced on a wife, child, or other person dependent on, or trusting in, you, it is the vilest wrong, and punishable as crime. It is always the beginning of death, and may be physical or mental. By harsh words, threats, or the withholding of comforts, the same work of destruction may be done as by blows. Many are killed a lingering death by unkindness, the slowness of the torture adding to the greatness of the murder. Every one should, accordingly, take early in life a resolution never to be cruel, particularly to the help- less or tender, who have no defense against him. If one is stronger than another he should feel his greater strength as an obligation to protect. The strong should help, and not distress, the weak. The ruler and warrior who have the lives and health of most in their power, have the greatest responsibility here. To pain those who are subject to us, or not to protect them against paim, is to do the murder which they PRACTICAL JOKING. 89 suffer in consequence. None are more despised than those who take advantage of weakness to injure it. Weakness should be to us a pledge of care, as sorrow should be of relief. Cruelty is the sum of all vices, as kindness is of all virtues. Most cruelty is, perhaps, the result of thoughtless- ness, especially in the young, who have not yet learned the distress it produces. But on no subject more than this should we early expend thought. When our sympathies are once developed we can not be thought- lessly cruel ; for we will then ourselves first feel the pain we are about to inflict, and, being unable, without full consciousness of it, to inflict it, will generally be deterred. As the cruelty of thoughtlessness, however, is as disastrous as that of deliberation, the thought- lessness becomes a crime when its results have once been brought to our attention. (2)— Practical Joking. It is unfortunate that several kinds of cruelty have passed into amusements, and are now justified as fun. They undermine the character for kindness, and should be discouraged as brutalizing. Practical jok- ing, in which we produce, and then laugh at, others' discomfort, is coarse unkindness and poor wit. When there are so many pleasant ways of having amusement there is no excuse for taking it out of torment. 90 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS, To feed the inclination to joke is to develop an unlovely character. Formerly men were more cruel than now, in their amusements as in their pursuits ; as when gladiators fought with soldiers or wild beasts for the pleasure of the spectators. But, though this has ceased, men still get pleasure out of others' pain by teasing and like efforts to distress them, the pleasure consisting in the anger or discomfiture of the ones "joked." A still worse " pleasure" is to make sport of others' misfortunes, as by laughing at the deformed, or mocking the disabled. It is mean to beat a cripple with his own crutch, or in any way to make one feel worse over his misfortune by calling his attention to it, or the attention of others. And yet such is the character of most practical joking. Some trouble or weakness of a supposed inferior is taken for the subject of the sport, and so the misfortune of nature aggravated by the unkindness of society. Such "fun" should be proscribed by good breeding as coarse, as well as by good morals as unkind. (3) — Hazing. Hazing is a senseless as well as cruel sport — the torture of a weak or strange boy in school or company before he has had a chance to take precaution for his defense. It is betraying one at a time when he is DUELING. 91 entitled to our hospitality. The stranger and the defenseless should always be secure from offense. If men must annoy anybody, it would be less unmanly to take one who can whip his annoyers. To select the weaker for our sport is cowardly, and shows meanness in ourselves as well as cruelty to others. Better pleasures may be had without inflicting pain; and all youth, and especially students, should be educated to proper sport as well as proper work. It is unkind enough to laugh at such sports; it is meanly cruel to practice them. In students they are often excused on the ground of youth. But they who are aspiring to superior wisdom should be the last to plead excessive folly. It is a bad beginning for edu- cation when our first lessons are in cruelty. The enmities engendered in these sports often last through life. One rarely knows how deeply such unkindness wounds a youth, particularly such sensitive ones as are commonly taken for the sport. (4) — Dueling. Dueling is a little less cruel, and a little more senseless, than hazing. It adds some fairness in giving the other party an equal chance to gash the hazer; but it inflicts more damage for less cause. A young man at the age when students' duels are fought knows not the value of a whole face; and the scars 92 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. and loss of a nose are regretted for a life-time, though they are the result of an hour's folly. Young men should not be given a chance to ruin themselves before they get their sense, and the immorality of the practice is largely in the custom which sanctions it. Having come from a more barbarous age, it should not be tolerated now; and he who takes sport out of a duel as a looker-on, is a participant in the wrong. It is incipient murder to attempt to take so much of life ; and it is no mitigation that it is for so little cause. The folly of a wrong does not take away its crimi- nality; but one can be a fool and a murderer at the same time. Of those duels which are fought by men, and where the object is to take life, as in France, the folly and the criminality are greater because of the maturity of the offenders and the seriousness of the results. Where we should expect more sense we find less, and in the " code " vice has reached the hight of stupidity. When such a folly is the fashion the community are criminals, for if public sentiment incites to death men's thoughts are murderous. A duel decides nothing, and accomplishes nothing. Originating in a time when it was thought that the worse would be killed, it has no reason for surviving when the superstition is gone. The innocent one is just as apt to be killed as the guilty, and so the wrong DUELING. 93 doubled Instead of righted. The " code " is radically wrong in nearly every feature, being a series of para- doxes. Because one has insulted you, you must give him a chance to also kill you, and so run the risk of death in order to avenge an insult. If an offender should be killed for his insult it is hardly consistent to give him a chance to do the killing instead of the dying, and so for the criminal to exchange places with the executioner. That the wrong-doer should have two chances to the other's one to injure seems far from equality ; since his first injury is sure, and he has an equal chance to do another. To kill in a duel is murder, and to fight a duel is to attempt murder ; and it is no less murder because you expose yourself to danger in committing it, which the highwayman also does. It is no excuse for one crime to commit another, and the offense of murder is not wiped out by the addition of suicide. The duelist commits a double crime, since he risks two lives. It is no justification in killing a man that you give him a chance to be a murderer as well as a victim. To make a fool of yourself does not save you from mak- ing a criminal of yourself ; but folly and criminality, which usually go together, are most completely recon- ciled in the duel. 'J4 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. (5) — Corporal Punishment. There is rarely occasion for violence of any kind to- ward our fellows. They can more easily be persuaded than beaten into right. Men should not privately go to war, but seek rather to get rid of their beasthood. The rod which once seemed so requisite, now appears sub- versive of its purpose. It is used only by those who have not the patience or tact to control by kindness. Inspired by anger instead of conscience, men flog more to please themselves than to correct their victims. It is demoralizing to fight when the other party may not fight back. The chief good where one starts a fight is in his getting whipped, which the aggressor here escapes by assaulting only the weaker. Cowardly and brutal he damages himself more than he benefits his victim. It is illogical to turn one's self into a brute or in any way to do wrong, and teach others to do right. As men have come to fight less, they have learned to plan more, and they now gain their ends by diplomacy instead of force. As people in business do not fly to arms when they differ, and as we no longer have wager of battle at law, there is no excuse for men's going to war with children. Man is as much the superior of a child in reason as in muscle, and he should prove it by the effect of his argument on him. While there are exceptional cases of justifiable vio- lence, one should not resort to it before exhausting all CRUELTY TO ANIMALS. S)5 other means, and lie must be very short of means who quickly takes to force. (6) — Cruelty to Animals. a. In General — ■ Our kindness should extend be- yond man to all life. Wherever there may be pain there is the duty to avoid it. We owe a love to the dog and the fish; and our sympathy should go as far as feeling, and relief as far as suffering. Hence kindness to animals is as obligatory as kind- ness to men. That they are inferior, and more in our power, is but another reason for being more kind to them, as to children and sick ones ; and that they can not compel it as a reason for specially compelling our- selves to it. While there might not be so much rea- son to be kind to a tiger in the jungles, who can take care of himself, we have no right to torment a caged or domesticated beast which has laid off his strength. What is at our mercy should receive our mercy. The driver of a horse, or owner of a dog, is bound to impose no cruel task on his charge, and to withhold no food or shelter needed for its comfort. One's self- interest, indeed, requires this ; but, beyond this feel- ing, he should have a farther concern, since self-inter- est is not sufficiently appreciated in its relations outside of us. He who has power over inferiors is responsible for 96 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. their comfort, and undue pain suffered by them is chargeable to him. The claims of beasts on men have never been adequately considered; and because their mouths are dumb, so that they can not plead their cause, we should voluntarily give such consideration to them. Only recently have inferiors among men received their dues from superiors ; and now this kind consideration is being extended to the lower orders. Whereas men once thought that their duties were only to men and God, so that they might treat beasts as they pleased, now duty is recognized as extending to all the living, and cruelty to animals is punished as crime. Since our love, and consequent duty, is thus to all life, the ordinary terms of morality which were hitherto considered so comprehensive, have become too narrow (etymologically) to express modern benev- olence, and need an extension in the direction of animals. Thus the word " humanity," once deemed so broad as to be identical with kindness, falls short as includ- ing only v/hat is " human." " Good will to beasts," as well as "good will to men," is necessary. So the word " philanthropy," which expresses literally only love of man, needs extension to something like " philzoophy," or "love of the living." " Love of the race," likewise, once deemed broad enough for all good- ness, is now narrow, because many objects of universal CRUELTY TO ANIMALS. 97 love lie beyond and beneath our race. " Universal brotherhood," even, which extends beyond self, and country, and sect, to all men, is not broad enough, unless we take in the dog and lobster as brothers. Love of all that may think or feel, and kindness for all that may suffer, should be our limit. 6. Sport — Much cruelty to animals is practiced as sport. It seems paradoxical that men should take their pleasures out of the pains of animals, enjoying their sufferings and torturing them to stimulate that enjoy- ment. This taste should be reformed and refined, es- pecially as it is needless. More pleasure can be derived from pleasure than from pain ; and the very fact that we can enjoy pain is reason enough for abolishing amusements which furnish it. It being as degrading to man as it is painful to the brutes, we should get rid of our capacity for such pleasure, as well as its indul- gence. When men not only fail to sympathize with animal suffering, but actually enjoy it, and when this appetite for pain is so great as to incur vast ex- pense and trouble to supply pain-amusements, it speaks worse for the men than for the beasts. For whereas wild beasts kill animals to eat them, we kill them for the pleasure of their death, the hunting man being a grade lower in savagery than the hunting wolf. 7 98 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. The animals Ihus hunted, moreover, are mostly weak and innocent (as birds and deer), which are more fit for pets than victims. One who has had a tame deer, and knows how affectionate such animals are, can never go on a deer hunt. To shoot what appeals so strongly for our pity, and with no object but the enjoyment of its discomfiture, is a heartless cruci- fixion of our tenderness. When game or fish must be slain for food it should be done with the least pain pos- sible to them, and the least pleasure possible to us. All butchery should be instantaneous and unenjoyable. Such sports as bull-fights, dog-fights and cock- fights, are cruel to the animals and degrading to the men. Fighting ought not to give pleasure to anybody, with its necessary production of pain. To see the exercise of passions in animals which are vices in us, and to promote them for our enjoyment, is a discipline in immorality. It hardens one into unsympathy, and gives him a fond- ness for war and quarreling among men. Such per- sons unconsciously take beasts for their models, and follow them as ideals. Horse-racing, whose principal vice is the betting, of which we shall speak in the sec- tion on Gambling, is cruel when the horses are goaded or over-strained for speed, as is usually done ; and we should not delight in it when pain is inevitable. It is as important to be refined in our amusements CRUELTY TO ANIMALS. 99 as in our work; and we should not, by the cruelty of our pastime, neutralize the kindness of our occupation. Our pleasures should, of all things, not be cruel; for while we may, through cupidity, be tempted to take our interest out of pain, it is pure malevolence that can take enjoyment out of pain. When we want to have pleasure we should not start out to produce the opposite. If we can not feel the pain of other crea- tures and sympathize with it, we at least should not, in thinking of it, enjoy it. Sympathy for brutes is as obligatory as kindness to them; and we ought not to be anything else than unhappy when they are suffering. We have thus far spoken of Kindness and the spe- cial virtues resulting from it — those which pre-sup- pose a good heart. We shall speak next of the more intellectual virtues of Truth, which pre-supposes also a good mind. L.cfC. CHAPTER SECOND. TRUTH. L VEEACITY. Truth, in tfie widest sense, is a most comprehen- sive virtue, as it is an adjustment, in mind and speech, to whatever is, or a living, internally and externally, according to nature. Truth is faithfulness to fact; for one may be faithful to things, as well as to persons; and, to so love the world — its laws and its individual objects — as never to deny any part of it, but always recognize and acknowledge it as it is, is a most important virtue. To have a true character is to be reliable, like the laws of nature, so that when one knows the facts he can infer what such a person will think and say. One who stands so close to nature that he is ever its reflection, and so sympa- thizes with it that he never prefers the unreal, either to think or to utter, is the highest type of man. To have a fondness for fact, so as to want to see it, and make others see it, is to possess the spirit of truth. To lie is to betray knowledge, or deny Nature, as IOO VEBACITY. 101 Judas betrayed Christ. We owe every one a tran- script of our thoughts when we speak; and as true as Nature is to us in giving us her image, we should be to man in giving him a reflection. We should, like a mirror, be a faithful reporter of what is given us, and not, like a disturbed surface, reflect an uncertain and varying image. Society depends largely on veracity, since we must use one another's knowledge as well as their produc- tions ; and to give false information is, like giving false coin, to be guilty of counterfeiting. We owe every- body the knowledge he asks for, and can not pay it in any currency but truth. Fact is a commodity as much as cheese; and because it is not paid for, it is no less the subject of cheating. He who lies gives a rotten egg for a good one, and breaks one of the laws of trade. Needing your information to conduct my busi- ness, as much as I need your grain, I am robbed if you give me anything else; so that the liar is a kind of thief. To take from one the facts that he needs to know is often as damaging as to take his money or his food; and the obligation to truth should be felt to be as great as to honesty. In fact, lying is a part of almost every dishonesty ? since few wrongs travel alone, and deception is the most congenial companion for them all. Without veracity we could not live in society at 102 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. all ; for we are as dependent on the words of others as on their help. In fact, men usually help one another with words ; and giving a falsehood for a truth is like giving a blow for a lift. Veracity is the means of communication in all co-operation; and it does not require many falsehoods to destroy the machinery of society, just as it does not require many breaks in the gearing to stop a whole factory. Truth must be habitual to be of value, and must be known to be habitual. When there is not enough for reliance, men are resolved again into individuals, as if society were not organized, and can do no more than what each can do of himself. Co-operation requires confidence. A liar is worth no more to society than an idler, since he can not be fitted into his place. He is like a broken link in a chain, which renders worthless the whole chain. When we are supported on one another, if one gives way all support is gone. Hence truth is sought in all employes and public officers. No trait has more commercial value than veracity. When one is known to be unflinchingly true, so that in every circumstance he can be relied on, and especially in the greatest temptation, he be- comes a man much sought after, because there are numberless trusts for which no others are fitted, and because truthfulness carries nearly all other virtues VERACITY. 103 with it (for he is not apt to commit offenses who is truthful in speaking of them). Truth must be habitual, as we have said, to be of any value. If one lies occasionally, he can not be relied on; for one requiring assurance can not know whether one of his lies may not come just when truth is most needed. One should habituate himself never to lie, but make truth a matter of principle. One who lies at all is a liar, and the fact that he can lie is a fatal defect. The only men who are very valuable for their truth are those who are known not to lie under any circumstances. If employes, clients, customers, children, or readers, believe that when one says any- thing it is true, there is an assurance of great value, and that man is much needed. When his utterance is taken as the last word, so that men are ready to act upon it, business can proceed confidently, and the great waste of suspicion and timidity is spared. One has much who can be certain in his business ; and cer- tain he can be only when he has truthful men to depend on. To be true, and to have a reputation for truth, is thus a large capital for the average man. One given to lying may lie when he does not aim to; for liars lie as much by mistake as by design. One accustomed to lie learns not to see the truth, and is unreliable even when he intends to be true. To always tell the truth is a quick way to learn the truth. 104 HE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. For he who is always anxious to tell the truth is anxious always to have the truth to tell; so that truth and intelligence generally go together ; whereas many are liars because they do not know the truth. The truth likes to be well treated, and will not make acquaintance with one who does not confess it. One can not lie much without being known as a liar. It is as hard to conceal a lie as a noise; it gets out as easily as a sound gets through a key-hole. Truth is all related, so that a lie is self-detective, like a mistake in book-keeping. He who would lie much, and preserve a reputation for truth, will find his task harder than to tell the truth uniformly, and in the end less successful. The disadvantages of lying are obvious. One known to lie is not believed, whether he lies or speaks the truth. His lie becomes worthless, and he can not use the truth to advantage. He has simply lost his power in society. To have any influence he must go among strangers, and even they will generally find him out before they confide in him enough for his ad- vantage. A course of lying is short-lived, since after a quick discovery it dies from its own worthless- ness; so that the liar is commonly an insignificant person. It requires much power of truth to make an influential man. The liar has not hold of the forces of nature, like the true man, who lives according to CANDOR. 105 nature; but he presents the pitiable spectacle of one who can not get his truth believed; for he who will- fully deceives loses in time the power to instruct. II. CANDOR One may acquire the habit not only of telling the truth, but of looking it. It is possible to become so permeated with the truth that, like the measles, it will show itself in the life, — working out in the appear- ance and manner. It is important to let truth have this natural expression, so that people may read it in us; for nothing pleases more than the appearance of truth, which, like kindness, furnishes a sort of beauty. For many subtle graces grow out of a thorough recon- ciliation with the truth, whose natural expression is candor. Men become thereby easy, unaffected and affable, with an open countenance and unrestrained voice; because they have nothing which they want to conceal, or make appear otherwise than it is. They elicit confidence, as they impart pleasure, and wield an influence as the very power of truth's expression. Living the truth, is, therefore, as important as tell- ing the truth; for men can act the truth as easily as 106 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. they can act a lie, the tongue not being the only mem- ber used in truth-telling any more than in lying. As the eye, the arms and the whole body can lie, and even silence can do so, so can they speak the truth, and normally do so; so that we have as many ways of instructing as we have of deceiving, and are re- sponsible for the impressions men get from us, no matter how we give them. Conduct has its natural language, as well as words, and is often more power- ful and accurate in utterance. When we assume an unusual conduct to express ourselves, we not only are liable for the error imparted, but become weak through exhibiting a contradiction between our thought and manner. We also disclose, as a rule, the intended de- ception through the awkwardness of an inexperienced role. Men judge of truth, as of other things, by its fruits; and truth acted does not give error imparted. Our life, accordingly, should be truth displayed, or an illustrated edition of truth. As the offspring of light truth should always appear illuminated. PREJUDICE. 107 in. PBEJUDICE. We should always tell the truth to ourselves. Many lie so habitually that they do not observe that it is not another that they are lying to, and they actually expect themselves to believe their own lies. Sometimes they are the only persons who will do so. A liar, as we have said, soon comes not to recognize the truth. An uncandid person forgets how to use evidence, and holds opinions without reason. Dealing unfairly with others, he learns unconsciously to deal unfairly with himself, holding views which he knows to be not true, or would know if he allowed himself to think. Many want to believe particular things to be true, and by trying to make others believe them, come to try to make themselves believe them. There is much of this persuading of one's self ; and often one finds himself his own easiest dupe. He soon gets to believe his own lies, and then for the first time tells them to others for truth. For men's errors of opinion are generally of their own making; so that it is our duty to know the truth, as well as to want it. We should, accordingly, recognize the importance of mental honesty, and be true to our own minds. Most errors result from our own desires, rather than 108 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. from others' deceptions. Mistakes will not tarry long if they are not hospitably received. We have generally the means of knowing the truth where the truth is important to us, so that error is more the result of prejudice than of impotence. As it is wrong to tell a lie to others, it is wrong to believe one of our own lies. It is as immoral gener- ally to believe a thing when we know it is false, as to tell it under such circumstances. There would not be so many liars if there were not so many believers of lies, the supply, as in othar things, being regulated by the demand; and to encourage lying by credulity, and especially to be both liar and dupe of the same false- hood, is a vicious imbecility. To take untruth into our minds is as bad as to send it out of our mouths. It is obligatory, therefore, to resort to all means to learn the truth — to keep open the eyes, to discrimi- nate in what we think we remember, and to reason impartially. It is wrong to believe or disbelieve against the evidence, or on insufficient evidence, or with more certainty than the evidence warrants. Fidelity to truth requires a candid estimate of the probabilities in doubtful matters, and a recognition, acceptance and acknowledgement of what seems proven. To deny to evidence its natural force is faithlessness to nature, and you thereby become a liar to yourself. There is such a thing as the morals of mental conduct, PREJUDICE. 109 or the right and wrong of forming opinions. Error is guilt when it is avoidable, and we should recognize the virtue of having right opinions. Prejudice is the enemy of all this, or the opposite vice. One who will not let himself think, lest he learn what he wants not to be true, or who forces himself to assent to what he knows is false, is guilty of his own errors, and an essentially false man. To accept what you know is untrue is to tell a lie to yourself, and so to make yourself a liar generally; for after you have accepted it yourself, you w T ill be telling it as true to others. For nobody can be more truthful to others than he is to himself. The prejudiced man is neces- sarily a liar; for, having made up his own information out of lies, he has, of course, only lies to tell to others. And what is admitted to your own mind as a known lie you are not likely to give out as an unwitting lie; but dishonesty will accompany all you have to do with that opinion. He who lies to himself, therefore, lies indirectly to many. 110 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. IV. BIGOTEY. Hence bigotry, which is the offspring of prejudice, is a degraded and offensive vice. It is a zeal founded on insincerity. For the bigot does not propagate his views because he believes them true, but because he fears they may be false, so that he is solicitous about getting for them an acceptance through favor. His means are usually dishonest — craft, misrepre- sentation, and especially over- statement. He is unjust to others and their views, and is mean and unsympa- thetic besides, being one of the most unlovely charac- ters known to either religion, politics, or society. His utterances are colored by the requirements of his sect, party, or interest. He is hard to reason with, as truth does not take effect on his unwilling mind. Desirous of seeing only what confirms his prejudice, he looks not for truth but for persuasives, and, being timid without caution, disputes without arguing. The soul of insincerity, the bigot can not be a true man, any more than he can be a loving one. When one recognizes no good but the interest of his own sect or party, he can not love much beyond the same limits, and so has none of the broader feelings of the benevolent man. His narrowness unfits him for HYPOCRISY. Ill nearly all that is good in life, and so belittles him that what good he does do is trivial. Bigotry gives neither reason, feeling nor conduct a chance. HYPOCRISY. From bigotry it is only a step to hypocrisy. As bigotry is an insincere opinion, hypocrisy is an insin- cere expression of it. Many, having opinions which they do not like, and can not disown to themselves, misrepresent them to others. Because they are un- profitable they do not want them to prevail, and so live a life contrary to them. Hypocrisy embraces many kinds of lying, as well as some other vices. It is a contradiction between man's outer and inner life, taking on other people's opinions for show, and trying to act as if we had their motives. It is a mean vice, inasmuch as it has no confidence in self, and, like bigotry, is afraid to trust truth. It goes beyond prejudice, which usually believes a lie, by giving itself up to be controlled by a lie; and it is all the meaner because it surrenders to what it not only knows is not true, but does not even respect as false- hood, 112 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. The hypocrite is easily detected, because, having many ways of lying, he has many ways of disclosing his lies. For it is harder to keep a life of falsehood concealed than to keep a single falsehood concealed. Lying continually, therefore, and by his whole con- duct, he is always liable to discover his real opinions to others ; so that he who begins by deceiving all, ends by being the only one that is deceived; and by the time he believes he is sincere nobody else does. For what the hypocrite gains in sincerity, others lose in confidence. For, though one may, by much tamper- ing with truth, actually believe his own lies, it is not usually until he has destroyed all belief in them by others; for the self -deceiver soon knows not how to deceive so as to make others believe. VI. PEEJUEY. Perjury is deemed more criminal than lying, be- cause it intends some wrong. Men swear only in legal proceedings, where property is commonly in- volved ; so that he w T ho lies under oath lies away another's rights. Falsehood is here practiced for a PERJURY. 113 purpose, and, the purpose being bad, adds injustice to the lying, so that perjury is a double wrong. This crime is committed, too, when the swearer's attention is specially called to the truth of his state- ment, and when, by extra formalities, he engages spe- cially to tell the truth. He cannot perjure himself thoughtlessly, as he may thoughtlessly lie; but his par jury is with full knowledge both that the truth is expected and that it is important. Everything is done, too, by concentration on the subject, to refresh the memory, and, by examination and cross-examination, to elicit accuracy of expression ; so that perjury is always willful, and has no excuse in impotence, forget- fulness or inattention. One tells the double lie of say- ing he is about to tell the truth, and then telling the falsehood, thus both lying and declaring his lie not a lie. And, furthermore, he calls God to witness his truthfulness, and punish him if it is not genuine. Perjury is, accordingly, punished as a crime; be- cause the damage suffered by the loss of a suit is largely caused by the liar. While the plain liar is left to the natural laws of conscience and society for his punishment, the perjurer's offence takes on so much of dishonesty, that it is treated as something more than lying. 114 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. VII. BEIBEEY. Bribery, for the same reason, is a doubk crim^, and punished as a gross form of injustice. It involves two sins : first, lying; and, secondly, getting another to lie. It is lying for a purpose, too, like perjury, and so wrongs one beyond the mere withholding of the truth. The briber enters into lying as a business, and employs an assistant; and his crime multiplies as it proceeds ; for it is a wrong to himself, an attack on another's character (in inducing him to wrong), and an attack on a third party (to get something from him by falsehood). It is making crimes join hands for injury, and confederating men against men's rights. One who bribes, or is bribed, is always known as vile, and so, with his co-conspirators at least, is committed to crime, and not likely to be reclaimed. CHAPTER THIRD. HONESTY. I. IN GENEBAL. Honesty, or justice, is a comprehensive virtue, em- bracing, like kindness and truth, all others, if followed throughout its connections. Giving to others their dues, while retaining for self its rights, is the sum of morality; and one can not do a wrong that does not antagonize this principle. The virtue of honesty, therefore, like the other virtues, illustrates, in its com- prehensiveness, the general fact, already explained, of the unity of morality, and its relation to all good. In honesty we recognize specially the rights of others, and particularly their property rights. This virtue consists in doing nothing to injure such rights, as kindness consists in doing nothing to injure their personal rights. A man's property is almost as closely connected with his happiness as is his body, espe- cially in a complicated social state, where we must so much use others and their work. For our property represents our interest in what "5 116 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. others produce, and is the means of using them. By it we get their labor, attentions, accumulated products, and whatever they have that we want. And to make this transfer well, so as to preserve our rights and theirs, is what we call honesty, or justice. There are endless opportunities, and temptations, to get more than we are entitled to, or to withhold something that we owe ; and most of the contentions of life concern property. These give rise to law- suits, which are private wars, and to the artifices of trade and industry. The aim of justice is to make men's affairs go smoothly amid their conflicting inter- ests — to fix and recognize the rights and duties of each, so that, keeping within their respective limits, men shall not come in conflict. For this we should recognize others' rights as our own, and get a keen sense of them, as in kindness we get a keen sense of their feelings, whereby their suffer- ings become ours. Their wrongs should, likewise, become ours ; and we should not only do nothing against their rights, but do what we can to procure them. Men are happy only as the rights of all are secured, a good state existing when there is com- plete justice. For this we must have many virtues, as the expres- sion of honesty — fairness, moderation, helpfulness, and all others, which have been mentioned as applica- THEFT. 117 ble to persons, extended now also to their possessions; so that we do not try to get what is justly theirs, or retain more than is justly ours. To this end we must, restraining our cupidity, keep our wants within our rights, and our desires within our needs; since, by getting more than we should have, somebody must suffer by getting less than he needs. Property should be held with reference to the whole, since, as already explained, we own our pos- sessions subject to the rights of others in them. While all are entitled to what is necessary, none are entitled to that without which others can not have enough. II. THEFT. The most familiar form of dishonesty is stealing; and, while all kinds of injustice may be deemed theft, in its most general sense, there is a special crime which consists in getting others' property without compensation, and generally without their knowledge. The thief is an enemy of society, like the wolf, or earthquake, and to be treated as such. In early times he was deemed unfit to live, and was executed for the 118 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. smallest offense. Now he is simply removed from the society in which he is disqualified to live, and shut up where he can not practice his vice, and where he may be reformed and again fitted for the liberty which he has forfeited. III. CHEATING. Stealing, however, is only one form of dishonesty, and, in civilized countries, the least common. Prop- erty is so secured that the plain thief has few chances. Criminals do their robbing by getting the owner's con- fidence, and then betraying it, — by misrepresentation, false pretenses, defalcation, and other treacherous methods. Instead of breaking into a safe the thief now gets the key, stealing being by persuasion instead of force. A criminal once said that he had thirty-six ways of getting other people's money, the most honest of which was sly theft. Where so much confidence is required as in modern society, dishonesty is practiced by corresponding forms of abuse of confidence — by the frauds of employes, trustees, attorneys, and managers of corporations. Everybody relies on many who may be possible CHEATING. 119 rogues ; and the chances to take his property are as numerous as to take his life. Over-charging, under- serving, and false weighing, are among the many- kinds of cheating. We can cheat men before their eyes without their knowing it, and almost without knowing it ourselves. There are as many ways of cheating as of being unkind. Orphans, servants, tenants, the public, all may be victims, there being as many crimes as there are relations to distinguish them. We need a delicate sense of justice to discern, and guard against, the varied forms of dishonesty. There is hardly a transaction in which there may not be a wrong; and the perfectly just man, whom Plato re- garded as the highest type of humanity, is one who in all these possible transactions gives to others their rights. For the thoroughly honest man, as for the thoroughly truthful one, there is a great demand. In the many places requiring confidence there are more occasions for honesty than there are people to fill them. One widely known to be honest need never want employment. The greatest need of business is men to trust, — to trust in large and small affairs, out of sight and in temptation, with money and with power, with secrets and with missions — men who will do what is required, and do it faithfully, Honesty, like truthful- 120 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. ness, has great commercial value, the demand being always larger than the supply, and the better the quality the greater the demand for it. A thoroughly honest man doubles the value of his employer; for he can be put where the employer would otherwise have to be, so that he who has many such multiplies him- self and enlarges his business. The difficulty of getting honest men lies in the fact that it takes much time to develop one, and much to find him out. While a rogue can be discovered by one act, an honest man must be tried often. For while a rogue can sometimes be honest, an honest man can never be a rogue. He must, accordingly, be tried in many places, with a variety of trusts, and under manifold circumstances of temptation, to be fully tested, or fully known as honest. For, if in all these experiences he makes one slip, showing dishonesty, he is thrown aside like a broken glass, because he is known as not honest. One example proves as well as a hundred, that he can be dishonest, which disqualifies him for the requirements of a trust. On the other hand if he is thoroughly known, even by one man, as honest, this opinion spreads into a general reputation. Any one, therefore, thinking to lead a business life, should, first of all, provide himself with a character and reputation for honesty — or, rather, provide him- self with the character, when society will furnish the EMPLOYER AND EMPLOYE. 121 reputation ; for honesty can no more conceal itself than dishonesty, and even slander can not long defeat it. IV. EMPLOYEE AND EMPLOYE. Between employer and employ^ there are special demands for honesty, as each is much in the other's power, the employer having some of his business, and the employe all of his wages, dependent on the other. For, though we are all in this mutual relation of aid, which constitutes society, the employer and employ^ have most completely given themselves to each other. There is, accordingly, a great chance here for oppres- sion on one side, and treachery on the other ; and one can, in the long run, cause about as much damage as the other. The employer's duty is fairness, consideration for comfort, prompt and liberal payment, increase of wages with advance of profits, and the respect due an equal. The employe's duty is faithfulness, in which he makes his employer's interest his own, and serves it as zealously as would the master himself, working his full time and full strength, and accounting for every penny entrusted to him. 122 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. One should not injure his employer by quitting work without notice, or striking without cause. Be- fore demanding more compensation he should consider whether he is worth it, and when he can not get enough, he should peaceably go elsewhere. One ought not to injure another by either working for him or leaving him, but deal as fairly as he would be dealt by- If a man makes himself necessary to his employer, he will be retained and promoted ; and when known to be thoroughly reliable he becomes necessary. One re- luctantly parts with a faithful man, and the greater his fidelity the higher his promotion — the most honest men being required at the top. We should in honesty, as in love, put our fellow in our place, and act toward him as if we had his desires, learning as an employe to do what another wants, and substituting his will in work for ours. There should be much kindness in business. In- stead of considering our employer an antagonist, or competitor, we should regard him as a friend, and avoid all antagonism between labor and capital as mutually injurious. One can not enjoy his employ- ment without a love for it, and for his employer's interest, just as he can not enjoy anything if acting from selfishness or antagonism. The lover of his work, and of its success, does his work well, and does PROMISES. 123 much of it ; so that he generally gets promotion as well as enjoyment ; for services are measured, like everything else, by success. We should, therefore, see that our employer has success, as far as we can effect it, and keep ourselves in harmony with the spirit of mutual aid, which un- derlies society. We may ourselves soon be the em- ployers, and want the advantage of this faithfulness; for the faithful employ^ generally becomes an employer, — a partner, manager or holder of some re- sponsibility — no one's position in business, any more than in society, being permanent. PEOMISES. A promise may be valuable as well as a service, es- pecially when given for a promise, which is a contract. Men make all their combinations in promises before they complete them in co-operation. We must rely on one another for the future, as well as for the present, so that keeping a promise should be deemed as sacred as telling the truth. For a promise is an assertion which we have the power to make true ; and when we say that anything shall be done, we should feel the obligation sq 124 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. strongly that we can say it is done. When, by proof of our faithfulness, others can thus feel assured, we will be much in demand for employers, customers, at- torneys and for all places where reliance is required. When a promise is made, there is usually some reliance placed upon it, so that to break it is to betray a trust. If we do not perform our engagement, an- other suffers, so that the violation of a promise is a form of dishonesty. To change our opinion is no justification of default; since along with the promise should go the provision for its execution. One has no right to promise what he can not do; and consideration should precede a promise rather than follow it. After making an en- gagement we should consider, not its wisdom, but its execution. Our duties that lie in the future are an important part of ethics, and should be promptly done when they are reached. Others should be able to trust us for the future as well as the present, and believe that what we promise will be true, as well as that what we say is true. The bringing of our promises into truth, or the turning of engagements into facts, is a great part of honesty. People get a property in promises when they are once made ; and every man should regard his promise as his note. He who keeps his promise gets credit, and he can PROMISES. 125 go through the world on promises. He thus has the aid of men — of their services and their property — when he wants it, and not merely when he can give an equivalent for it; and it is highly important in busi- ness to have what we want at the right time. He whose promises are as good as his money may have out as many notes as he wants to circulate. Most litigation arises from broken promises, which lie also at the foundation of bankruptcies and financial depression. Impairing confidence, they stop business, which is intolerant of suspicion. Men's increasing caution after disappointment limits ventures and causes delay. Promise-keeping is to business what truth- telling is to society, the keeping of contracts fully and on time being the life of trade. To take advantage of inadequate laws, or of inaccu- racies in contracts, to escape their obligation, is as dishonest as to omit any other duty. The ability of others to enforce your contract is not the measure of your duty to perform it; and he who takes hold of the law to injure his neighbor is no better than he who takes hold of a club. Litigation should be resorted to only to get our rights, and not to deprive others of theirs. We have more to do as duty than the law requires, and should strive to live so faithfully to our engagements that the law need never be invoked for us or against us. 126 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. VI. GAMBLING. 1. — IN GENERAL. Gambling is a unique form of dishonesty, which consists in getting other people's money without giv- ing an equivalent. That it does not generally succeed does not diminish the guilt, since one at least aims at the wrong. That he risks his own property to accom- plish it does not mitigate the injustice, since he always hopes to get more. Nobody gambles expect- ing a mere equivalent. And that he usually gets less is proof of his folly, and not of his generosity. The gambler commits the double wrong of risking his own money imprudently, and trying to get an- other's dishonestly. And, being sure to create loss, if long continued, he braves poverty in one party or the other. Property should go from one to another only as exchange. To create arbitrary routes of alienation, so that he shall get who has not earned, and he lose who has not spent, is to unsettle all interests. Men become thereby reckless, and, losing easily, want to gain easily ; so that they become in time dissatisfied with the slow way of earning money, and engage in methods of cunning to become rich. BAFFLING. 127 If this be long continued, men will not have their property by any just title; and thieves will feel justi- fied in taking it by their method — without risks — which is scarcely less dishonest. Gambling is a thiev- ing which consists in getting the victims' consent to the theft. 2. — RAFFLING. Gambling is generally done, especially at first, in some form which, from the smallness of the risks, or the ulterior purpose of amusement, goes by some other name. This, however, leads to the common forms of gambling, and is, besides, as bad in itself. As long as we try to get others' property by games, or without an equivalent, it is gambling; and the fact that the stakes are small, or the game interesting, does not change the vice. There is simply the difference be- tween stealing a cow and stealing a pig. To "take chances," whether at a church fair or saloon raffle, is to gamble and develop the gambler's passion. That the object is charity is no mitigation of the evil, since the hopes of the players are excited in the same way, and the stakes paid on the same principle. The fact that the charitable institution has the greater chance of winning, does not make it less dishonest on the part of the players, or more fair on the part of the charitable institution. 128 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. Churches, above all, should shun these games, which imprudently excite in children the passion for winning, and then withhold the chance — thus cheat- ing them as well as tempting them. Enterprises which aim to lead in morality should exclude the vices from their methods. By gambling they teach a bad lesson, and set a dishonest example to enforce it. For to gamble for religion no more purines the sin than to lie or steal for it. And those who learn to gamble for religion rarely stop there, but put to use in the gambling dens the lessons they learn in the churches. Governments also should avoid such methods of money -raising as State lotteries, since by them they lead their subjects in crime, and prepare, by the plant- ing of vice, for their own overthrow, 3. — PARLOR GAMES. Games where money or other valuables are risked should not be tolerated in homes. Parents should be the last to teach their children crimes. And they should be the slowest to believe that gambling will stop at home, any more than that raffling will stop in the churches. The taste and skill acquired in the parlor will find exercise in the saloon, and, instead of pennies, dollars will be risked. To teach crimes to women does not make them more respectable, although it makes the women less so. PARLOR GAMES. 129 For gambling does not change its character with the sex of the player ; and. those who have the regulation of society should not plant schools for spreading vice through the customs. To play for the love of it is dangerous, like drink- ing for the love of it; in fact, it does not become spe- cially dangerous till a love of it is developed. To put up money, therefore, to " increase the interest of the game," is to specially develop the dangerous fascina- tion, which at first is about all that feeds the vice. To play for " favors " or trifling expenses is specially demoralizing as furnishing most playing for the money, and so providing a cheap way of exercising the vice and its passions. The money won at games is as dangerous as the money lost, since by it the winner has a better opinion of gambling, and is more desirous of playing again. The whole practice is bad, and should never be indulged for pastime, charity or business. Honesty should be taught in small things; and parents who teach their children that it is wrong to steal a pin, should not teach them that it is right to win a cent. Money should be earned, not won; acquired by effort, not chance; and received for an equivalent, and not a prize. When men get their money by chance, they want to acquire other things by chance; and, 130 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. instead of a life of work, directed by reason, under law, they want to live a life of lawless luck. 4. — BETTING. Betting is the most popular form of gambling, and therefore the worst. It is equally bad in principle with faro or roulette. The risk is simply taken on a horse or candidate, instead of on cards or a wheel. The money is staked all the same, and is won or lost by chance. No equivalent is given for what is gained, and the winner has no title but luck. This practice is the more deplorable because the games bet on are generally played by youth, so that school boys are early drawn into gambling through their interest in the sports. The tendency to bet has almost turned our games into a business, instead of an amusement; and boys run, row and skate for money, instead of fun. Many have no other business than playing games for betters, while others have no other business than betting on them. The practice promotes idleness, or employment as worthless as idleness. Games should be played for their enjoyment and healthfulness, not for their income; and the object should be to play well, not to guess well. It de- grades even sports to make them means to ulterior ends. Our amusements, like our affections, should be SPECULATION. 131 exercised for themselves, and not for profit. When we sell everything away from life, and barter in our pleasures, we reduce ourselves to simply money-making automatons. Business should not unduly interfere with pleasure, any more than pleasure with business. Above all should we not allow our popular pastimes to be prostituted for illegal gain. When our amuse- ments are captured by our vices, it sometimes becomes necessary to abolish both; so that a pleasure often passes out of existence because of its company. 5. SPECULATION. Speculation may be a form of gambling, since men may bet on wheat or pork, as well as on cards or horses. If they buy or sell because they want the articles, or will place them nearer to those who do, it is legitimate traffic, and the profit legitimate gain; for all merchants buy with the expectation of selling for more. But in selling they usually transfer the goods nearer to their use. To buy, however, simply to sell, and repurchase only to resell, leaving the merchandise always where it is, and having no other object than to get the difference between the price at one deal and another, is simply to bet on what the next price will be. For the principle is the same whether we bet on what the market will be or on what the cards will be. As far as we, or our customers, are concerned, it is a 132 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. game of chance; and the money put up is simply lost or wins more. If it were laid on a faro table the ven- ture would be the same. Speculations on the Board of Trade or Stock Exchange need not be gambling, because values are often bought for investment or use ; but they may be gambling, and when conducted as we have explained they are gambling. VII. BLACK-MAIL. One of the most contemptible ways of getting an- other's money is black-mail, which is threatening to cause trouble unless bought off. By threatening to expose a secret, cause an arrest or assist an opponent, one often wrings from another a payment without any claim. The black-mailer thus sells his silence, his fidelity, or something else in which he has no legiti- mate property. He trades on another's fears, the per- plexities of his neighbors being his stock in trade. He gets compensation, not for doing a service, but for refraining from an injury. Sometimes he sells justice, as by engaging not to inform on crime. He makes money, in short, out of men's misfortunes by threaten- ing to make more misfortune if not paid for desisting. REPARATION. 133 Black-mail is everywhere punished as crime, and, in its plainest forms, is practiced only by confessed criminals. But there are methods of business which approach black-mail ; as starting a competing house with the object of being bought off, or putting a livery-stable on a fashionable avenue to compel the residents to buy the lot. Many feints are made simply to scare others into giving something for de- sisting. Adventurers thus trade on established busi- ness, and sell their power to harm. When lawyers bring suits merely to harass, when prices are lowered to drive out competitors, when bids are made to com- pel others to buy, and when, in any way, it is sought to compel persons to settle where there is no claim, it is black-mail, although there may be some other busi- ness with it. VIII. BEPAKATION. Honesty requires, when there has been injury, that there be reparation. It is not enough to be sorry for a wrong, or to desist from it. The injured person should be indemnified. We are not honest as long as we hold the fruits of dishonesty. Our wrong-doing 134 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. does not stop with the act, but goes with the results. To make right is as important as to do right ; and setting aright our wrongs is a great part of honesty. We can not cut off the past from our obligations. The evil done carries its claims over into the future against us, and they are claims until we pay them. Many of us are thus under obligations to the past. What we can not do we should, indeed, dismiss from our conscience, as from our effort ; but there is rarely a wrong that we can not right, just as there is rarely an evil that we can not remedy. The only cure for past wrongs is present compensa- tion ; and we should see that other men have been treated right, as well as that they are treated right. We ought not to keep the results of our past wrongs even to help us to do right now. Our first duty is to the wronged; when that is done we should see that no more wrong is caused CHAPTER FOURTH, FAMILY DUTIES. Our duties are modified, and often created, by our individual relations. While we have duties to all, we have special duties to some, as we have special loves. The duties between husband and wife, between parent and child, between relatives and friends, and between neighbors and countrymen, are some of these. They follow our opportunities and obligations to love these classes, and are part of one general circle of obliga- tions. I shall speak in this chapter of family duties, and in the next of the wider range of duties which affect the nation and the race. The family is a small state, as the state is a large family. In the first we have a government whose principles are more fully developed in the latter. The duties of the family are those growing out of the relation of husband and wife, parent and child, brother and sister, and of remoter relatives. We have spoken of these in considering the varieties of love be- tween these several classes, and in discussing forbear- ance, tenderness, mutual preference and other virtues 135 136 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. which are specially required in the family ; — all of which look to the pleasant and easy intercourse of men in the most intimate relations. As we are most with our families, our duties, and especially our earliest ones, are mostly to its members, so that their perform- ance gives us our chief moral training, as well as exercise. Love and kindness, we have seen, are the principal of these duties, as they are the principal of our privi- leges, a tender family feeling being the best security for all family duties; so that, when this actuates us, all else will be done. The love of each usually impels him to do more than the wants of the others require; so that a good father, husband or child performs his duties as a pleasure, rather than as an obligation. The members of a family, however, being much together, are liable, in a long life, to have differences, which, if unguarded, lead to alienation. Quarrels in a family should be as carefully averted as war in a State. And the assailant of the family, especially the seducer, should be treated as severely as the assassin of the State. His crime, which is the greatest possible against the family, is high treason against the em- bryo State. CHAPTER FIFTH. PUBLIC DUTIES. PKINCIPLES. 1. — IK GENERAL. The State, we have seen, is a large family, or com- bination of families, and the world entire a combina- tion of States; so that family duties are enlarged to public duties. While these are less specific, and inspired by more indefinite feelings than family duties, they are no less important, since they affect more per- sons and involve greater interests — war, oppression, corruption, and other national and international mat- ters. We live a world life, as well as a family and individual life; and, as some of our actions extend to all men, we must consider what is best for the whole, and take up duties as statesmen, or ruling members of a larger family. For, hard as it is for the members of a family to get along together, who are but few, it is harder for the whole of mankind to do so, with their more varied and 137 138 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. clashing interests, and their greater variety of char- acters. But as the family, by a close and tender love, are held together, and, by a recognition of mutual duties, forbear and help one another, so the people in their public capacity, by a cultivation of love for man- kind, and by espousing certain political principles which express that love, can be similarly cemented. These public feelings and principles, which are more intellectual than emotional (as the passions accompanying them are more indefinite), enter into speculation and literature, and become the subject of our intellectual life. For men discuss with intense interest such matters as popular rights, education, and the future of the world; whereas family matters are kept for private consideration; so that the higher life of man is lived on mankind as a whole — its hopes and interests. Of the general principles whose observance is thus necessary in order that men may live together in States and prosper as a whole, the most fundamental are equality and liberty, whose espousal as theories ex- cites the enthusiasm necessary to unite and impel men in these great world movements. These we shall briefly consider. 2.— EQUALITY. The first and most important of these is equality, which, in a general sense, involves them all, since it is EQUALITY. 139 simply justice. The recognition of all men as equal, or as having the same rights, is the foundation of justice in the State ; and all the political virtues grow out of it. Men are not, indeed, by nature equal. Some are stronger and healthier than others ; some are more intellectual ; some are born to more wealth ; some have received a better education. Yet these differences are not proper subjects for political discrimination. The weak, the sick and the poor have the same interest as the fortunate in voting, holding office, and using the mails. The government should, accordingly, ignore men's natural inequalities in making laws — -should confer no titles, recognize no rank, and notice no religious differences. All should be allowed simply an equal chance, and be scrupulously protected in it. And, to conform to this attitude of the government, we should, as individuals, recognize and practice equality, never taking our pride out of others' inferior- ity, or our humility out of their superiority. Instead of a changing behavior toward the poor, the rich and the official, we should show the same politeness and kindness to all, caring more to preserve this equality than to learn the etiquette of the "classes." It should be part of our own self -respec c to treat all as simply men, and recognize none as eitner better or worse than r linear s other page). Caesar's Gallic War. The Seven Books. ( ;j or Book I trans- lated and completely parsed, see other page.) Caesar's Civil War. Catullus. Cicero's Brutus. Cicero's Defense of Roscius. Cicero De Officiis. Cicero On Old Age and Friendship. Cicero On Oratory. Cicero On The Nature of The Gods. Cicero's Orations. Four vs. Catiline, and others. (For Orations I, II, translated and parsed, see other page.) Cicero's Select Letters. Cicero's Tusculan Disputations. Cornelius Nepos, complete \ Eutropius. Horace, complete. Juvenal's Satires, complete. Livy, Books I and II. Livy, Books XXI and XXII. Lucretius in preparation. Martial's Epigrams {paper). Ovid's Metamorphoses, complete in two volumts, Phaedrus' Fables. Plautus' Captivi, and Mostellaria. Plautus' Pseudolus, and Miles Gloriosus. Plautus' Trinummus, and Menaechmi. Pliny's Select Letters, complete in two volumes, Quintilian, Books X and XII. Roman Life in Latin Prose and Verse. Sallust's Catiline, and the Jugurthine War. Seneca on Benefits. Tacitus' Annals, the First Six Books. Tacitus' Germany and Agricola, Tacitus' On Oratory. Terence: Andria, Adelphi and Phormio. Terence: Heautontimorumenos. Virgil's ^Eneid, the First Six Books. (For Book /translated and completely scanned and parsed, sec other page.) Virgil's Eclogues and Georgics. Viri Romae. ,/Eschines Against Ctesiphon. iEschylus' Prometheus Bound ; Seven vs. Thebes* iEschylus' Agamemnon. Aristophanes' Clouds. Aristophanes' Birds, and Frogs. Demosthenes' On The Crown. Demosthenes' Olynthiacs and Philippics. Euripides' Alcestis, and Electra. 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Tell, Jungfrau v. Orleans, Maria Stuart, Neffc als Onkel, Minna v. Barnhelm, Nathan der Weise, Emilia Galotti, Herm. und Dorothea. Eight vols. 50 cis. each, Ideophonic Texts* Wilhelm Tell, Act I. $1*00. Handy Literal Translations* Cloth, pocket. 50 cts* per vol. 11 To one who is reading- the Classics, a literal translation is a convenient and legitimate help: every well informed person will read the Classics either in the original or in a translation. Eighty-nine volumes, viz. : (Interlinear s other page). Caesar's Gallic War. The Seven Books. ( ;j or Book I trans* lated and completely parsed, see other page.) Csesar's Civil War. Catullus. Cicero's Brutus. Cicero's Defense of Roscius. Cicero De Officiis. Cicero On Old Age and Friendship. Cicero On Oratory. Cicero On The Nature of The Gods. Cicero's Orations. Four vs. Catiline, and others. (For Orations I, II, translated and parsed^ see other page.) Cicero's Select Letters. Cicero's Tusculan Disputations. Cornelius Nepos, complete . Eutropius. Horace, complete. Juvenal's Satires, complete. Livy, Books I and II. Livy, Books XXI and XXII. Lucretius in preparation. Martial's Epigrams {paper), Ovid's Metamorphoses, complete in two volumis, Phaedrus' Fables. Plautus' Captivi, and Mostellaria. Plautus' Pseudolus, and Miles Gloriosus. Plautus' Trinummus, and Menaechmi. Pliny's Select Letters, complete in two volumes, Quintilian, Books X and XII. Roman Life in Latin Prose and Verse. Sallust's Catiline, and the Jugurthine War. Seneca on Benefits. Tacitus' Annals, the First Six Books. Tacitus' Germany and Agricola, Tacitus' On Oratory. Terence: Andria, Adelphi and Phormio. Terence: Heautontimorumenos. Virgil's JEncid, the First Six Books. (For Book /translated and completely scanned and parsed , sec other page.) Virgil's Eclogues and Georgics. Viri Romae. ,/E«=chines Against Ctesiphon. iEschylus' Prometheus Bound ; Seven vs. Thebes* ./Eschylus' Agamemnon. Aristophanes' Clouds. Aristophanes' Birds, and Frogs. 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Applies the principles of correct teaching to the preparation (in one year) for reading Xenophon's Anabasis. Fully tested in many schools. $J*25. German Texts* With footnotes and Vocabulary: W. Tell, Jungfrauv. Orleans, Maria Stuart, Neffe als Onkel, Minna v. Barnhelm, Nathan der Weise, Emilia Galotti, Herm. und Dorothea. Eight vols. 50 cts. each* Keophonic Texts. Wilhelm Tell, Act I. $1*00. Interlinear Tf anslations* Classic Series. Cloth. 20 vol- umes. $1.50 per volume. Caesar's Gallic War. Five Books. Same, Book I, Completely Parsed. See below* Cicero's Orations. Enlarged Edition. Same, Oration I, Completely Parsed. See below. Same, Oration II, Completely Parsed. See below* Cicero on Old Age and Friendship. Cornelius Nepos. Horace, complete. Livy. Books XXI and XXII. Ovid's Metamorphoses, complete, Sallust's Catiline, and Jugurthine War. Virgil's iEneid. First Six Books \ Revised. Virgil's iEneid. Complete, the Tvjelve Books. iEneid, Book I, Completely Parsed, Scanned. 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Same plan as above. $L50* Completely Parsed Xenophon's Anab.t L $1.50* Inprep m New Testament with Notes* and Lexicon* Interlinear Greek-Eng. , with King James Version in the margins* New edition with finely discriminating presentation of the Synonyms of the Greek Testament. Cloth, $4 ; half leather, $$ ; Divinity Circuit \ $6. Old Testament, VoL I* Genesis and Exodus. Interlinear Hebrew-Eng. , with Notes ; King James Version and Revised Version in margins ; and with Hebrew alphabet and Tables of the Hebrew verb. Cloth, %\ I ha'f leather, $- ; Divinity Circuit, $6.00. Hinds & Noble's Hebrew Grammar. $1.00. Dictionaries : The Classic Series* Half morocco. Espe- cially planned for students and teachers in colleges and high schools. Up to the times in point of contents, authoritative while modern as regards scholarship, instantly accessible in respect to arrange- ment, of best quality as to typography and paper, and in a binding at once elegant and durable. 8x5^ in. French-English and English-French Dictionary, 1 122 pages. $2.00. German-English and English-German Dictionary, 1 1 12 pages. $2.00. Latin-English and English-Latin Dictionary, 941 pages. $2*00. Greek-English and English-Greek Dictionary, 1056 pages. $2*00. English-Greek Dictionary. Price $1.00. Dictionaries : The Handy Series* "Scholarship modern and accurate; and really beautiful print." Pocket Edition. Spanish-English and Eng. -Span., 474 pages. $1.00. T talian-English and Eng.-Ital., 428 pages. $1.00. New Testament Lexicon. Entirely new and up-to-date. With a fine presentation of the Synonyms of the Greek Testament, $1.00. ILiddell & Scott's Abridged Greek Lexicon* With new Appendix of Proper and Geographical names. $J*20* White's Latin-English Dictionary, $J,20. "White's English-Latin Dictionary* $J*20«» White's Latin-English and Eng.-Lat. Dictionary. $2.25. Casserly's Latin Prosody* New Edition. 60 cents* Brooks' Historia Sacra, with First Latin Lessons. Revised, with Vocabulary, Price 50 cts. This justly popular volume besides the Epitome Historiae Sacrse, the Notes, and the Vocabulary, contains 100 pages of elementary Latin Lessons, enabling the teacher to carry the pupil quickly and in easy steps over the ground preparatory to the Epitome Historiae Sacrae. Brooks' First Lessons in Greek, with Lexicon, Revised Edition. Covering sufficient ground to enable the student to read the New Testament in the Greek. 50c Brooks' New Virgil's Aeneid. with Lexicon. Revised. Notes, Metrical Index, Map. With Questions. $J.50» Brooks' New Ovid's Metamorphoses, with Lexicon, Expurgated for mixed classes. With Questions* $J.50. What Shall I Do? 50 profitable occupations. $1.00* Going to College* By Professor Barbe of West Virginia University. Says The Evangelist', "Glows with the enthusiasm of a high ideal. We wish it could be in the library of every high school, seminary, and academy in the land." 50 cents* The Scholar s' A B C of Electricity* Can you explain even the simple phenomena about electricity? Do you hate to appear quite ignorant of the very simplest facts regarding the telephone, the telegraph, the electric light, the dynamo, the trolley? This little book states the facts in clear words devoid of tech- nicalities, and in entertaining style. No need to study or commit to memory ; just to read it is to under- stand. 50 cents* Lessons on Practical Subjects* 50 cents* Nearly ready. Who's Who in Mythology? 1000 mythological char- acters briefly described. Identifies and locates instanter every god and goddess, hero and myth that are likely to be broached either in conversation sermon, song, drama, painting or statuary. 75 cents* Who's Who in History? 1000 classical characters and allusions briefly explained. Locates the places, identifies the persons, describes the things, which are constantly alluded to in literature, on the rostrum and platform, in sermons, in paintings, in sculpture and in conversation. 75 cents* How to Study Literature* A novel, a poem, a history, a biography, a drama, an oration, a sermon, or any other literary production, if read or studied as this book tells one how to read and study, becomes a subject which one can discuss or write about in a thoroughly intelligent and comprehensive way. Enables you to talk about a book as if you had really sized it up completely. Just the thing for literary societies, reading circles, and the teacher and the pupil ; also for any one who desires to retain a symmetrical im- pression of the books he reads. 75 cents* Lessons on Manners. Mrs. Dewey. 75 cents. Lessons on Morals* Mrs. Dewey. 75 cents. Ethics for High Schools and Academies* $1*00* Character Building. Inspiring suggestions. $J # 00* Bookkeeping Blanks at 30 cents per set. Five blank books to the set. Adapted for use with any text-book, — Elem. , Practical, or Com. School. Used everywhere. Constitution of U. S. in Eng., Germ , Fr. Paper, 50 cts, ~" What Shall I Do? Na- ture does not give to the ordinary mortal a speci- fic label of his calling, but implants certain tendencies which are not so positive as sug- gestive. Sometimes the latent force lies asleep for years, until some- thing happens to call it forth. And then, as a rule, it is merely a bent, a bias which leads a man on, step by step, gives him as much en- couragement as he needs, but does not in its early stages assume the form of No one knows so well as the teacher how dependent upon her counsel a large number of her pupils are, for their choice as to an occupation. The book has been compiled with two thoughts in mind— (i) to turn the attention of the pupils toward their life-work ; (2) to enable them to reach out into what might seem impossible without this detailed informa- tion. Price $1.00. Send for a sample copy. a positive vocation. It seems at first largely a matter of faith ; and thus the young disciple finds it hard to explain to others the inward urging which he feels toward some particular vocation ; and perhaps he is obliged to bear some criti- cism for his reluctant attitude toward other, perhaps more lucrative, callings. Even he himself will at times feel a sense of impotence and despair, and have fears that he is on a false trail. But again the suggestion — the whispers of a man's true vocation will be heard ; and in spite of himself he picks up the thread and presses onward. If parents would seek for their children, not that which seems best or most expedient for them to do, but that which they can do best, we should not have so many jaded, joyless workers. No one knows so well as the teacher how dependent upon her counsel a large majority of her pupils are for their choice as to an occupation. This book has been compiled with two thoughts in mind : — (1) to turn the attention of the pupils toward their life work ; (2) to enable them to reach out into what might seem impossible without this detailed information. Could any better book be placed in the hands of your pupils for supplementary readings than this? Special discount for class supplies* HINDS & NOBLE, Publishers 3J-33-35 West J5th St New York City Ua m 1$ on manners Adapted to Grammar Schools, High Schools and Academies By Julia M, Dewey Author of " How to Teach Manners " and " Ethics for Home and School." Cloth, 160 pages. Price, jf cents. List of Contents Lesson I- -Manners in General. Lesson II- -Manners at Home. Lesson III- -Manners at School. Lesson IV- -Manners on the Street. Lesson V- -Manners at the Table. Lesson VI- -Manners in Society. Lesson VII- -Manners at Church. Lesson VIII- -Manners Toward the Aged. Lesson IX- -Manners at Places of Amusement. Lesson X- -Manners in Traveling. Lesson XI- -Manners in Places of Business. Lesson XII- -Manners in Making and Receiving Gifts. Lesson XIII- -Manners in Borrowing. Lesson XIV- -Manners in Correspondence. Price for Manners in them. introduction^ 60 cents. Will take other works on exchange \ and make a generous allowance for Hinds & Noble, Publishers 3S-33-35 West S5th St. New York City Lessons on morals Adapted to Grammar Schools, High Schools and Academies By Julia M* Dewey Author of " How to Teach Manners " and * Bthics for Home and School." Cloth, jo4pages. Price, 75 cents. List of Contents Lesson I — The Study of Morals. Lesson II — Duties to the Body. Lesson III — Cleanli- ness. Lesson IV — Dress and Surroundings. Lesson V — E x e r c i s e, Recreation, etc. Lesson VI — Industry. Lesson VII — Economy. Lesson VIII — Honesty. Lesson IX— T r u t h f ul- ness. Lesson X — Time. Lesson XI — Order. Lesson XII — Courage. Lesson XIII — Love. Lesson XIV — Benevo- lence. Lesson XV — F orgive- ne ss. Lesson XVI — Kindness. Lesson XVII — Kind- ness to Animals. Lesson XVIII — Friends Lesson XIX — The Home. Lesson XX — The School Lesson XXI — The Com- munity. Lesson XXII — The State. Lesson XXIII— Self Culture. Lesson XXIV — Nature. Lesson XXV— Art Lesson XXVI — Reading Price for introduction, 60 cents. Will take other works on Morals in exchange, and make a generous allowance for them. Hinds & Noble, Publishers 31-33-35 West J5th St. New York City Appropriating a Classic Having read a book, are you prepared to declare that you have made it really your own? Can you discuss it or write about it in a thoroughly intelli- gent and comprehensive way, as if you had really sized it up completely? There are many text-books on rhetoric, many his- tories of literature, some annotated editions contain- ing directions for the study of particular books. But so far no work has appeared which provides system- atic instruction in the study of literature itself, ap- plicable to every classic, let us say, or to any classic. Such a book we now have ready. It is entitled How to Study Literature, It is a guide to the study of literary productions. Taking up Narrative Poetry first, an outline is given, in the form of questions, which will lead the student to comprehend the sub- ject matter, to analyze the structure, to study the characters, the descriptions, the style, and the metre — of such a work for example as Tennyson's "Princess" or Coleridge's "Ancient Mariner." Next follows Lyric Poetry, with questions for the study of the thought, the mood, the style, the metre; and sug- gestions for comparative study and collateral reading. In a similar way the drama, the essay, the oration and the novel are taken up, and questions given which will lead to a full comprehension of the work studied. The author is a successful teacher in one of the great normal schools. The book grew up in the class room, and so is practical in every detail, not only- adapted for class use in schools, but also the very thing for literary societies, reading circles, and fireside study. The list of terms it contains to designate any literary quality or characteristic one may wish to describe, is alone worth having. How to Study Literature Price J5 cents^ postpaid HINDS & NOBLE, Publishers of Commencement Parts (all kinds), $1.50 Palmer's New Parliamentary Manual, 75 cents How to Attract and Hold an Audience, $1.00 ?t-33-35 West 15th Street New York City SchcQolbooks of ail .publisher's at o:^: stgrc Practical Subjects cloth— Price 50 cents Postpaid — twelvemo. To how many of the following questions can you give off-hand, a clear, straightforward, and reasonably complete answer? If you are a parent, how about your children ? If a teacher, how about your pupils? Every citizen should be able to answer these questions. What is Barter ? What is a Tax ? What is Money ? High and Low Taxes ? Silver Question ? What is a Corporation- How did Paper come to be Mills ? used in Place of Coin ? What is a Corporation — What are Greenbacks ? Railroads ? What is Irredeemable Paper What is a Strike ? Money ? and What are Debt and Saving ? Bluebacks ? What are Savings Banks ? What are United States Bonds ? Endowment Orders, 1895 ? Will the ability to name the vegetable and mineral products of Uruguay and Turkey be as useful to a boy throughout life as a knowledge of such subjects as those named above ? The elementary education of our children is designed to include those subjects which will best fit the majority for practical life as citizens. With most children practical life begins when they leave the grammar school. The question as to course of study is chic rly one of selection; and should we not consider whether, in our public schools, certain of the more practical studies are not sometimes crowded out for the less useful ones? It is universally conceded that a great body of our voters lack knowledge of even the simple laws underlying the questions of the day. Many possess but a vague idea as to the source of Government revenues; and, resulting from this, there exists that widespread semi- impression that the Government has unlimited supplies of money, and that no harm can befall from a lavish expenditure of this public money. Now by treating a few of the more practical questions in a way simple enough for a child to comprehend, may not our school children be given right ideas at the outset? Accomplish this and. when they are called upon in after years to vote on social or practical subjects, they will not be so wholly unprepared as now. In this book the authors in a style at once lucid and simple have presented the topics above enumerated in a manner to enable children of grammar school age to grasp them. Following the discussion of each topic there are interesting questions designed to test the stu- dent's knowledge, and these questions are so arranged that the teacher in the schools may use the subject matter in any or every shape as -material for composition work which, we can assure the teacher public, will prove far more interesting while quite as profit- able both to pupils and teachers as the work in composition generally done in schools along other lines. Hinds & Noble, Publishers ' £1-33-35 West J5th Street New York City Sih.™2iH*ki of ad pul.lit.heis a* one store AText=Book on Le tter= Writing cloth— 75 ce nts Postp aid— 165 pages Believing that the social and business career of our youth demands that as much attention should be bestowed upon Letter-Writing in our schools, as upon Grammar, Orthography, Penmanship, and other elementary studies, we have published a text- book showing the correct structure, composition, and uses of the various kinds of letters, including busi- ness letters. There have been added classified lists of abbreviations, foreign words and phrases most fre- quently used ; and important postal information. Our endeavor has been not only to produce just the book to guide the youth and the adult in social correspondence and the business man in commercial letter- writing, but also to provide the teacher with a text-book that can with confidence be placed in the hands of the pupils, boys and girls, to be studied by them like a text- book on any other subject for class recitations. That our book has been carefully planned for this purpose, and the matter conveniently arranged for class-room work, the following list of the contents bears evidence : Part I.— Letters, Notes, and Postal Cards. KINDS OF LETTERS. Social, Domestic, Introductory ; Business, Personal, Official ; Miscellaneous; Public, or Open. Postal Cards. STRUCTURE OF LETTERS. Materials; The Heading, The Intro- duction, The Body, The Conclusion, Folding, The Superscrip- tion, The Stamp. Type-writer Correspondence. THE RHETORIC OF LETTERS. General Principles, Special Ap- plications. Style and Specimens of Social Letters ; of Business Letters ; of Notes. Part II.— Orthography and Punctuation. RULES. For Forming Derivatives, etc.; For Capitals ; For Punctua- tion ; Special Rules. Part III.— Miscellaneous. Classified Abbreviations ; Foreign Words, Phrases; Postal In- formation. To teachers we will send postpaid at 20% discount one examination copy with a view to introduction, if this leaflet is enclosed with the order. HINDS & NOBLE, Publishers of How to Punctuate Correctly, Price 25c. Likes and Opposites (Synonyms and Antonyms), Price 50c. Composition Writing Made Easy, Price 75c. Bad English, Price 30c. 31-33-35 West J5th St. New York City. Schoolbooks of all publishers at one store. A New Speller 5,000 COMMON WORDS ONE SHOULD KNOW HOW TO SPELL Price, 25 Cents Contents Words Met in General Reading and Used in Ordinary Conversation Words of Similar Pronunciation, but of Different Spell- ing and Meaning Words often Confounded either in Spelling, Pronuncia- tion or Meaning Words Spelled the Same, but Differently Accented Terminations often Confounded Rules for Correct Spelling Rules for Capitalization Rules for Punctuation Words used in Business General Abbreviations Proper Names Table of Diacritical Marks, etc. In cases of introduction we will deliver this book at 20<£ discount =20 cents net per copy — and will take in exchange Spellers in use and make reasonable allow- ance for them. Ask us questions. HINDS & NOBLE, Publishers 3J-33-35 West J5th St- New York City Sample copy will be sent for inspection if desired* NEW DIALOGUES AND PLAYS PRIMARY— INTERMEDIATE— ADVANCED Adapted from the popular works of well-known authors by BINNEY GUNNISON Instructor in the School of Expression, Boston; formerly Instructor in Elocution in Worcester Acad- emy and in the Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute, Cloth, 650 Pages - Price, $J.50 Too many books of dialogues have been published with- out any particular reference to actual performance on plat- form or stage. There are no suggestions of stage business ; the characters neither enter nor leave ; while the dialogue progresses, no one apparently moves or feels emotion. Noth- ing is said at the beginning of the dialogue to show the situa- tion of the characters; no hints are given as to the part about to be played. In plays, as ordinarily printed, there is very little to show either character or situation — all must be found out by a thorough study of the play. This may be well for the careful student, but the average amateur has no time, and often only little inclination, to peruse a whole play or a whole novel in order to play a little part in an enter- tainment. Perhaps the strongest feature of our book is the carefully prepared introduction to each dialogue. Not only are the characters all named in order of importance, but the charac- teristics, the costumes, the relation of one to another, age, size, etc. , are all mentioned. Most important of all is what is called the "Situation." Here the facts necessary to a clear comprehension of the dialogue following are given very concisely, very briefly, but, it is hoped, adequately for the purpose in hand. The story previous to the opening of the dialogue is related ; the condition of the characters at the beginning of the scene is stated ; the setting of the plat- form is carefully described. There has been no book of dialogues published containing so much of absolutely new material adapted from the best literature and gathered from the most recent sources — this feature will be especially appreciated. May we send you a copy for inspection subject to your approval ? HINDS & NOBLE Publishers of 3-Minute Declamations for College Men 3-Minute Readings for College Girls, Handy Pieces to Speak Acme Declamation Book, Pros & Cons (Complete Debates) ' '^Timencement Parts (Orations, Essays, Addresses), Pieces for Prize Speaking Contests (in press). 31-33-35 West *5th St New York City Commencement Parts. cloth— Price $1.50 Postpaid— twelvemo Here is a book full of the real thing, and con» taining nothing but the real thing 1 The models here — every one a complete address — are not composed by the compiler to show what he would say if he should happen to be called on for a class poem, or an ivy song ; a valedictory, or an oration; a response to a toast, an essay, a recitation, or what-not. Not at all! But every one of the "efforts'* In this book is real — in the sense that it is what some one did do on the particular occasion when he actu- ally had to stand up and speak. This entitles them to be designated models in a genuine sense. If you are called upon, for any occasion (no matter what) during your whole high-school or college career, and wish a model to show how some one else has risen to a similar opportunity, we think you will discover by a glance at the list of contents of Com» mencement Parts some illustration of exactly what you require. Note also the lists of class mottoes* subjects for orations, essays, themes, toasts, etc. Besides the above we publish also the following, of interest to those who have to ' ' appear in public on the stage. ' ' And we can't think of any " effort' ' throughout one's whole career that is not provided for — from the little tot's first curt'sy, and along through the school and college years, to the debate of important civic problems by the adult before his fellow citizens : — Pros and Cons. Both sides of live question?. $1,501 Playable Plays. For school and parlor. $1.50 College Men's Three-Minute Declamations. $1.00* College Maids' Three-Minute Readings. $1.00. Pieces for Prize-Speaking Contests. $1.00. Acme Declamation Book. Paper, 30c. Cloth, 50c. Handy Pieces to Speak. 108 on separate cards. 60c. list of " Contents n of any or all of above free on request if you mention this ad. HIHDS & NOBLE, Publishers, 31-33-35 West 15th St *- T - «ty. Schoolbooka of all publishers at one store. Contents of "Commencement Parts." xauor (a) }• Introduction to Commencement Parts* 2* The Orator and the Oration* (a) The Orator. (b) The Oration. (c) The Parts of the Oration. 3* Commencement Parts* (/) A Latin Salutatory. De Nostro Cum Aliis Civitatibus Agendi Modo. (*) Orations. American Ideals. Culture and Service. Education as Related to Civic Prosperity* id) Hebraism and Culture. I*) Marc Antony. If) Modern Knighthood. (£•) The Negro and the South. \ h) The Decisive Battle of the Rebellion. it) The University and True Patriotism. if) The Discipline of Life and Character. I k) The Liberalistic Temper, f /) The Spirit that Should Animate. ( m) Reverence Due from the Old to the Young* Appropriate Subjects for the Oration (1-136). Valedictories. (a ) ' ' Perduret atque Valeat ' ' (Latin)* ib) Service. ( c) For a Dental College. \d) For a College. \e) For a School. (/) For a College. {g) Good Day. LIBERALISM, (j) Mixed Valedictory and Oration : Catholicity* Class Day Exercises. (7) Introduction. {2) Class Poems. (a) O Years You Have Vanished. (b) The Breath of the Spirit, \c) Home. (d) A Vision. (e) Alma Mater. (3) President's Address. (4) Salutatory. 81 Class Day Exercises {continued)* (j) Dux's Speech. S6) Ivy Oration. f) Class Song. (8) Ivy Oration. (9) Class Will. (10) Ivy Oration. (a\ Ivy Poem. (12) Ivy Song. (13) Class Oration— The Old and New, (14) Washington's Birthday Oration. (73) Presentation Oration. (16) Class Oration — Abraham Lincoln* (if) Class Mottoes (1-42). The Composition and Essay. (/) Introductory Suggestions. (a) Model Outline of Composition lb) Model Outline of Essay. \c) Brief Essay. (2) Compositions. (a) Autumn. (b) What Makes the Sky Blue? (c) The Beauties of Nature. (d) Winter Leaves. (j) Essays. (a) Beatrice. (Character Study.) (b) Independent Character. (Descriptive.) ^ (c) Ruskin's « Ethics of the Dust." (Critical.) (d) Edward Rowl and Sill. (Literary.) s (e) Intellectual Improvement, an Aid to the Inui agination. (Philosophical Disputation.) (/) The Survival of the Fittest in Literature. (Literary Discussion.) (g) "Una." (Analytical.) (h) Thomas Chatterton. (Prize College Essay.) (f) Kipling's Religion. (Literary.) (j} The Reaction Against the Classics. (Colloquy.) (k) Memory's Message. (Dedicatory.) (/) Manual Training and Intellectual Develop* ment. (Normal School Prize Essay.) (m) True Nobility. (A College Prize Essay.) («£) Subjects for Composition. (a) Narrative (1-35). (b) Descriptive (1-55). (j} Themes for Essays (1-53). #» After-Dinner Speafciag» (7) Introductory Suggestions. (^) An Address of Welcome at an Alumni Dinner (Is Honor of the College President). (3) Response to a Toast, " Yale and Princeton." (4) Response to a Toast, " The Puritan and the Dutch* man." (5) Response to a Toast, " The Plain People/' (6) Response to a Toast, " Woman." • (7) Response to a Toast, "A Business Man's Political Obligations. ' * (8) Response to a Toast, "The Sorereignty of the United States." (9) Response to a Toast, " Recollection the Strongest In- fluence.' ' tio) Response to a Toast, " The Future of the Nation.'*! f 11) An After-Dinner Story. \i2) A List of Toasts (I-40). 7. Flag Day* (7) Introduction. (2) Recitation for a Boy or Girl. (3) Recitation — Our Country. (4) Recitation — The Stars and Stripe^ (/) Address— Old Glory. (6) Address — The Voice of the Flag. 8* Words of the National Airs. (7) Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean. (2) Hail Columbia. (3) America. (4) The Star-Spangled Banner, (jr) Our Flag is There. ♦• Speeches for National Holidays* (7) Independence Day Address. (2) Lift up Your Hearts. (Fourth of July.) (3) Lincoln the Immortal. (Lincoln's Birthday.) (4) Washington's Birthday Address. (5) Washington's Birthday. (6) Tree Planting. (A Poem for Arbor Day.) (7) Decoration Day Address. (£) Memorial Day Ode — Our Honored Dead. 10* Occasional Addresses, (i) Religious. (a) Growth. An Address before a Christian Endeavor Convention. (J>) To be Kings among Men. A Chapel Ad- dress by a College President. (