Show FOLLOWING THE CALF PATH in mining operations as well as in other pursuits there are many who employ obsolete methods in mining and milling merely because they were used by their fathers bejo P them in many localities where modern modem appliances are within the reach of every miner hand drilling is still in evidence when compressed air or electric power could be profitably and economically employed in the use of drills in other places im in milling illing practice is stubbornly 1 ignored g merely because in years gone by fairly successful results were obtained by the use of crude appliances and crude methods then in vogue the world may be moving forward by leaps and bounds as far as improvements in mining and milling operations are concerned but there are those who fail to realize the fact and who ho still continue to follow the calf path so asmus angly described in verse by sam walter ross who calls attention to the tendency of men to go it blind merely because others were blind before them in the following lines one day through the primeval wood A calf walked home as good calves should but made a trail all bent abrew A crooked trail as all calves do since then three hundred years have fled and I 1 infer the calf is dead but still he left behind his trail and thereby hang my moral tale the trail was taken up next day by a lone dog that passed that way and then a wise bellwether bell wether sheep pursued the trail oer vale and steep and drew the flock behind him too As good bellwethers bell always do and from that day oer hill and glade through those old woods a path path was made and many men wound in and out and dodged and turned and bent abo about ut and uttered words of righteous wrath wrath because such a crooked path but still they followed do not laugh the first migration of that calf and through the winding woo dw stalked because he babbled as he walked the forest path became a lane that bent and turned and turned again this crooked lane became a road where many a poor horse with his load tolled toiled on beneath the burning sun and an 1 I traveled some three mile in one and thus a century and a half they thea trod the footsteps of that calf the years passed on in swiftness neet fleet the road became a village street and an A n d then before men were aware A cites crowded thoroughfare and soon the central street was this of a renowned metropolis and men two centuries and a half trod in the footsteps of that calf each day a hundred thousand rout followed the zigzag calf about and oer his crooked journey went the traffic of a continent A hundred thousand men were led by one calf near three centuries dead they followed still the crooked way and lost one hundred years a day for thus such reverence is lent to well established precedent aa A moral lesson this might teach were I 1 ordained and called to preach for men are prone to go it blind along the calf paths of the mind and work away f from born sun to sun to do what other men have done they follow in the beaten track and out and in and forth and back and still their devious course pursue 1 lo 10 I 0 keep the path that others do they keep the path a sacred groove 0 along which all their lives they move but how the wise old wood gods laugh who saw the first primeval calf ali ah many things this tale might teach but 1 I am not ordained to preach 0 |