OCR Text |
Show the discussion is furnished by President Lowell of Harvard. He addsr "It has 'been asserted by military critics that a nation Is never finally beaten In war until it believes itself beaten. With not less accuracy, it may be said that so long is a man lives he has not failed unless he believes he has failed. , The man who rushes ahead repeatedly re-peatedly into the same stone wall has, the kind of head least likely to be affected by the process. He shows perseverance, but not determination to succeed. Wisdom consists In changing the method as the result of experience." ex-perience." ' r . In other words, try butting the head against other parts of the wall until we find a weak spot, Instead of-repeating at the same point of attack. -The careers of-most great men prove that success cones only after a series of failures.. Abraham Lincoln In his younger days tried to be a successful storekeeper, at which venture he failed twice. Goodyear failed ai thousands of experiments before he discovered how to make sticky rubber gum into a useful and usable commodity. William James tried to succeed as an artist, then as a doctor, and wound up successfully as a phy- chologlst-and- philosopher. : So it goes. When failure becomes chronic It's often because we're attacking the wrong part of the wall trying to succeed at the wrong vocation. For every person In the world there's some line of work at which he Is certain to be highly successful. The Job is,, to find it. Instinct will guide us more accurately thah reason. a j BMBBBBMM j, Why FaU7 j SUCCESS is easier to attain than failure, vrole Ed Howe, the retired editor and '. country town phliosopher at Potato Hill farm '. near Atchison, Kan. Right, in a sense, for the ' roil to failure Is harder on us than the road '. to success. EJ Howe's philosophy Is that ; success, after dill. Is not so difficult Trouble ; Is, most of us waste too much time seeking I an Impossible shortcut to it instead of follow- Inf the old reliable road wa hard work, pa- tience, perseverance and Common honesty. One of our national weaknesses is a near- mania for magical formulas. Well never be satisfied until we are able to cure any disease with one pill, have a pocket size radio without batteries, and make life an endless period of prosperity without the traditional spells of fjfpression. Still, that's the right attitude In the sense that It's the only way well ever ; attain the perfections we crave. American ; mentality does not admit that anything Is ; ''in-.poss; tie" except where it applies person- ally to the iudividjal. If we had half the ; cor.f'.J;nce in our individual selves that we ; hive r. cur herd or social group, It wouldn't ; he r.f;-, iry to talk so much about how to To t' ; artltious it often seems that life i.' i.i u- e . series of f.ilures. Success h ; ; tD'..: ' -:-zie fa.'ljres. This angle o(' |