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Show URGE OF MANKIND TO "DO SOMETHING" Mental Growth Achieved by the Effort. Bodily hunger has driven man to find ways of getting food. lie has pushed back the shadows of forests and planted fields and gardens. He has drained marshes and Irrigated arid regions. He has invented hoes and plows and harvesters to take the place of naked hands in gathering gather-ing sustenance for himself and his family. There is no more impelling motive to effort In all the range of human existence than hunger except ex-cept the sight of a starving child for whose nourishment one has a responsibility. respon-sibility. Professor Jacks has called attention atten-tion to another kind of hunger which is general in mankind an urge to something even beyond what one has achieved, a craving for skill. It is the repeated satisfaction of this hunger, hun-ger, ever renewed, that results in mental growth and the highest sort of happiness. It is often questioned whether education has increased happiness hap-piness in the Individual. It may be that the mere addition of information does not contribute to the making of a happier human being. But the continuing struggle for higher skill in some worthy field of human effort "creative activity" is the phrase most often used to describe it not only brings nourishment of spirit and happiness hap-piness but adds to the wealth of the world in terms of human intellectual values. The greatest skills of the greatest number may determine the greatest good of the greatest number. num-ber. Certainly it would if the choice of skills were wise and that does not mean if the skills merely produced pro-duced materially valuable things. Plutarch remarks, in his essay on Pericles, that he who busies himself in mean occupations produces, in the very pains he takes about things of little or no use, an evidence against himself of his negligence and indisposition indis-position to do what Is really good. But the something which one does with infinite pains may be of good in the development of the individual who does it, even if the product is not of valuable substance. Ismenias could not have been a "wretched being," be-ing," for he was an "excellent" piper. Alexander the Great need not have been ashamed, as his practical fa ther, Philip of Macedon, thought he should have been, for playing a piece of music so charmingly and skillfully. Leisure "hobbles" are for increasing numbers who cannot find in the narrow nar-row range of their vocations their salvation. The mind's desire for excellence in something is a mystery, but it does after all suggest the course which our education must take In the development de-velopment not only of the child but also of the man and woman to the end of their lives. And with tills sort of training should be given, as Doctor Jacks suggests in his three "reforms," a larger place to physical education and the appreciation ot beauty. New York Times. |