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Show IKhKhhhKhKhKHW ALONG LIFE'S TRAIL By THOMAS A. CLARK Dean of Men, Valvei-slty of Illinois. (, 1924, Weitern Newspaper Union.) GETTING AWAY FROM ONE'S PAST j'np'S grievous," an old English J- writer says, though I am not at all sure that he is correct In this, "that with all amplification of travel both by sea and land, a man can never separate himself from his past history." his-tory." We are accustomed ordinarily In making such reflections, to apply the principle only to those things in our past that are unwholesome or questionable, ques-tionable, and to emphasize the permanent perma-nent influence of evil things, but it Is equally true of our contact with healthy or noble or beautiful things. No experience of life, when it is pt-.st, leaves a man quite the same as he was before. One man has climbed Long's peak, or crossed the ocean, or heard a great musician, or seen a beautiful picture, or been under the Influence, even for a brief time, of a .fine character, char-acter, comes away from the experience with a little different view of life, a broader outlook, a higher conception of duty. He can never sink quite to the level he occupied before. Isaiah Harding, one of our neighbors neigh-bors when I was a child, had never been outside of the state. He had ploughed and sown and reaped his crops and had known no other outlook than the broad prairies that stretched endlessly before him. Then he visited the Centennial exposition In Philadelphia. Philadel-phia. The trip cost him one hundred hun-dred and fifty dollars, he confessed con-fessed after he came back. It seemed a small fortune In 1876, but It was worth It all. He was a new man' for the experience, he had seen a new world, he had had an unexpected vision vis-ion and he never tired of telling of 11; he never got away from It. It was a trifling experience which sent me to college an irritating stimulating stimu-lating criticism of my appearapce and my ignorance which I -could not quite forget or Ignore. The young fellow who was responsible for the remark had no thought of the effect of his words, I imagine, but his words bored into my consciousness and I could never get away from them. Ultimately they changed the whole current of my life and thought. It Is true of all of us. Every emotion emo-tion we feel, every noble generous word we utter or thought we have, every experience that is ours, good or bad, leaves a permanent impression upon our lives and characters. No one can ever get away from his past. |