LIVES OF GREAT MEN

On the occasion of the death of any great man and the accompanying review of his life and doings, one is suddenly minded of one's own shortcomings and the imperfections that hitherto had lain deeply hidden beneath an ever accumulated mass of self-satisfaction. Then it is that the ardent disciple of greatness pauses in his oftentimes misguided course, and, being seized with a wholesome attack of doubts and misgivings, humbly seeks to mend his ways.

The secret of true greatness, as it is revealed to us in the lives of great men is comprehended in the sum of the two terms vision plus valor. It is the vision which is not so myopic as to be confined to one narrow channel of existence, but which has the power to view life as a whole and to interpret aright the rights and duties of human beings one toward another; it is the vision which is not so steeped in the lore of the past that it is blinded to the great movements and tendencies which are the engrossing problems of the present; it is, finally, the vision which sees beyond the pleasant conventions and pretentious optimism of the present and breaks forth into a life which is so unlike that of ordinary men that it secures immediate eminence for its reward.

Supplmentary to vision is the requisite of valor or moral courage. The world is filled with men gifted with a divine power of vision, but who lack the valor that is necessary to put what they have seen to some use. What would Theodore Roosevelt have been worth without the moral stimulus which prompted his determination to "make the world over"? There are hosts of men who have failed to achieve all that they might have because they lacked this very necessary attribute of true greatness. The vision to see, and the valor to be,--this twofold quality is the secret of success as disclosed to us in the lives of all men whose names are worthy to be recorded on the nation's roll of honor.