Part 22 (1/2)

”Insanely ideal” was the term used of it

The idealist, particularly to-day when there is so great need of hih him that the world will see a new and clear vision of what is right It is he who has the power of going out of himself--that self in which toothe ideal, will, through his own clearer perception or that of others, transform the ideal into the real ”Where there is no vision, the people perish”

It was his remark that he retired because he wanted ”to play” that Edward Bok's friends most coolf, horseback, polo, travel, etc--(curious that scarcely one !) It so happens that no one enjoys some of these play-forms more than Bok; but ”God forbid,” he said, ”that I should spend the rest of my days in a bunker or in the saddle

In moderation,” he added, ”yes; most decidedly” But the phrase of ”play” meant more to him than all this Play is diversion: exertion of theas mental play as well as physical play We ask of play that it shall rest, refresh, exhilarate Is there any forhly and so directly as doing so it with all his heart, all the ti to make the world better for some one else?

A man's ”play” can take many forms If his life has been barren of books or travel, let hih estate by either of these roads only when he reads or travels to enrich hiets to enrich the lives of others He owes it to hiet his own refreshment, his own pleasure, but he need not ence

Other men, more active in body and reat questions that puzzle It oes in these th of a step matters so much as does the direction in which the step is taken He should seek those questions which engross his deepest interest, whether literary, musical, artistic, civic, economic, or what not

Our cities, towns, communities of all sizes and kinds, urban and rural, cry out for men to solve their problems There is room and to spare for theto the age of retirement, which was definitely fixed by rule, to a rural life, when they hied themselves to a little home in the country, had open house for their friends, and ”kept bees” While bee-keeping is unquestionably interesting, there are today other andthe retired A is to secure that freedoo where he will and do what he thinks he can do best, and prove to himself and to others that the acquirement of the dollar is not all there is to life Nohe feels the exhilaration, the sense of freedos and control his own goings Time is of more value than money, and it is that which the man who retires feels that he possesses Hamilton Mabie once said, after his retirement from an active editorial position: ”I am so happy that the time has come when I elect what I shall do,” which is true; but then he added: ”I have rubbed out the word 'must' from my vocabulary,” which was not true No man ever reaches that point Duty of some sort confronts a man in business or out of business, and duty spells ”must” But there is less ”must” in the vocabulary of the retiredof joy to the new day

It is a wonderful inner personal satisfaction to reach the point when a h” His soul and character are refreshed by it: he is ets a sense of a new joy; he feels, for the first ti that he never knew before, freedoht time, when he is at the summit of his years and powers and at the most opportune moment in his affairs, he has that supreme satisfaction denied to so many men, the opposite of which comes home with such cruel force to them; that they have overstayed their time: they have worn out their welcohly satisfies as that of going while the going is good

Still----

The friends of Edward Bok ht when they said he made a mistake in his retireood thing, so, Hinnessey: it's whin they've got ye'er er”

Edward Bok's friends have failed to get his measure,--yet!

They still have to learn what he has learned and is learning every day: ”the joy,” as Charles La about and around instead of to and fro”

The question now naturally arises, having read this record thus far: To what extent, with his unusual opportunities of fifty years, has the Aone? How far is he, to-day, an American? These questions, so direct and personal in their nature, are perhaps best answered in a way more direct and personal than the method thus far adopted in this chronicle We will, therefore, let Edward Bok answer these questions for hi this record of his Americanization

CHAPTER XXI

WHERE AMERICA FELL SHORT WITH ME

When I came to the United States as a lad of six, the most needful lesson for ht in my home across the sea that thrift was one of the fundamentals in a successful life My family had come from a land (the Netherlands) noted for its thrift; but we had been in the United States only a few days before the realization caht their children to a land of waste

Where the Dutchman saved, the Aal waste, on every hand In every street-car and on every ferry-boat the floors and seats were littered with newspapers that had been read and throay or left behind If I went to a grocery store to buy a peck of potatoes, and a potato rolled off the heapingit up, kicked it into the gutter for the wheels of his wagon to run over The butcher's waste filled ht a scuttle of coal at the corner grocery, the coal thatshovelled up and put back into the bin, ept into the street My young eyes quickly saw this; in the evening I gathered up the coal thus swept away, and during the course of a week I collected a scuttleful The first tie pail of a family almost as poor as our oith the wife and husband constantly co, she could scarcely believe her eyes A half pan of ho day's breakfast lay in the pail next to a third of a loaf of bread In later years, when I saw, daily, a scow loaded with the garbage of Brooklyn householders being towed through New York harbor out to sea, it was an easy calculation that as throay in a week's time from Brooklyn homes would feed the poor of the Netherlands

At school, I quickly learned that to ”saveman, I soon found that the American disliked the word ”econorew There was literally nothing in A to teach ood salaries in their prime, reach the years of incapacity as dependents I saw fa quite up to their means or beyond them; rarely within them The more a man earned, the more he--or his wife--spent I saw fathers and mothers and their children dressed beyond their incoreater than those who saved When a panic came, the families ”pulled in”; when the panic was over, they ”let out” But the end of one year found them precisely where they were at the close of the previous year, unless they were deeper in debt

It was in this atal expenditure and culpable waste that I was to practise thrift: a fundan-born coement to save For as it was in the days of o over the experiences of the past two years, to co-classes and the statehout the country, to read the story of how the foreign-born are learning the habit of criht them by the American

Is it any wonder, then, that in this, one of the essentials in life and in all success, A to fall short with every foreign-born who comes to its shores?

As a Dutch boy, one of the cardinal truths taughtwell: that next to honesty coh that anything should be done: it was not done at all if it was not done well I caht exactly the opposite The two infernal Ah” and ”That will do” were early taught ether with the maxim of quantity rather than quality