374 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



if he did not have it, would hate with envious jealousy the man who 

 had it. And remember, also, that both sides of this shield are true. 



The man roused into furious discontent and envy because he sees 

 other men better off than himself would most decidedly misbehave him- 

 self if he got wealth. Moreover, such an attack is in itself an excep- 

 tionally crooked and ugly tribute to wealth, and therefore the proof of 

 an exceptionally ugly and crooked state of mind in the man making the 

 attack. Venomous envy of wealth is simply another form of the spirit 

 which in one of its manifestations takes the form of cringing servility 

 toward wealth, and in another the shape of brutal arrogance on the part 

 of certain men of wealth. Each one of these states of mind, whether 

 it be hatred, servility or arrogance, is in reality closely akin to the other 

 two, for each of them springs from a fantastically twisted and exag- 

 gerated idea of the importance of wealth as compared to other things. 



The clamor of the demagogue against wealth, the snobbery of the 

 social columns of the newspapers which deal with the doings of the 

 wealthy, and the misconduct of those men of wealth who act with 

 brutal disregard of the rights of others seem superficially to have no 

 fundamental relation; yet in reality they spring from shortcomings 

 which are fundamentally the same, and one of these shortcomings is 

 the failure to have proper ideals. The community that cherishes such 

 ideals and that admires most the men who approximate most closely to 

 those ideals — in that community we shall not find any of these un- 

 healthy ideas of wealth. 



This failure must be remedied in large part by the actions of you 

 and your fellow-teachers, your fellow-educators throughout this land. 

 By your lives, no less than by your teachings, you show that, while you 

 regard wealth as a good thing, you regard other things as still better. 

 It is absolutely necessary to earn a certain amount of money; it is a 

 man's first duty to those dependent upon him to earn enough for their 

 support, but after a certain point has been reached money-making can 

 never stand on the same plane with other and nobler forms of effort. 



The roll of American worthies numbers men like Washington and 

 Lincoln, Grant and Farragut, Hawthorne and Poe, Fulton and Morse, 

 St. Gaudens and MacMonnies ; it numbers statesmen and soldiers, men 

 of letters, artists, sculptors, men of science, inventors, explorers, road- 

 makers, bridge builders, philanthropists, moral leaders in great reforms ; 

 it numbers all these and scores of others; it numbers men who have 

 deserved well in any one of countless fields of activity; but of the rich 

 men it numbers only those who have used their riches aright, who have 

 treated wealth not as an end but as a means, who have shown good con- 

 duct in acquiring it and not merely lavish generosity in disposing of it. 



And thrice fortunate are you to whom it is given to lead lives of 

 resolute endeavor for the achievement of lofty ideals, and, furthermore, 



