98 THIRTIETH ANNUAL MEETING OF THE 



essay to write. The teacher told him to define common sense. 

 He came to me and says, "Father can you tell me the mean- 

 ing of common sense?" and I said "Yes, of course I can," and 

 I started in, but I never was so brought up standing in my 

 life. I studied a week and finally with the boy's help evolved 

 this: That common sense is the widest understanding possi- 

 ble of the relation of common things. We live a life of com- 

 mon things and we do not live a life of uncommon things; it is 

 necessary first to have the widest understanding possible of 

 the relation of common things, and next to know our relation 

 thereto, and then to have the ability to see. Raphael the 

 great painter, was asked to define art in a single sentence and 

 he spent a month trying to surround ( as the saying is) the 

 proposition, and he evolved this: "Art consists of the ability 

 to See." Now stop and think about that a moment. Art 

 consists of the ability to see. What did he mean? He meant 

 if the mind's eye did not see the picture before it was painted, 

 the hand could never paint it. Do you know that applies just 

 the same to the making of an axe helve? If a man buys a 

 piece of timber and if he does not see the axe helve clearly in 

 his mind's eye, he will spoil the timber. It applies to the 

 digging of a ditch; if the man does not see the proportions of 

 the ditch clearly in his own mind it would only be a crooked 

 gash in the ground. An Irishman once dug a ditch for me 

 and it was so fine a piece of work I said "That is a ditch fit 

 for a king," and O'Brien made me a polite bow and said, 

 "Your honor, the O'Briens were kings once." That man 

 came from one of the old families in Ireland; evolution and 

 disorder had scattered the people, but they were kingly in 

 their origin and the old man took a kingly pride in making a 

 ditch and a good one. 



If I could get men to see that — if I could see that bred in 

 the soil of human character, and it should be in the character 

 of a man's work.- — I should be doing something to elevate 

 civilization. 



If a man will take pride in his work, pride in the character 

 of his cattle, pride in the amount they produce, pride in the 

 producing power of his farm, that man becomes an intelligent 

 and manifest power. If that man takes no pride in his work, 

 every day he inevitably takes a lower and lower conceit of his 

 duty and the final results are as Mr. Whittaker said this 

 morning about breeding down of cattle — it is a grading down, 

 not up of the intelligence of the farmer. I can take you into 

 communities where forty-two years ago I lived where the 

 whole community was made up of old farmers, as fine speci- 

 mens of men as this country affords. And today that commu- 

 nity is in the hands of men absolutely discordant in character, 



