AMBITION 



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AMBITION 



office went about from house to house solic- 

 iting votes. This practice received the name 

 of ambitio, meaning going about canvassing, 

 from ambio, signifying / go around. 



"Vaulting Ambition." From such an ori- 

 gin the word has come to be used to charac- 

 terize that selfish, overmastering desire for 

 power, fame or wealth that stops at nothing 

 until the goal is reached. In this sense it is 

 rightly considered "one of the meanest of 

 passions," as some one has stigmatized it. It 

 was this type of ambition that Shakespeare 

 had in mind when he wrote of "virtue choked 

 with foul ambition," and "vaulting ambition, 

 which o'erleaps itself." 



The student of history finds striking exam- 

 ples of inordinate ambition in such figures as 

 Caesar, Napoleon, Richelieu and Wolsey, Tal- 

 leyrand, and in more modern days, King Fer- 

 dinand of Bulgaria, in whose ambition to 

 make Bulgaria the Prussia of the Balkan states 

 lay the source of the two recent Balkan wars. 

 In literature the outstanding type of unscrupu- 

 lous and futile ambition is the character of 

 Macbeth, as delineated by the master-hand of 

 Shakespeare. Uriah Heep in David Copper- 

 field is a familiar example of overweening 

 ambition, although on a petty scale. In the 

 land of fable we have the tale of the frog who, 

 ambitious to be as big as the ox, puffed him- 

 self to the point of bursting. Mythology, too, 

 is full of stories illustrating the folly of ambi- 

 tion carried to an extreme; for instance, the 

 myth of Phaethon, who was ambitious to 

 drive the chariot of the sun; Icarus and his 

 father, who made themselves wings of wax, 

 flunking to soar to the abode of the gods; 

 King Midas, dreaming of possessing unlimited 

 gold and coming to grief through the sudden 

 realization of his selfish dream. 



Praiseworthy Ambition. As the Roman 

 rhetorician Quintilian sagely remark. <1, 

 "Though ambition in itself is a vice, yet it 

 is often the parent of virtues." To attain 

 great wealth or personal glory a man must 

 usually renounce ease, comfort and self- 

 inilulKrmv; h e must develop habits of per- 

 sistence, industry, economy, study and unrest- 

 ing activity, depending upon the goal at \\ 

 he is aiming. In this way, perhaps, it has 

 come about that the word is now applied also 

 favorable sense, meaning the eager aspira- 

 toward higher things, the steadfast deter- 

 mination and unflagging effort which lead to 

 tin achievement of some worthy purpose. It 

 is a creditable ambition to improve character, 



to develop ability, to reach out after a broader 

 education, to give a higher quality of service 

 to the world. Great public benefactors like 

 Clara Barton, Jane Addams and Luther Bur- 

 bank; captains of industry like Marshall Field, 

 great merchant, and James J. Hill, builder of 

 railroads; inventors like Stephenson, Edison 

 and Marconi; daring explorers like Captain 

 Scott, Amundsen and Peary all these were 

 fired with the high ambition to do some real 

 work in the world. Ambition is a virtue or 

 a vice, then, according to its object and the 

 means employed in attaining that object. 



Ambition and Emulation. Emulation con- 

 sists in trying to surpass some one else's rec- 

 ord. It is emulation that inspires a boy or 

 girl in school to strive for marks and prizes 

 rather than true knowledge and to rest con- 

 tent with distancing the others in his class, 

 regardless of what the victory means to him 

 personally. Ambition is "made of sterner 

 stuff." Ambition keeps the boy or girl, man 

 or woman, constantly pushing forward toward 

 a clearly-visioned goal, ever trying to get 

 ahead oj himself. Ambition looks to the sur- 

 passing of yesterday's record, not a neighbor's 

 achievement. It was true ambition that en- 

 abled the great artist, Joshua Reynolds, to 

 reply, when asked how he had developed his 

 remarkable ability, "By observing one simple 

 rule; namely, to make each picture the best." 

 This suggests the famous motto of the Paulist 

 Fathers, "Let the highest achievement of yes- 

 terday be the starting point of to-day." Such 

 a desire to excel one's own best work is the 

 best kind of ambition. 



Cultivating Ambition. The spirit of ambi- 

 tion is natural to every child born into the 

 world. It is like a young shoot which, prop- 

 erly encouraged, sends forth the blossoms of 

 achievement and grows taller and stronger 

 from year to year; neglected, it slowly withers 

 and dies. Every boy and girl is entitled to 

 home encouragement and help in bringing his 

 ambitions to the point of fruition. He needs 

 and should have home aids in the way of 

 good books and magazines; he needs the in- 

 terested cooperation of father and mother; he 

 needs the loving, helpful hand stretched out 

 to assist him in solving his individual prob- 

 lems. 



Failing to receive such sympathy and assist- 

 ance in realizing his ambitions, on meeting 

 obstacles he finds himself utterly unable to 

 cope with unaided, discouragement comes liko 

 a chill mi: wind and the tender plant of child- 



