COLONEL ROOSEVELT'S PARIS SPEECH. 473 



marred by dust and sweat anl blood ; who strives valiantly ; who errs, and 

 conies short again and again, because there is no effort without error and 

 shortcoming ; but who does actually strive to do the deeds ; who knows the 

 great enthusiasm, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; 

 who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at 

 the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall 

 never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat. 



" Shame on the man of cultivated taste who permits refinement to develop 

 in a fastidiousness that unfits him for doing the rough work of a workaday 

 world. Among the free people who govern themselves there is only a small 

 field of usefulness open for the men of cloistered life who shrink from contact 

 with their fellows. Still less room is there for those who deride or slight what 

 is done by those who actually bear the brunt of the day; nor yet for those 

 others who always profess that they would like to take action. If only the 

 conditions of life were not what they actually are. 



" The man who does nothing cuts the same sordid figure in the pages of 

 history, whether he be cynic, or fop, or voluptuary. There is little use for the 

 being whose tepid soul knows nothing of the great and generous emotion, of 

 the high pride, the stern belief, the lofty enthusiasm of the men who quell the 

 storm and ride the thunder. 



GOOD CHARACTER A PRIMARY ESSENTIAL. 



" There is need of a sound body, and even more need of a sound mind. 

 But above mind and above body stands character — the sum of those qualities 

 which we mean when we speak of a man's force and courage, of his good faith 

 and sense of honor. 



" Self-restraint, self-mastery, common-sense, the power of accepting indi- 

 vidual responsibility and yet of acting in conjunction with others, courage and 

 resolution — these are the qualities which mark a masterful people. 



" I pay all homage to intellect, and to elaborate and specialized training 

 of the intellect; and yet I know I shall have the assent of all of you present 

 when I add that more important still are the commonplace, every-day qualities 

 and virtues. 



" Such ordinary, every-day qualities include the will and the power to work, 

 to fight at iiee(\, and to have plenty of healthy children. There are a few 

 people in every country so born that they can lead lives of leisure. These fill 

 a useful function if they make it evident that leisure does not mean idleness. 

 But the average man must earn his own livelihood. He should be trained to 

 do so, and should be trained to feel that he occupies a contemptible position 

 if he does not do so; that he is not an object of envy if he is idle, at whichever 

 end of the social scale he stands, but an object of contempt, an object of 

 derision. 



" In the next place, the good man should be both a strong and a brave 

 man ; that is, he should be able to fight, he should be able to serve his country 

 as a M Idler if the need arises. There are well-meaning philosophers who 

 declaim against the unrighteousness of war. Thev are right only if they lay 

 all their emphasis upon the unrighteousness. War is a dreadful thing, and 

 unjust war is a crime against humanity. But it is such a crime because it is 

 unjust, not because it is war. 



