140 With Feet to the Earth 



We in America have been too well con- 

 tent to let such matters take care of them- 

 selves, and perhaps it was the fustian of 

 science that put it away from sympathy. 

 Educators, authors, investigators, artists, 

 all such were idealists ; they were of no 

 account in "business." Truly, the idealist 

 does have a hard time in this world. 

 "Yes," they tell him, "your schemes for 

 the diffusion of knowledge, the liberation 

 of slaves, the payment of public debts, 

 the arbitration of disputes, the permission 

 to animals to live, the purifying of politics, 

 are pretty, but they are not practical." 

 The practical view is the low view. If we 

 would stop trying to get as much money 

 as Vanderbilt, and try to get as much wit 

 as Emerson, as much liberty as Thoreau, 

 as much goodness as Thomas a Kempis, 

 there wouldn't be a better world to live in 

 than this. We may not be equal to the 

 task, nor framed for it ; but we can help 

 the cause of knowledge by looking every- 

 where for facts and setting them before the 

 world in plain speech, and help the cause of 

 wisdom by drawing inferences from them. 



