All ideas are at first ideals.
They must be. The producer brings forth an idea, but some dreamer has
dreamed it before him either in whole or in part.
Where would the human race be were it not for the ideals of men? It is
idealists, in a large sense, that this old world needs to-day. Its soil
is sadly in need of new seed. Washington, in his day, was decried as an
idealist. So was Jefferson. It was commonly remarked of Lincoln that he
was a "rank idealist." Morse, Watt, Marconi, Edison--all were, at first,
adjudged idealists. We say of the League of Nations that it is ideal,
and we use the term in a derogatory sense. But that was exactly what was
said of the Constitution of the United States. "Insanely ideal" was the
term used of it.
The idealist, particularly to-day when there is so great need of him, is
not to be scoffed at. It is through him and only through him that the
world will see a new and clear vision of what is right. It is he who has
the power of going out of himself--that self in which too many are
nowadays so deeply imbedded; it is he who, in seeking the ideal, will,
through his own clearer perception or that of others, transform the
ideal into the real. "Where there is no vision, the people perish."
It was his remark that he retired because he wanted "to play" that
Edward Bok's friends most completely misunderstood. "Play" in their
minds meant tennis, golf, horseback, polo, travel, etc.
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