lists, 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.--(curious that
scarcely one mentioned reading!). It so happens that no one enjoys some
of these play-forms more than Bok; but "God forbid," he said, "that I
should spend the rest of my days in a bunker or in the saddle. In
moderation," he added, "yes; most decidedly." But the phrase of "play"
meant more to him than all this. Play is diversion: exertion of the mind
as well as of the body. There is such a thing as mental play as well as
physical play. We ask of play that it shall rest, refresh, exhilarate.
Is there any form of mental activity that secures all these ends so
thoroughly and so directly as doing something that a man really likes to
do, doing it with all his heart, all the time conscious that he is
helping to make the world better for some one else?

A man's "play" can take many forms. If his life has been barren of books
or travel, let him read or see the world. But he reaches his high estate
by either of these roads only when he reads or travels to enrich himself
in order to give out what he gets to enrich the lives of others. He owes
it to himself to get his own refreshment, his own pleasure, but he need
not make that pure self-indulgence.

Other men, more active in body and mind, feel drawn to the modern arena
of the great que