others: as their means have come from
the public, so now they owe something in turn to that public.

No man has a right to leave the world no better than he found it. He
must add something to it: either he must make its people better and
happier, or he must make the face of the world fairer to look at. And
the one really means the other.

"Idealism," immediately say some. Of course, it is. But what is the
matter with idealism? What really is idealism? Do one-tenth of those
who use the phrase so glibly know its true meaning, the part it has
played in the world? The worthy interpretation of an ideal is that it
embodies an idea--a conception of the imagination. 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.--(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 dive