[C] This poem has recently been set to music by Dr. Carlos Troyer, of San Francisco, that is as thrilling and soul-stirring as are the words. Copies may be had by sending sixty cents in postage stamps to Dr. Troyer, 1236 19th Ave., Sunset District, San Francisco, Calif.
Sydney Smith once well said: "A great deal of talent is lost to the world for want of a little courage. Every day sends to their graves men who have remained obscure because of timidity. The fact is that, in order to do anything in this world worth doing, we must not stand shivering on the brink and thinking of the cold and danger; but jump in and scramble through as well as we can. It will not do to be perpetually calculating risks, and adjusting nice chances. It did very well before the flood, when a man could consult his friends upon an intended publication for a hundred and fifty years, and live to see its success for six or seven centuries afterward. But at present a man waits, and doubts, and hesitates, and consults his father, brother, cousin, friends, till one fine day he finds he is sixty-five years of age. There is so little time for our squeamishness that it is no bad rule to preach up the necessity of a little violence done to the feelings and of efforts made in defiance of strict and sober calculation."
Too often elderly friends, with the best of intentions, inculcate this fear into the hearts of the young. Never was there a greater mistake or _real_ unkindness. It is nothing that the intent is good. One's intent may palliate any judgment rendered against the offender, but, the unfortunate result, the implanting of the fear, cannot so easily be forgiven. Oh that I could prevail upon older people to refrain from this terribly demoralizing habit of giving advice to the young that inculcates fear. Let me illustrate:
A young man is a clerk in an office. He sees an opening to which his heart and brain strongly impel him, but there is a little, perhaps a great deal, of risk connected with it. He goes for advice to his older friends. They, with their life-work practically finished, valuing their rest and content more than desiring to reënter the battle of life, naturally are wary about an uncertainty. "Why not leave well enough alone? Why run the risk? What will you do if this fails? You will have given up a certainty for an uncertainty," and so on.