The Test of a Man
By Franklin K. Lane
The test is to be in peace what it was in the time of war.
Are you fitted for the fight? The man who knew how knowledge could be converted
into power was the man for whom there was unlimited call. So it is increasingly
to be.
To be useful is to be the test that society will put. Each
man’s rights are to be measured, not by what he has, but by what he does with
what he has. The honors—the Croix de Paix—the richest rewards will go to the
capables, those who are not standardized into “men machines,” those who dare to
venture and learn to lead.
But all must work, and this duty to work and respect for
work should be the earliest lesson learned. And it should be taught in school,
not as an homily, but in a living way, by tying work with instruction, making
the thing learned apply to something done.
I should like to see the day when every child learned a
trade while at school, trained his mind and his hand together, lifted labor
into art by the application of thought. To be useful is the essence of
Americanism, and against the undeveloped resource, whether it be land of man,
the spirit of this country makes protest.
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