Y.M. I can imagine it. I feel all the
horror of it. I could not have endured it, I
could not have remained in my place. I know it.
O.M. Why?
Y.M. There is no why about it: I know myself,
and I know I couldn’t do it.
O.M. But it would be your duty to do it.
Y.M. Yes, I know—but I couldn’t.
O.M. It was more than thousand men, yet not
one of them flinched. Some of them must have
been born with your temperament; if they could do that
great duty for duty’s sake, why not you?
Don’t you know that you could go out and gather
together a thousand clerks and mechanics and put them
on that deck and ask them to die for duty’s sake,
and not two dozen of them would stay in the ranks
to the end?
Y.M. Yes, I know that.
O.M. But you train them, and put them through
a campaign or two; then they would be soldiers; soldiers,
with a soldier’s pride, a soldier’s self-respect,
a soldier’s ideals. They would have to
content a soldier’s spirit then, not a
clerk’s, not a mechanic’s. They could
not content that spirit by shirking a soldier’s
duty, could they?
Y.M. I suppose not.
O.M. Then they would do the duty not for the
duty’s sake, but for their own sake—primarily.
The duty was just the same, and
just as imperative, when they were clerks, mechanics,
raw recruits, but they wouldn’t perform it for
that. As clerks and mechanics they had other
ideals, another spirit to satisfy, and they satisfied
it. They had to; it is the law. Training
is potent. Training toward higher and higher,
and ever higher ideals is worth any man’s thought
and labor and diligence.
Y.M. Consider the man who stands by his duty
and goes to the stake rather than be recreant to it.
O.M. It is his make and his training.
He has to content the spirit that is in him, though
it cost him his life. Another man, just as sincerely
religious, but of different temperament, will fail
of that duty, though recognizing it as a duty, and
grieving to be unequal to it: but he must content
the spirit that is in him—he cannot help
it. He could not perform that duty for duty’s
sake, for that would not content his spirit,
and the contenting of his spirit must be looked to
first. It takes precedence of all other duties.
Y.M. Take the case of a clergyman of stainless
private morals who votes for a thief for public office,
on his own party’s ticket, and against an honest
man on the other ticket.
O.M. He has to content his spirit. He
has no public morals; he has no private ones, where
his party’s prosperity is at stake. He
will always be true to his make and training.
Training
Young Man. You keep using that word—training.
By it do you particularly mean—
