1525
WAY ^6
*
COPY - 1956
v
The Chemawa American
Printed at Chemawa, Oregon, and Devoted to the Interests of Indian Education
Vol. XXVI
Wednesday, March 25, 1925
WORTHY OF CONSIDERATION
A foolish person never learns, even by experience.
The average person learns by his own experiences,
while the wise person learns by the experiences of
others, added to his own. Right here at Cheniawa,
young people, you have a chance to find to which
class you belong. Make your efforts while here and
enable the precepts of your instructors to save you
from making many a blunder and thus be the means
of crowning your lives with virtue, honor and happi
ness.
Any young manor woman here who will work hon
estly for an education, who will read, study, digest and
follow the rules, teaching and principles laid down
for his or her advancement never need to land in the
poornouse or stand adjudged a fool’s failure. Students
it will pay you to try.
There are two kinds of people in the world—those
who work presistently to a plan and those who just
drift. Those who deliberately choose what they will
do. where they will go, and skillfully and boldly shape
their own course; and those who drift along without
any place in particular to land. The persons who
shape their own course arrive; those who drift never
get anywhere. Success of the real kind, young men
and young women, is always in the individual who
wins it, not in conditions. You get what you pay for,
in character, in work, in energy, and in the ability to
stick. There are few really fine things which you
cannot get if you are willing to pay the price.
No one can cheat you out of success but yourselves.
Every one of you would like to attain success, honor
and influence. Observation shows that a good many
people are failures. Why? Because there are diffi
culties in the way; hard things in the lessons of obe
dience and work. What is the customary way of
treating these things? Do you dodge them? Why do
a good many boys and girls dodge the hard things?
We’ll tell you—because it is the easy way. To yield is
easy; to resist is hard. So it follows that surrender to
obstacles is the rule, successful resistance the excep
tion. But here and there you find a young man or
woman w7ho does overcome every obstacle, because
they have acquired the conquering habit, and we find
them rejoicing in the strength that comes from re
No. 23
peated and apparently easy victories. There seems to
be two ways of dealing with hard problems: First
to give up; yield to that tired feeling, give up in arith
metic because you think it is tough; give up history
because you think it is dull; give up the fight for an
education because it takes too much effort; abandon the
idea of finishing school because it is too hard work.
Follow this trail of surrender in whatever comes up
and then examine your backbone; test your mind,
your moral strength, your ability to do things, and
then see how your whole capacity for achievement has
been weakened until you are incapable, perhaps for
ever, of taking your place where, had you started out
with a determination ro win, you might have been
honored and looked up to.
Instead of being a failure, practically a fit subject
for the scrap heap, try the first method. Grapple the
first difficulty that comes up, wrestle till you down it,
if it take» all day an^ “then some.” Master the
arithmetic problems and taste the joy of victory; mas
ter the hard things in the other studies; the hard
things in connection with your industrial instruction
and see what tonic it is, and observe how strong you
will be for the next day. Master your lower nature,
also, and know w7hat it is to have your own approval.
Do all these things faithfully until they become ha
bitual. Then see how strong your mind has become,
bow you jump ahead in your work, and how’ you
grow7 to be a strong man, or a strong woman.
It will pay. Commence this obstacle-conquering
habit tomorrow morning and take your place with the
really successful—among those at the top.
We wish to enumerate a few of the essential qualities
which will win against all the powers in the world:
1. Absolute, unswerving honesty. Is that attain
able?
2. Energy and force of character. This is a ques
tion of grit enough to stick to a job, to overcome lazi
ness and love of ease.
3. Capacity to do things; ability to secure results.
This is the product of industry; it is the art of mak
ing every stroke count.
4. politeness, manners, engaging address. This
is gained by close, unselfish adherence to the rules for
making a lady or a gentleman.
It is, therefore, in your ow7n choosing whether you
will reap the reward of a few at the very top, or will
mingle with the hungry crowd at the bottom.