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About The Chemawa American (Chemawa, Or.) 19??-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 1, 1930)
Printed at Chemawa, Oregon, and Devoted to the Interests of Indian Education Wednesday, Oct. 1, 1930 Vol. XXXII OUR POTENTIALITIES Our possibilities are greater than we know. In the majority of us there are lying dormant sources of power of which we little dream. Not having attempted to utilize these powers, few of us even sense their possession. As we can develop muscle, so may we develop brains. Many of us use but a smr 11 part of our lungs in breathing, and, it often seems, even a lesser amount of brains in thinking. We just don’t, that’s all! Why? How can any of us sense our potentialities if we never undertake to discover that we possess them? That is the question and the answer. We must all be pioneers, discoverers, in developing our own latent powers. Each human being knows better than any other the forces which he, himself, has within him It is his duty to “discover himself.” There are few of us who would not be useful citizens could we but find the thing of greatest appeal for us —the thing above all others that we would rather do. Some lack energy and fancy that some one should direct them during all of their days—do their thinking for them. Others of some energy but no initiative imagine that they are held back by all sorts of bar riers. A little study and investigation will prove that many of these obstacles, these barriers, are creatures of the mind and are far from real. It is not wise to allow inexperience and a natural reserve and timidity to hold one in fetters, when one might soar to the heights. Now, is it? On every hand we see students failing to do their best in study and work. In fact, few there are who could not put a little more thought and desire and de termination into their work and thus do a trifle better, no matter how good their past records for achievement may have been. It is not students alone w’ho are often held in leash by fancied barriers: On every hand we see men and women held in slavery by drugs, by im morality, inertia, laziness, selfishness and greed, im prisoned by barriers of their own construction. It is often true that as you think so you are. If you fancy that you are a slave to this or that condition, so you are—but you, yourself, are the sponsor for your slavery. As it is with people so it is with ani mals. We once read of a man who drove a beautiful horse into the city every morning from his country estate. On arriving at the city, the man would tie the horse to the hitching post with the flimsiest sort No. 4 of a halter. At the end of his day in town the man would find his horse standing just as he had left him. The animal possessed abundant power to have freed himself, but he didn’t. Why? Like some unthink ing people, he thought he couldn’t. We are reminded of a story published quite a num ber of years ago; it is a good story and helps the truths that we are attempting to bring home—read it for yourself: “When Sir Charles Napier and his expedition party cornered a large number of elephants in Bengal, they were at a loss to know how they could confine them. Someone suggested that they build a stockade of bam boo poles around the elephants, so large as to appear to be a formidable barrier through which they could not break. This they did, and it proved so successful that the elephants never made any attempt to break through the flimsy barrier which kept them in captiv ity. They were slaves to captivity simply because they thought they were confined within solid barriers.” How many people are just as foolish as these de luded elephants. We imagine ourselves held back by all kinds of impediments; we are the slaves of all sorts of bamboo barriers. Had the elephants in Sir Charles Napier’s bamboo stockade but leaned against the walls they would have broken through, but they did not even try. How many of us are much as were the elephants of Sir Charles Napier? We walk up and down, to and fro, and bemoan our fate, awful conditions, unsur- mountable obstacles, etc., but we never make a serious and continuous assault on the walls about us. The very thought of all this makes ye scribe resolve to do a little better himself; will you, reader, join us in the attempt? CHARACTER AND ASSOCIATION In intellect, Madame Roland was one of the most remarkable women of the eighteenth century, and in the romantic interest of her life, she is second among the heroines of the French Revolution only to Char lotte Corday. On June 1st, 1793, Madame Roland was arrested, and on November 8th, 1793, was carried to the guillotine in the Place de la Revolution, where the scaffold was overlooked by a statue of Liberty, which she addressed in her celebrated apostrophe, “O Liberty, what crimes are committed in thy name!” Following will be found a little essay on “Character (Continued on page 3)
