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)