The Cap and Gown

by Charles Reynolds Brown

What shall we say, then, is the highest form, if neither material success nor popular esteem nor the approval of one’s own conscience is worthy to stand in that holy place? I find the highest form of reward named by the Master in the parable of the Good Samaritan, “This do and thou shalt live.” The reward for right living, for loving God and loving one’s neighbor after the manner indicated in the parable, lies in the increased power we gain to live. This do and thou shalt live—live more abundantly, more effectively, more serviceably. The reward of right life is a larger life.

The man in the parable who had been faithful and diligent with the one pound entrusted to him received this reward: “Well done, thou good and faithful servant; thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things! Have thou authority over ten cities.” The reward for good conduct was enlarged capacity and enlarged opportunity for more good conduct. The man’s powers were increased by what he had been doing and his chance for the exercise of them was greater; now, in place of the single pound to be used in trading, he had authority over ten cities. In this sense of increased capacity to meet the increasing obligations of life lies the highest form of reward.

In one of his little books, Henry van Dyke speaks of three ideals of education. The man with “the decorative ideal” thinks it is a fine thing to go through college. It gives one an air of distinction. It enables him to belong to the University Club in the city where he lives. It enables him to refer to “my class,” and to the “good old days” at Harvard or Yale, at Cornell or Princeton, at Stanford or California. He may even be prompted to become a “dig” in the hope that a Phi Beta Kappa key will unlock doors closed to other men. And because he is a university man he feels that he possesses a rare and cultivated taste in poetry and in philosophy, in music and in art. He thinks of his education as a highly decorative appendage to his personal life.

The second man has no use for all this; he has “the marketable ideal” of education. He is one of those “no-nonsense-about-me” fellows. In selecting his courses he has a thoroughly practical eye to the main chance. He is very contemptuous in his attitude toward the study of dead languages or of metaphysics. “What good would all that do me, when I got out into the world?” he says. He thinks of himself as a tool to be ground and sharpened so that in the world of business it will cut where other tools fail. He is intent upon gaining an education not for the purpose of living but for the purpose of making a living, which is a very different thing.

The true ideal of education is “the creative ideal.” The work of the school is not to enable the shoemaker to stick to his last and make more money out of it than uneducated men are making out of their lasts. “Education is to lift the shoemaker above his last, and to carry the merchant beyond his store, the lawyer beyond his brief, the minister beyond his sermon.” The supreme reward for being educated lies in the enlarged capacity one gains for life. The reward for physical exercise, for mental drill, for hard study, for the steady effort to do one’s duty, is to be found in that increased power to live. This do and thou shalt live a larger, freer, finer life. This do and thou shalt be alive at more points, on higher levels, and in more efficient and serviceable ways.

We cannot possibly stop short of that. If a man thinks of his education as only making him more marketable, he has his mind fixed upon material success as the highest form of reward. If he thinks of it mainly as a thing that will win the admiration of his less cultured associates, he is still in the clutches of that decorative idea. If he thinks of it mainly as having value in giving him the consciousness of intelligence and culture, he is still on an unsatisfactory level of thought and purpose.

“Come on up to the head of the stairs,” the great educational processes of the world call to us! “Come on up where you can see and breathe and grow.” This do and thou shalt live; this alone indicates the great end in view. Enlarged capacity for real life is the goal of all serious endeavor. We may or may not gain material success; we may or may not secure a large measure of popular applause; we will beyond a peradventure have a deep, sweet feeling of peace within as we face that way, but the main result will be that, by doing all these things well, we shall gain increased power and capacity for living the life. Here we reach that which is ultimate. “This do and thou shalt live” is the final word on the subject of reward.

The highest return for doing anything lies in the power one gains to do it better and to do more of it. The reward for reading is not in the information gained or in the ideas acquired so much as in the mental stimulus which comes, enabling one to read more books and better ones and in time to produce ideas of his own. The artist goes out into the world to see the beauty of it in tree and flower, in landscape and mountain, in the quiet lake, and in the restless sea. His reward comes in increased power to see more beauty there than other people see and to transfer what he sees to canvas. “I never saw anything like that in nature,” a woman once said to Turner as she looked at one of his pictures. “Very likely,” replied the artist; “how much would you give, madam, if you could?” Turn your face any way you choose and the great statement of the Master about reward holds true,—this do and thou shalt live.

Carry it up to the moral level. The reward for doing your duty lies in the increased power you gain to keep on doing it and to do it better. The reward for loving lies in the increased power to love and to love more worthily. The reward for meeting and mastering some hard situation in life, temptation, disappointment, struggle, sorrow, lies in the added strength you gain to master still harder situations which may arise. In your spiritual pilgrimage you go “from strength to strength,” from one form of strength to another and a higher form, from one measure of strength to another and a fuller measure, until at last you reach the fulness of the stature of Christ.

You may recall that great promise made in the last book of the Bible! “Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee”—what? What form will the ultimate reward take? “I will give thee a crown,” not of gold with diamonds in it larger than the Kohinoor, not the crown of material success. “I will give thee a crown,” not of laurel such as the Greeks placed upon the brow of the victors in the games, the crown of popular applause. “I will give thee a crown,” not of personal satisfaction such as men of honest purpose may be entitled to wear. “Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life!” The ultimate reward for living right lies in the increased power and the increased opportunity which will be ours to live on and to live more abundantly.