It was the same story over again when I had grown older and gone to college. There I determined to row. If ever you are in old England in May, go, if you can, to Oxford or Cambridge, if it is only to see the college races. The river-banks then are green, so green, and the hedges and trees are one waving nosegay. The big buttercups grow in yellow bunches by the brink. Where the meadows slope down to the stream crowds of gayly dressed people are standing, for the sisters and friends of every college lad have come up to see the sight. This is on one side of the river; on the other stretches the towing-path, and along it surge a mighty throng of "men" clad in all the colors of the rainbow, wild with excitement, shouting themselves hoarse. They are out to see their college crew row. And what a sight those crews are! Round the bend, here they come at last, the eight-oar crews, the men's bodies swinging like pendulums, the eight pair of hands dropping at the end of each stroke as one, and then shooting out altogether. With a sweep and a swish they dash by, and the rushes of college color struggle to keep up with them. Ah, the very memory of it makes me thrill still! When first I saw their ease and splendid strength, how simple it looked. Surely, any fairly strong man could make those broad-bladed oars come swishing through, leaving behind them, well below the surface, a clear track of white water. So it seemed to me, and I determined there and then, that first May morning, I too would row. But I tell you it costs something to sit in a good eight-oar. Long months of hard work, obedience to orders, and patient drudgery have to be undergone before the broad-bladed oar comes swishing through as I have tried to describe it. Your back aches, your wrists feel limp as wet strings, and your chest is absolutely bursting, and yet you do not seem to be able to put one good stroke in; the boat slips away from you all the time. So for weeks and months runs your daily experience. But when the rudiments of rowing are mastered at last, when patient attention and hard exercise have made you strong, and taught you when and where to use your strength, then comes the reward. And whatever delightful experiences life may have in store for you, few indeed of them can surpass the exhilaration, the sense of triumphant power, that none know, perhaps, so well as those who have rowed on a first-class eight-oar crew.
Do you see what I am driving at? I have been talking of our pleasures, the things we want to do and choose to do. These, I say, cost us trouble, and a great deal of care and painstaking. If any boy thinks he can command success, even in his sports, without putting into them all the will and all the brains, as well as all the brawn, he has as his own, he must soon find himself left out in the cold. At best he can only be a second-rate. Now this law of life, namely, that you must work hard to succeed in anything, does not apply to us, who are lords of creation, alone. One of the most wonderful things about our world is that the rules of the game of life are obeyed by the smallest atom that lives as well as by "king man" himself. If any living thing neglects or disobeys those rules, that disobedient being, whether it be common or low, suffers for its disobedience. If it obeys those rules, it grows stronger by obedience, and increases and develops its own power.
Let me tell you one or two instances of obedience by the creatures round us to these hard rules of life.
Have you ever seen a little salmon? A dainty, plucky little fellow he is. It takes him two years to grow from the egg to your finger's length. These two years of babyhood are spent in the quiet waters of his river home. By the time the second summer is passed he is about five inches long, golden-sided, with bright crimson spots, and weighs perhaps two ounces. Then he starts on his first great journey to waters unknown. No one knows where he goes, what lonely places he visits, where in the great sea the little adventurer makes his winter home. Certainly the Arctic Ocean is not too cold for him, for the waters of the far Mackenzie, emptying themselves into the polar sea, swarm with salmon; but wherever the little fellow does winter, the climate, food, and life must agree with him amazingly. He goes seaward in August. Next summer he is back in the same old river; and not only that, but in the very pool in it where he was hatched out. He is the same, but not the same; for now he weighs from three to five pounds. In the river it took him two years to grow five inches and weigh two ounces. In those six months of sea life he has gained at least twenty-four times his own weight. There is a reward for you! He felt he ought to go away and fight it out in the great sea. He went, he fought, he won, and now he revisits the old river a very different fish indeed. There is no longer any reason why he need lurk behind stones and dash aside to avoid the rush of the voracious trout. The very trout that once tried to gobble him must move out of the way, for he is almost a salmon. What has made him the strong beautiful fish he is? One thing, and one only—the struggle with the deep sea, and all the deep sea means. If he had been content to stay behind his fellows in the warm clear river he would be scarcely any bigger than he was last fall. His red spots would not be quite so bright, nor he himself so vigorous. Nature whispered to him to go forth and strive and grow, and since he obeyed her, and did his best, she kept her word with him.
Have you ever tried to crawl up on a bunch of wild ducks, or sat behind a blind while your wooden decoys were spread on the water all around you? If you have done either, I know you will agree with me when I say the wild duck is a very smart fellow indeed. His eye is keen, he is full of sense, and very hard to fool. Now his cousin, the tame duck, is next door to an idiot. He cannot hide himself or protect himself in any way. Strangely enough, too, while the wild duck finds one wife and one family quite all he can attend to, the big, hulking tame duck is a regular Mormon, and prefers a dozen wives, and neglects his children sadly. It is not hard to guess why these two birds are so different. The tame duck is only a wild duck domesticated, that is, put in such a position that he could not continue to live the natural sort of life that was best for him, the life of continuous struggle. He is, in short, a degenerate wild duck; his wings are not so broad or so strong, the muscles of his breast have grown puny and shrunken; he does not even want to fly far north in spring or far south in winter. He is content with his farm-yard and puddle. He has stopped trying, and so has stopped growing too.
One more instance I will give you, boys, of the important place this law of struggle plays in the lives of the very beasts. I was visiting some time ago the museum in one of our universities. One of the professors was with me, and we came to a case full of plaster casts of brains, the brains of animals. While looking at these you could, of course, easily compare their size and character, and form some opinion of the intelligence of the animal itself. The professor pointed out to me one very interesting brain cast. It was taken from the head of a rhinoceros that had lived very long ago—lived at the same time as mammoths and other antiquated animals. It was quite a large and well-developed brain. We next went to another case and took out the cast of a common rhinoceros, such a one as lived in our own times, and it was very evident that the present-day rhino was not nearly so large or intelligent as his progenitor of long ago. This seemed at first very strange; for why should the rhino's brain have degenerated while they are still struggling forward in the march of life? The answer is to be found in the sort of battle they have to fight. When the antediluvian rhino lived, the world was peopled with terrible monsters, brutes of great strength and savagery. With these he had no easy time of it. He had to match himself against them. Great strength alone was not enough; he needed cunning as well. Struggle he must, and struggle hard or go under; and he survived because he did struggle hard and did not go under. When, however, most of the monstrous forms of life had gradually passed away, the rhinoceros had no enemy he stood much in dread of. The milder animals of a later day get out of his way. There is nothing to be gained by contending with him. He needs no longer to strive; life comes easily, and food is plenty. Thus it is that a perpetually "good time" resulted in weakening his head and lowering his intelligence. He is, indeed, the degenerate descendant of a noble parent.
So, boys, wherever we look, the same result is taught us. The very beasts of the field can only hold their own by doing their best. We, their kings and lords, must put our right hand to the work, too. We can only live our best life, develop our true self, by striving. The tallest and strongest trees are what they are because they have overcome the mighty force of gravitation that seeks to drag down and hold down to the earth every particle of matter within them. Life, even in the tree, means something that overcomes, rises above a force that holds it down; and yet only holds it down that its most beautiful and best nature may be developed to the full. So it is with us men. The brave man is not he who never felt fear. If a man is intelligent he must, under fearful circumstances, feel fear; but he who, feeling fear, overcomes his feeling and stands unmoved, or does in spite of danger the right and brave thing—this man has true courage, this man is the real hero. You may have heard the story of the officer who, when the cannon balls began to cut down files of his men, stood all trembling in front of the regiment. It looked as though he was terribly afraid. His knees were shaking under him, and his face was set and white. Some one standing near heard him talking to himself, heard him say, as he looked down at his trembling legs, "If you only knew where I was going to take you, you would give way altogether." That, I take it, is true courage. On the walls of a great school-room in one of the largest public schools in England is written this motto—and you cannot find a better:
"So near is glory to our dust,
So near is God to man;
When Duty whispers, 'Lo, thou must!'
The youth replies, 'I can.'"
W. S. Rainsford.