Enter Into Life; S. Pettengill

Mr. Pettengill, noted attorney and author, was formerly a congress man from Indiana. This article is from an address of May 26, 1957, before the Cum Laude Society of Vermont Academy at Saxton's River, Vermont. [354 ] He said: "The chessboard is a symbol of life-of all life. The essence of life is struggle. Take struggle out of chess, or out of life, and what is left? In chess I have found happiness." That was 35 years ago. I have never forgotten his words and have often said to young parents, ;;;;Don'ttake struggle out of your children's lives." The instinct of fathers and mothers is to do just that to make ;;;;life easier for my boy than it was to me." It is interesting to note that youth is sounder in this matter than age. Youth revels in competitive sport, whether to do something better than his fellows or to beat some previous record. Even small children, when they invent games of their own, always put struggle into them. Struggle is a blessing to be sought for, not an evil to be avoided.

Achievement Awards We have met tonight to recognize those who have won the honor of a cum laude student. But ;;'honors are silly toys," unimportant in themselves, important only as evi dence of something well done. Those of you who did not win had the struggle as well as the winners-which is the thing that counts. So I congratulate both the winners and those who tried but did not win. I know who is going to get the big rewards of life. In recent years, society has gone ;;;;nuts" on the pusil lanimous cult of "security," guaranteed by government; [355 ] in short, a nation of parasites. The illusion of the age is that people can vote themselves rich. It is a superstition that ~~social security" depends on the promises of politi cians, not on the character, competence, and courage of men. It is a fable and a fraud that the output of society can be greater than the input of individuals. It is a universal complaint that nobody wants to work any more, or only enough to "get by." Employers are frantic for dependable employees. Labor unions have the laudable desire to improve the position of their mem bers, but they overplay their hand when they say: ~~Stretch it out. Take it easy. Do no more than enough to stay on the payroll."

When young people apply for their first job, they ask, ~~When will I begin to draw a pension? How many coffee breaks in a day? How many paid holidays? How long and frequent are the paid vacations? And if I work more than 40 hours in the 144 hours in six days, do I get time and-a-half?" The young men who ask none of these questions are sure to get and hold a job. In fact, such young men have a golden age ahead of them, with less competition than their kind have ever had-and greater rewards. The Strenuous Life When I was at Vermont Academy, Theodore Roose velt was President. He attracted national attention when he said: "1 wish to preach not the doctrine of ignoble ease, but the doctrine of the strenuous life." He said of [356 ] himself, "Let me wear out, not rust out." He told young men to hit the line hard. He told women not to shirk their prime function to bear children. He said this at a time when any woman who had more than two children was considered subhuman, if not a little indecent.

Theodore Roosevelt dreamed nobly of his country, and by the fire of his example, lit other fires in millions of homes. It was said that Washington founded the nation, Lincoln saved it, and T. R. revitalized it. He appealed to the strong side of men as is now done chiefly by marine sergeants and the coaches of athletics like my old friend, Knute Rockne. "Rock" had no use for "lounge lizards" or cCtea hounds" on a college campus. Youth liked that. They flocked to Notre Dame to play under Rockne; and when his players were behind at the end of the first half, they proceeded to pull the game out of the fire because cCWe can't let CRock' down." Italy Becomes a Republic A century ago, Italy was under foreign rule. It was then that Mazzini-or was it his fellow patriot, Garibaldi? -appealed to the strong side of men with these words: cCYoung men of Italy, I offer you nothing but the water of the streams as your drink. I offer you nothing but black bread as your food, and nothing but the blue canopy of heaven and the lights of the eternal stars as your covering at night. But if you follow me, young men of Italy, you and I will be freel"

[357 ] They followed-and Italy became a republic! But today, the general appeal is to the soft side of men -envy, sell-pity, covetousness, 'class hatred. Our elec tions have become auctions in which rival politicians of both the old parties outbid each other by opening the door of the treasury in exchange for votes. "Come and get it" is the slogan as people become the vandals of their own country and "bread and circuses" the formula for political advancement. In the educational £leld, men like John Dewey have tried to eliminate struggle from the classroom. No re quired subjects! No examinations! They develop inferi ority complexes, rather than the challenge to do better. Never punish a child. Children should be wholly free. And so forth. With the result that employers despair because "Johnny can't read and Mabel can't spell." So we have cities with few citizens, but many who wish to share the blessings of liberty, but shirk its burdens.

Challenge Needed This is not the spirit of 1776, nor of the great chess master, nor of Theodore Roosevelt. America needs a re birth of C'the strenuous life" and I know I am talking to young men who will take their part in it. It was said of those who crossed the Appalachians down into the valleys of the Ohio, the Mississippi, and the Missouri and pushed the frontiers of freedom to the Paci£lc shore that C'the cowards never started and the [358 ] weak never arrived. With no capital save courage and no resource except resourcefulness they built the Amer ican empire." Here are the hundreds of miles of stone walls of Ver mont-every stone dug from the ground and moved to where it now lies by ox-power and human muscle alone. We think of the pyramids of Egypt, and the tens of thousands of slaves who dragged the huge stones· across the desert under the whips of their masters. It is my guess that the stone walls of Vermont represent more toil than the pyramids. But the walls were laid by the free choice of free men. "They scorned delights and lived laborious days."

It is good to have a school for young men in sight of those stone walls! Avoid struggle and life becomes sterile, vapid, and meaningless. Our mental hospitals are being filled with thousands of neurotics, many of whom feel inadequate to meet life because they were protected from taking the bumps in childhood. No man was ever greater than the difficulties he over came. Great difficulties, great men. Small difficulties, small men. From struggle comes strength-and physical and mental health. It is only struggle that calls forth hidden powers we do not know we have. The great psychologist, William James, said the average person does not put forth more than 10 per cent of his potential. Let me tell you a story of my great-grandfather, Peter Pettengill, who came to Vermont in 1787. One time his [359 ] hired man was chopping down trees in the virgin forest and did not come to the house at noon for lunch. My great-grandfather went to see what was wrong. He found that a tree had fallen on the hired man and killed him.

With nothing but the strength of his own powerful body, Peter lifted the tree off the dead man and carried him to the house. Whence Came His Strength? Whence came his strength to do that? From the chal lenge before him. That tree was never cut into timber or firewood. It lay where it fell. Other strong men in the neighborhood came and tried to lift the tree. They could not. Why? Because they did not have the incentive that Peter had. Nor could Peter himself ever lift the tree again. The incentive was gone. You have all seen athletes at times "play over their heads." Why? Because of the challenge and its accept ance. It is men who have counted struggle as a blessing who got the big rewards of life. As Emerson said, "God keeps an honest account with men." The hard surgical cases, where life hangs on a heart beat, do not go to the dilettante surgeon. The tough engineering problem, like building a bridge across a mighty river, does not go to the engineer who has always looked for the easy jobs. And the same for lawyers and top executives in business.

If at times you feel that you have not had the same [360 ] chance that others have, ask yourself what chance did Abraham Lincoln have? Remember that "it is not so much the size of the dog in the fight that counts, but the size of the fight in the dog." You young men face a time of struggle with an enemy of your country more dangerous than King George III in 1776-the godless Caesars of atheistic communism. Face up to it. Lick it. Put it and all its teachings out of our schools, churches, public affairs, and private life. What our fathers bequeathed us is still "the last best hope of earth." Save it for your boys and girls. Remember robust Robert Browning: "I count life just a stuff to try. the soul's strength on, educe the man." Remember Tennyson's Ulysses and the old Greeks "who ever with a frolic welcome took the thunder and the sunshine"-the hard hours with the same zest as the pleasant ones.

Remember the poem of the frontier: I dream no dream of a nursemaid state That spoons me out my food. No, the stout heart sings in its strife with fate, For the toil and the sweat are good. [361 ] ON SHARING PROFITS MUCH ado is adrift about profit sharing, or more specifi cally the extent to whioh employees should share in profits. How can a sound decision be arrived at? What is the principle involved? The first step is to separate the matter of profit sharing from separate issues with which it is commonly con fused. For instance, a business may be in trouble with employees through some fault of one or the other. A strike may be threatened or in progress. Employees' demands are resisted by the employer until appeasement is resorted to in order to try to continue production. The employees, in fishing for favors, may include profit shar ing as one form of bait, along with things like a new bowling alley, vacation trips to Florida, or what not.