THETRIUMPHS OF ENTERPRISE.
THETRIUMPHS OF ENTERPRISE.
THE
TRIUMPHS OF ENTERPRISE.
Without Enterprise there would have been no civilization, and there would now be no progress. To try, to attempt, to pass beyond an obstacle, marks the civilized man as distinguished from the savage. The advantage of passing beyond a difficulty by a single act of trial has offered itself, in innumerable instances, to the savage, but in vain; it has passed him by unobserved, unheeded. Nay, more: when led by the civilized man to partake of the advantages of higher life, the savage has repeatedly returned to his degradation. Thus it has often been with the native Australian. A governor of the colony, about sixty years ago, by an innocent stratagem took one of the native warriors into his possession, and strove to reconcile him to the habits of civilized life. Good clothes and the best food were given him; he was treated with the utmost kindness, and, when brought to England,the attention of people of distinction was lavished upon him. The Australian, however, was at length relanded in his own country, when he threw away his clothes as burdensome restraints upon his limbs, displayed his ancient appetite for raw meat, and in all respects became as rude as if he had never left his native wilderness. Another trial was made by a humane person, who procured two infants—a boy and a girl—believing that such an early beginning promised sure success. These young Australians were most carefully trained, fed, and clothed, after the modes of civilized Europe, and inured to the customs of our most improved society. At twelve years old they were allowed to choose their future life, when they rejected without hesitation the enjoyments of education, and fled to their people in the back-ground to share their famine, nakedness, and cold.
A savage would perish in despair where the civilized man would readily discover the mode of extricating himself from difficulty; and yet, in point of physical strength, it might be that the savage was superior. Enterprise is thus clearly placed before the young reader as a quality of mind. He may display it without being gifted with strong corporeal power; it depends on thought, reflection, calculation of advantage. Whoever displays it is sure to be in some degree regarded with attention by his fellow men; it wins a man the way to public notice, and often to high reward, almost unfailingly. But the purpose of the ensuing pages is not to place false motives before the mind; to display anyexcellence with a view expressly to notice and reward and not from the wish to do good or to perform a duty, is unworthy of the truly correct man. The promptings of duty and beneficence are evermore to be kept before the mind as the only true guides to action.
In the instances of Enterprise presented in this little volume, the young reader will not discover beneficence to have been the invariable stimulant to action. Where the actor displays a deficiency in the high quality of mercy, the reader is recommended to think and judge for himself. The instances have been selected for their striking character, and the reader must class them justly. Let him call courage by its right name; and when it is not united with tenderness, let the act be weighed and named at its true value.