All ideas are at
first ideals. They must be. The producer brings forth an idea, but
some dreamer has dreamed it before him either in whole or in part.
Where would the human race be were it not for the ideals of men? It is
idealists, in a large sense, that this old world needs to-day. Its
soil is sadly in need of new seed. Washington, in his day, was decried
as an idealist. So was Jefferson. It was commonly remarked of Lincoln
that he was a "rank idealist." Morse, Watt, Marconi, Edison--all were,
at first, adjudged idealists. We say of the League of Nations that it
is ideal, and we use the term in a derogatory sense. But that was
exactly what was said of the Constitution of the United States.
"Insanely ideal" was the term used of it.
The idealist, particularly to-day when there is so great need of him,
is not to be scoffed at. It is through him and only through him that
the world will see a new and clear vision of what is right. It is he
who has the power of going out of himself--that self in which too many
are nowadays so deeply imbedded; it is he who, in seeking the ideal,
will, through his own clearer perception or that of others, transform
the ideal into the real.
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