Rensselaer Standard, Volume 1, Number 25, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 December 1879 — Half-Made Men. [ARTICLE]

Half-Made Men.

Indianapolis Journal,. • We are constantly having thrust upon our attention “eminent self-made men,” and it is quite Burprising to observe that the list is growing—growing rapidly. Nearly everybody is self-made if he amounts to anything. The dead failures are charged to Providence. Some of these self-made specimens of humanity admit; somewhat reluctantly, however, that they had parents—were born—but after that the old folks drop out of sight entirely. The selfmade men drop out of sight entirely. The self-made article claims all the eredit of the thing—recovery from cholic, summer complaint, chicken pox, measles, whooping cough, etc., to the end of the list. Their growth and expansion and perfection are all their own individual work—as well as their fondness for tabacco, cigars and coU water. They are under obligations tobobody. They are selfmade from the ground up, and they are happy. \ Such reflections swell their importance, and adds to their imagined influence. Once in a while some one maliciously suggests that they are only half-made. That the job won’t bear investigation. Big oodies but little heads, big feet and small hearts, white livers,little minds, half made. It is one of the curiosities of the age that these half made specimens of the genus homo are always trying to lead. They are specially conspicuous in getting up boems. They have remarkable facilities of hitching on to men and eiroumstances —like the fly on the chariot wheel, they take credit of all the dust that is kicked up. They absorb like sponge, talk like parots, think like owls, and hunt like ground moles. A thoroughly made man is alike creditable to himself and to society, no matter whether self made or built up by the combined forces of parents, home, society, law and religion. A half made man is one sided and half sighted, with the half made article. Cunning is knowledge and luck is thrift. To superiors he is a sycophant, while to those over whom circumstances permits him to exercise control, he is overbearing, dogmatic, dictatorial, and in all regards mean and despicaple. Being only half made he Is unable to solve a complex problem, and as a consequence ultimate failure follow his speculations and peculations. There is a wonderful difference between the self-made and the half made man. The former is governed by his inspirations and high ambition, the latter seeks to rise, after the monkey fashion, by imitation, and the long tailed animal’s exploit in climbing the pole illustrates his success.