DR. FRANK CRANE'S DAILY EDITORIAL

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 171, 10 October 1927, Page 14

DR. FRANK CRANE'S DAILY EDITORIAL

SYSONBY (Copyright, 1927) CYSONBY is to be placed :in a room in the Museum of Natural History in New York City. To the average man the name means nothing. It might be that of a cigar, a confection, a play or a new author. In fact it is the name of one of the greatest race horses America has produced, and the skeleton will be placed in a new room devoted to horses and their development as ail example of a great race horse. Nothing drops out of sight quicker than a race horse that has quit winning races, unless it is a man who accomplishes something and then stops. The applause and interest last as long as the accomplishments go on. When they stop, people turn to something else. Placid old age is usually the least interesting period of life to outsiders. This is because it is a time of reminiscence, of going over and over accomplishments of the past rather than of achieving new victories. A little over thirty years ago the locomotive Number 91)9 was familiar to everyone. It was the fastest engine then known and had made a speed of over one hundred miles an hour. A few years ago, before it was placed on exhibition, it was almost entirely forgotten, used to haul a milk train up and down the rails where it had once been king. Other bigger and stronger engines had come and its past performance had sunk out of sight. Napoieon said*: "‘My power would fall did I not support it with new achievements. Conquest has made me what lam and conquest must sustain me.” A little cynicism in regard to applause is a healthy thing. The less a person thinks about a past achievement the more other people are liable to think about it. “As a horse when he has run,” said Marcus Aurelius, “a dog when he has tracked the game, a bee when it has made the honey, so a man when he has done a good act, does not call out for others to come and see. but goes pn to another act, as a vine goes on to produce again the grapes in season.” *