THE LACK OF GREAT MEN.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9089, 14 May 1908, Page 4

THE LACK OF GREAT MEN.

Do we lack great men? This is the interesting problem which Mr Arthur C. Benson analyses in the "Cornhill Magazine." Here are some points he makes:—"lt is often mournfully reiterate 1 that the present age is not an age of great men, and I have sometimes wondered if it is true. In the first place i do not feel sure that an age is the best judge of its own greatness; a great age is generally more interested in doing the things which afterwards cause it to be considered great than in wondering whether it is great. Perhaps the fact that we are on the look-out for great men, and complaining because we camut find them, is the best proof of our second-rateness; I do not imagine that the Elizabethan writers were much concerned with thinking whether they were great or not; they were much more occupied in having a splendid time, and in saying as eagerly as they could all ths delightful thoughts which came crowding to the utterance than in pondering whether they were worthy of admiration. To go about searching for somebody to inspire one testifies, no doubt, to a certain lack of fire and initiative. But, on the other hand, there have been many great men whose gieatnesr their contemporaries did not recognise. We tend at the present time to honour achievements when they have begun to grow a little mouldy; we seldom accord ungrudging admiration to a prophet when he is at his best. Moreover, in an age like the present, when the general average of accomplishment is remarkably high, it is more difficult to detect greatness. It is easier to see big trees when they stand out over a copse than when they are lost in the depths of the forest."