Music Trade Review

Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
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THE
VOL. LXI. N o . 3
I
Published Every Saturday by Edward Lyman BUI at 373 Fourth Ave., New York, July 17,1915
SING E
^ OO C PE I R ES ^E 1 AR CENTS
T is by comparisons that we are enabled to estimate values and we can also, by comparisons,
estimate what kind of progress the world has accomplished in the liberal arts and sciences
during the past half century.
Recently, while in a piano wareroom a friend called my attention to a piano which was
more than fifty years old, and it had well withstood the ravages of time and was in fairly good condi-
tion. By the side of it he moved up a 1915 model. The contrast was somewhat startling. It was a
practical demonstration of the progress which has been made in piano making in America since
the close of the Civil War, and I believe that the work of men in any trade or profession will show
almost as great an improvement as in the piano trade.
This is an active, virile age. Competition in all lines has developed the human brain to a sense
of keener appreciation of the instability of business success unless guided by a progressive hand.
Progress is based on knowledge. The more we know the more successful we shall be.
I contend that the trouble to-day is not so much a lack of opportunity as it is a lack of men who
are capable.of taking advantage of the opportunities that are close to them.
The people who enjoy real success in life are those who give a proper amount of thought to
the development of the brain.
It is to the brain of man that the world owes its progress in every line—every division of indus-
trial art.
If we, as a race, had permitted our brain to become atrophied, or to go to waste, and devoted
our thoughts and efforts exclusively to the building of muscle, we should have become nothing more
nor less than a race of fighting animals. The body would have become developed at the expense of
the brain.
It is because men were ambitious to excel that we have succeeded in making the gigantic strides
that have brought us to the plane of civilization which we now occupy.
Life is a question of absolute cause and effect. What you are to-day is the effect of the cause
that started to operate within you yesterday, or some day before. What you are to become
to-morrow can be foretold just as accurately.
All you have to do is to study the forces which you are starting in operation to-day and then
figure out what they are going to do to you.
We have just so much energy to dispose of. The person who wastes this energy in idleness or
dissipation has little left for more productive efforts.
It is the law of cause and effect that is operating everywhere.
The great thoughts and things that are emanating from the busi-
ness brains of this age are the causes from which are to come the
effects of another age. All a matter of development.
It depends largely upon ourselves what we shall make our future.
It depends vastly what we are doing to-day what to-morrow shall
be in results of any kind.