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THE PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS.
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hope without having to pay too heavily for your wisdom-abounds in robbers and dacoits who rob you of your goods by brute force son the one hand, and on the other, is full of men and women who will steal your all by deceit, underhanded cunning and other forms of cheating. Mercy and pity are here either altogether unknown or only meant to mask hypocrisy and vice under their cloaks. No doubt you will sometimes come across a genuine case of philanthrophy here and there, but it will be only occasionally and not as a rule. In many cases you will perceive villainy and evil flourishing and waxing strong, and honesty and virtue going to the wall. The actual experience of the world, in a word, you will find somewhat in the nature of a staggering blow to your notions about the goodness of man formed by you in your innocence and the seclusion of your school life.
Here you have heard meekness praised, virtue admired, duty held in esteem, and salvation set up as the highest ideal. Honesty and straightforwardness have been extolled before you and you have learnt to be gentle and forgiving. With a heart that is ready to bleed at the suffering of others you have acquired the impulse to relieve distress in sp far as it lies in your power to do so. In a word, you have been trained and brought up in an atmosphere which knows nothing of the stern struggle for existence that actually characterises the world outside. The problem before you to-day, therefore, is how to reconcile the stupendous disharmony that exists between what is desirable aud desired and actuality or fact?
The subject resolves itself into two parts, namely, (1) how to improve the nature of our surroundixgs, and (2) how to regulate our own lives so as to mix in the world and yet nut imbibe its evil ourselves.
You will see that these are the two main questions which, in one way or another, lie at the bottom of all movements of reform that have been set in motion in different countries, at different times. If you will now analyse the causes which brought them to nought, you will not fail to notice that their failure was due to an almost exclusive attention to the first of these points, namely, how to improve our surroundings and to their ignoring the second. The fact is that we all want to improve others but not ourselves,
| SR No. | 542650 |
| Book Title | Jain Gazette 1920 06 |
| Original Sutra Author | N/A |
| Author | Jagnanderlal Jaini, Ajit Prasada, C S Mallinath Jain |
| Publisher | Jaina Gazette Office |
| Publication Year | 1920 |
| Total Pages | 36 |
| Language | English |
| Classification | Magazine, India_Jain Gazette, & India |
| File Size | 7 MB |