In accomplishing his Americanization, Mr. Bok learned much from us and he has given his fellow-Americans a chance to learn something from him. He is aware of our pride in what we have achieved, but he points the way to still greater triumphs in the years to come. He urges us to give more regard to thrift, to be more painstaking and thorough in what we do, and finally, to overcome our prevalent lack of respect for authority. Such advice is especially appropriate at this time. During the present critical period in the wake of the greatest and most destructive of all wars, a prudent nation will follow the fundamental political and economic virtues. It is no time for extravagance, for slipshod service, or for defiance of established law. Our young people need every incentive to make the most of their talents and of their opportunities. If they observe closely the successive steps of Mr. Bok's career they will understand why he did not continue to wash shop-windows all his life or why the Western Union's office-boy did not grow up to be a mere clerk or local manager. In the important chapters entitled "The Chances for Success" and "What I Owe to America" they will learn that ambition and industry must be supplemented by other admirable qualities in the loyal American who is eager to serve his country to the utmost.
The concluding chapters of the autobiography have a most valuable lesson for every American, young or old. In them Mr. Bok calls upon us to give a helping hand to the other fellow and to accept in more genuine spirit the gospel of the brotherhood of man. The civic pride that urged him to join in the movement to beautify his home community of Merion and that caused his activity in the raising of an endowment fund of almost two million dollars for the Philadelphia Orchestra is what we would expect of the idealist who sets out to observe the wise precept of his Dutch grandparents: "Make you the world a bit more beautiful and better because you have been in it."
Throughout the book the observant reader will note the author's pride in his Dutch ancestry and his consciousness of the fact that he owes so much to the splendid qualities of his forbears. Such pride may be shared by every other progressive American of foreign birth or parentage who feels that he is bringing into our social and industrial life certain commendable traits that characterize the best sons and daughters of his fatherland, whatever that fatherland may be.
The admirable dedication that Mr. Bok has prepared for this little volume is addressed to American schoolboys and schoolgirls, but its message is just as vital for the older reader. In the prime of life and on the threshold of his Third Period, Mr. Bok has begun to give practical demonstration of the kind of service that is possible for those who are sincerely ready to serve. He is alive to the fact that as a nation we are still young and eager to learn. We have made serious mistakes in the past and our institutions are as yet far from perfect, but with more of our intellectual leaders accepting the watchword of altruistic service in the spirit of Mr. Bok's conception, there can be virtually no limitations to the part that America seems destined to play in the future.
JOHN L. HANEY
CENTRAL HIGH SCHOOL
PHILADELPHIA
ILLUSTRATIONS
Edward W. Bok … Frontispiece
Edward Bok's birthplace at Helder, Netherlands
The grandmother
Where Edward Bok is happiest: in his garden
AN INTRODUCTION OF TWO PERSONS
IN WHOSE LIVES ARE FOUND THE SOURCE AND MAINSPRING OF SOME OF THE EFFORTS OF THE AUTHOR OF THIS BOOK IN HIS LATER YEARS
Along an island in the North Sea, five miles from the Dutch coast, stretches a dangerous ledge of rocks that has proved the graveyard of many a vessel sailing that turbulent sea. On this island once lived a group of men who, as each vessel was wrecked, looted the vessel and murdered those of the crew who reached shore. The government of the Netherlands decided to exterminate the island pirates, and for the job King William selected a young lawyer at The Hague.
"I want you to clean up that island," was the royal order. It was a formidable job for a young man of twenty-odd years. By royal proclamation he was made mayor of the island, and within a year, a court of law being established, the young attorney was appointed judge; and in that dual capacity he "cleaned up" the island.
The young man now decided to settle on the island, and began to look around for a home. It was a grim place, barren of tree or living green of any kind; it was as if a man had been exiled to Siberia. Still, argued the young mayor, an ugly place is ugly only because it is not beautiful. And beautiful he determined this island should be.
One day the young mayor-judge called together his council. "We must have trees," he said; "we can make this island a spot of beauty if we will!" But the practical seafaring men demurred; the little money they had was needed for matters far more urgent than trees.
"Very well," was the mayor's decision--and little they guessed what the words were destined to mean--"I will do it myself." And that year he planted one hundred trees, the first the island had ever seen.
"Too cold," said the islanders; "the severe north winds and storms will kill them all."
"Then I will plant more," said the unperturbed mayor. And for the fifty years that he lived on the island he did so. He planted trees each year; and, moreover, he had deeded to the island government land which he turned into public squares and parks, and where each spring he set out shrubs and plants.
Moistened by the salt mist the trees did not wither, but grew prodigiously. In all that expanse of turbulent sea--and only those who have seen the North Sea in a storm know how turbulent it can be--there had not been a foot of ground on which the birds, storm-driven across the water-waste, could rest in their flight. Hundreds of dead birds often covered the surface of the sea. Then one day the trees had grown tall enough to look over the sea, and, spent and driven, the first birds came and rested in their leafy shelter. And others came and found protection, and gave their gratitude vent in song. Within a few years so many birds had discovered the trees in this new island home that they attracted the attention not only of the native islanders but also of the people on the shore five miles distant, and the island became famous as the home of the rarest and most beautiful birds. So grateful were the birds for their resting-place that they chose one end of the island as a special spot for the laying of their eggs and the raising of their young, and they fairly peopled it. It was not long before ornithologists from various parts of the world came to "Egg-land," as the farthermost point of the island came to be known, to see the marvellous sight, not of thousands but of hundreds of thousands of bird-eggs.
A pair of storm-driven nightingales had now found the island and mated there; their wonderful notes thrilled even the souls of the natives; and as dusk fell upon the seabound strip of land the women and children would