Article December 29, 1917 Issue

High Ideals

BERTHA V. ZEREGA

"Our ideals form our characters," Mrs. Eddy says on page 3 of "The People's Idea of God." The quality of our work is invariably gauged by the character of our idealism; whatever ideals we are entertaining in the seclusion of our inmost thoughts are embodied with unfailing exactness in the scope, quality, and efficiency with which we handle every appointed task. Some one has very aptly said that "character is simply habit long continued," and unquestionably the character of our work is expressive of and wholly dependent upon the habit of our thinking, of our self-culture, self-discipline, and above all of the ideals which we are making our own.

This is illustrated by contrasting the work in any line of the amateur with that of the professional. The amateur, however sincere he may be in his desire to produce good results, seldom attains the perfection and freedom of execution which is arrived at by the professional, because the amateur does not as a rule devote the time and labor which perfection of detail and thorough mastery of a subject demand. The professional, on the other hand, willingly makes great personal sacrifices of both time and effort toward the accomplishment of his ideal, and as a result of much self-instruction so happily conceals the mechanics of his vocation that he loses himself in his message and therefore is able to endow his work with a nobility of purpose and breadth of vision which is quite out of the range of the novice whose ideals are less universal and impartial.

Many people have a limited and an erroneous sense of the term professional, supposing that it implies artificiality, and that it is consequently an undesirable asset in the work of the layman. Artificiality, however, is due either to insincerity or to technical ignorance of the medium in which one is working, and this latter cause is responsible for much of the artificiality of the inexperienced amateur worker, who on account of his lack of training is deprived of the stimulating advantages of self-criticism. The professional is generally his own sternest critic; he knows the intrinsic value of perfect work, and judges his achievements according to this fixed standard if excellence. The work of the true professional is devoid of artificiality, since it is the finished product of the combined qualities of sincerity, unselfish devotion to a high ideal, application, experience, skill, and simplicity.

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