Those who fear to assume responsibility necessarily take orders from others.  The punishment fits the crime perfectly and being self-inflicted there is no injustice.  It is true that many men possessed of great brain power play “second fiddle” to shallow-minded men of inferior wisdom from sheer lack of forcefulness on their own part.  They lack the full quality of leadership while possessing all save one essential—­courage.  Fear abides in their hearts and spreads itself as a mantle of gloom over their super-sensitive souls until finally they struggle no more.  Henceforth they are doomed and become the subject of apology on the part of friends and relations.  “He’s all right,” they say, “but he suffers from over-refinement.”  He lacks something—­we cannot make out just what.  It is altogether too bad for he is such a superior man among his social equals.

We must take our hats off to those who have the goodness of heart to make allowance for our shortcomings.  A disinterested listener, however, is seldom taken into camp by such well intended argument.  He knows that “friend husband” or “friend brother” as the case may be, needs some sort of swift kick that will stir his combativeness into action—­that will cause him to turn upon his mental inferior and have it out with him then and there—­once and for all.  As a courage builder fighting for justice is not to be sneezed at.

Courage can be built up just the same as any other soul quality.  It is all a matter of early training as to which we start out with—­courage or fear.  Unthinking parents have a lot to do with the propagation of fear in the hearts of children.  A neglectful father plus a fear-stricken mother constitute the most logical forces which tend toward the overdevelopment of fear in a child.  Once the seed is thoroughly implanted the growth can be depended upon.  How to get rid of it later is not so easy to figure out.  Had the child been born with a “clubfoot” these same parents would have spent their last dollar in an effort to straighten it into natural condition.  They could see the unshapely foot day by day with their own eyes—­and so could their neighbors.  But the fear-warped little brain struggling for courage with which to combat its weakness needs must battle alone with chances largely against it.

The mere thought of what is in store for this little one as it stumbles along from one period to another, fearful of this, and fearful of that, is disconcerting to say the least.  We can almost trace our friend “Second Fiddle” directly back to such a childhood.  We can almost hear his fond mother shout, “Keep away from the brook, darling, you might get your feet wet and catch your death of a cold.”  Another well known and highly respected admonition belonging to childhood’s hour is, “Come in, deary, it’s getting dark—­Bogie man will get you if you don’t watch out.”

[Illustration:  Bungalowing in California]