Life, 1917-05-03 · page 18 of 42
Life — May 3, 1917 — page 18: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains three satirical pieces mocking human nature and social conventions: **"The Optimist"** (top illustration): Shows a man with a telescope spotting distant figures, satirizing perpetual dissatisfaction—the idea that humans always want what they lack, even when having everything they desire. **"Learning from Books"**: A text essay mocking over-reliance on books as education. It argues learning from books is inferior to direct experience and observation, yet better than ignorance. The satire targets passive acceptance of printed authority without critical thinking or personal investigation. **"The Military Standpoint"**: A dialogue joke where a woman (Kit) is praised for managing a social "campaign" without "loss of a man"—using military terminology to mock women's competitive social maneuvering for marriage prospects. **Bottom cartoon**: An insurance or car salesman attempts to sell Mr. Peck a motor car, but Peck refuses because his wife forbids smoking and a motor car caused their elopement—suggesting cars as both romantic facilitators and marital complications.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
THE OPTIMIST Human Nature HERE are fishers whose greed no good fortune can tire. So they fish when there's no more to fish for; Just as we, if each had all his heart could desire, Then would wish we had something to wish for. Learning from Books I you can’t discover any other way to learn things, use books, Learning from hooks is perhaps the poorest way to learn things, but it is better than no way at all; much better than remaining i When you learn things from books you never know them so well, Neither do you have the fun and exercise, mental and physical, of digging them out for yourself. Not the least objéction is that what you learn in this way, you are merely taking somebody's word for. Taking people's word for things is always dangerous. Even assuming we were all honesf, our ability to observe correctly and report accu- rately is never to be relied upon. Books are very handy to have aroand as a last resort, but they should not be used as a first, second or third resort. The Military Standpoint RIE WILLIS (at the beach): Kit is quite a clever social gene: Jane Gituis: Yes. She went through last season’s cam- paign without the Joss of a man. elgent; JUST A MOMENT, MR. PECK. HAVE A CIGAR? I’p LIKE TO INTEREST YOU IN A MOTOR CAR, NO, THANKS! WIFE DOESN’T ALLOW ME TO SMOKE, AND IT WAS A MOTOR CAR WE ELOPED 1