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Many a visitor to Warm Springs, or to any similar centre, is heard to say, as he leaves: "I think the courage of your patients is simply wonderful. The children here don't mind their polio. They stand up and face life with such wonderful courage."

This, plainly, is just so much tripe.

I doubt that there is a single polio who is not sorry he got polio, who does not mind having paral. And he is compelled to face life. He recovers from the acute stage of the disease to find that the world has gotten along without him, that no drastic change in the order of the universe has been affected by his illness. What course, then, is left open to him? Only the natural one: To make the best of his handicap and try, like everyone else, to gain a living for himself.

To do this, we may say, is the natural thing. It requires no great amount of courage. Yet many parals seem to discard even this course. They are content to say, "I'm a cripple," find a soft cushion, and just sit. There are many examples here at Warm Springs of men and women who have picked up their crutches and joined their fellows in the race for existence. But there are many more examples of parals who spend their time playing bridge and learning to tat. Mind you, I say nothing against bridge and tatting. They are fine occupations for senile old maids, but they hardly serve to complete the education a boy or girl must have to work for a livelihood. A boy applying for entrance in a college will find that he cannot major in tatting; a girl in a secretarial school will find that bridge is not a useful accomplishment.

"As ye sow, so also shall ye reap," The polios who are now working toward success are those that are learning to do something. The polios who do nothing are those who will never be more than parasites on wheels. If every polio would wake up to the fact that he must learn to do something well, and that now is the time to start, there would be reason to say of all the patients here, instead of a very few: "I think your courage is wonderful."