Seven Year Plan

“ The American believers, standing on the threshold of the fourth year of the Seven Year Plan, pursue their God-given task with a radiance that no earthly gloom can dim, and will continue to shoulder its ever-growing duties and responsibilities with a vigor and loyalty that no earthly power can either sap or diminish. ”

“ A Worthy, Five-Fold Offering The first half of the two-year austerity period, inaugurated at so anxious an hour in the fortunes of the Second Seven Year Plan, has been successfully traversed, and deserves to be regarded as a memorable episode in the history of the Faith and the unfoldment of the Plan in the North American continent. ”

“ The American believers, while straining to accomplish befittingly this particular task, must simultaneously brace themselves for another sublime effort to discharge, ere the present year draws to a close, their manifold responsibilities allotted to them under the Seven Year Plan. ”

“ The manifold activities initiated since the launching of the first Seven Year Plan should, under no circumstances, be neglected or allowed to stagnate. The excellent publicity accorded the Faith, and the contact established with several leaders in that republic should be followed up, systematically and with the greatest care, by the growing community within its confines. ”

“ In my desire not to omit anything that might help to spur on or reinforce the community of the American believers as they move on to their destiny, I feel it necessary to add a word of warning in connection with the work that has been so splendidly begun lest it should be jeopardized or frustrated. The initial phase of the teaching work operating under the Seven Year Plan has at long last been concluded. They who have pushed it forward have withstood the test gloriously. ”

“ No participator in this inter-American campaign of teaching must feel that the initiative for any particular activity connected with this work must rest solely with those agencies, whether Assemblies or committees, whose special concern is to promote and facilitate the attainment of this vital objective of the Seven Year Plan. ”

“ The annals of the British Bahá’í community, small in numbers, yet unconquerable in spirit, tenacious in belief, undeviating in purpose, alert and vigilant in the discharge of its manifold duties and responsibilities, have in consequence of its epoch-making achievements been vastly enriched. The process set in motion and greatly accelerated through the successive formulation of the Six Year Plan, the Two Year Plan and the Ten Year Plan, must continue unabated and unimpaired. Nay with every passing day it must gather momentum. ”

“ It is the 40th anniversary of reform and opening up, and it is a crucial year for securing a decisive victory in building a moderately prosperous society in all respects and for continuing to implement the 13th Five-Year Plan. ”

“ As the time approaches for the ending of the various Plans, Six Year ones, Seven Year, Five Year, etc., the obstacles seem to become greater, and the friends are made to realise that very real, hard, often back-breaking effort and sacrifice is involved! ”

“ With the plain fact before them that the average life of man is less than thirty-four years, few would be willing, if the choice were offered, to compromise on seventy. Everybody has a hope of going beyond that, so that if seventy were proposed as the year at birth, there would no doubt be as much dissatisfaction as there is at the present loose arrangement. Science would step in, and demonstrate that there is no reason why, with proper care of the system, it should not run a hundred years. ”

“ No sacrifice is too great for the promotion of such an urgent and vital task. A supreme effort, on the part of all, young and old alike, individuals, assemblies and communities, is absolutely essential in the course of the present year, and as a prelude to the initiation of future plans aiming at a still greater development and further enrichment of the life of both communities. All secondary matters should be subordinated to the primary requirements of the present day. The futherance of this noble objective should be made the object of the anxious and sustained deliberations of your Assembly. ”

“ The economic position of this class, its social ambitions, its intellectual adventures, its general education, its code of morality, its religion or lack of religion, its little conventional cults, the pressure of outside influences, thrusting inwards to the hidden life in these little homes, bringing dangerous ideas through the front doors, or through the keyholes, and all the mental and moral vibrations that are “in the air” to-day, especially in the air breathed by the middle-classes, produce—the Eighth Year. ”

“ Each agency shall, in collaboration with tribal colleges, develop and document a Five-Year Plan of the agency's efforts to fulfill the purpose of this order. These Five-Year Plans shall include annual performance indicators and appropriate measurable objectives for the agency. ”

“ He realises that your Assembly, and all the British Bahá’ís, are facing the most difficult and critical months of your Plan. The friends must be made to realise that the urgency of the task during these few months which lie ahead, is not only acute but temporary. Once they make this final effort, and clamber to the top of their goal, they can rest. The opportunity for achievement is absolutely unique, for this is their first Plan, and consequently the most historic one of the many they will, no doubt, carry out in future decades. ”

“ What shall we do, Society asks, with our boys? I reply. Kill off the parents.
"There can be little doubt that forty-five years is long enough for a man to live. Parents must see that. Youth is the time to have your fling.
"Let us see how this plan would revolutionise the world. It would make statesmen hurry up. At present, they are nearly fifty before you hear of them. How can we expect the country to be properly governed by men in their dotage? ”

“ But I firmly believe that the initiation of a Plan to remedy the very deficiencies from which the infant Administrative Order is now suffering, and a firm resolve to carry out its provisions, as well as a sustained effort to make the necessary sacrifices for its consummation, will set in motion forces of such magnitude, and draw upon both communities blessings of such potency, as shall excite the wonder of the believers themselves, and cause their Faith to enter an era of unprecedented expansion and marvellous and fruitful development. ”

“ If the resources of the Government will permit the work to progress as it has during the present year, through communication may be opened within two years, when this portion of the country, which contains so many undeveloped elements of wealth, and a population as large in proportion to its extent as any other part of the Republic, will commence a development, which, with peace, will exceed the brightest anticipations of the friends of the enterprise. ”

“ But at present we find ourselves, much against our liking, compelled to recognize the fact that in the year now ending the cause of civil service reform has been less prosperous than in the year which preceded it. ”

“ Since this generation is in the meantime not in existence, but must first be raised up by education, and since, even if everything else should go on excellently and beyond our expectation, we shall nevertheless require a considerable interval before we pass over to that new age, the more urgent question arises: How are we to manage to get through this interval? Since we can do nothing better, how are we to maintain ourselves at any rate as the soil on which the improvement may take place, and as the point of departure at which this improvement may begin its work? ”

“ Much in the judgments we form on such practical questions depends on our period of life. I find myself now at seventy-one and a half far more timid and more indisposed to great changes, and less inclined to promise myself great benefit from political plans. I own I scarcely can expect the plan to succeed, especially in the House of Lords. ”

“ After two years, in our company, the policy is incontestable."
"Two years? That won't do for me. Can't you make it one year?"
"I'll tell you what I will do," said the agent, lowering his voice, "I can ante-date the policy, so that the two years will end just when you like, say a year from now." ”

“ In addition to this, we propose—at least as a provisional measure, and until such time as a satisfactory balance shall have been restored—to extend the obligation to work to all persons between the ages of fourteen and seventy-five, instead of, as hitherto, to those between the ages of twenty-one and sixty-five. ”

“ It is improbable, then, that the majority could be induced to vote for the limit of seventy years, or to exchange the exciting uncertainty of adding a little to the period which must be accompanied by the weight of the grasshopper, for the certainty of only seventy years in this much-abused world.
But suppose a limit to be agreed on, and the rich old man and the rich old woman (never now too old to marry) to start on their career towards youth and poverty. The imagination kindles at the idea. ”

“ Obviously, and because hundreds of different kinds of crops and industrial occupations in the huge territory that makes up this Nation are involved, we cannot reach the goal in only a few months. We may take one year or two years or three years. ”

“ Check Extreme Requirements for Youth in Labor.—There are many requirements for youth in offered opportunities of training and of work which are distinctly detrimental to respect for, and possibility of continued service of, the old. Take, for example, the age limit in many departments of business and manual labor. During the war we had in the countries most denuded of young men a new sort of trial of the middle-aged in positions where it had been thought youth was required. ”

“ Twenty years at the present rate would take away the whole of the industrious classes, leaving only the proprietors and their families, members of the learned professions, and those whose age or infirmities keep them at home. Twenty years are but a short time in treating great social or political questions. ”

“ Some minds are young and growing at seventy while others seem to cross some invisible deadline at forty. But of all this we have no settled criteria and the age of customary or enforced retirement is arbitrary, though very diversely fixed by various industrial concerns, pension systems, etc., without regard to mental age or youth. In fact, the world has so far attempted almost nothing that could be called a curriculum for the later years of life—physical, intellectual, moral, social, or even hygienic or religious, after the very variable period when the prime of life is reached and passed. ”

“ Prepare Vocationally for Old-age Needs.—The third demand, that every man and woman in early youth or in later youth shall be trained in some light and agreeable occupation that can be pursued, perhaps to economic return, in the days when strenuous labor can no longer be carried on, is one that has as yet received little attention but which should be a matter of deep concern. ”

“ Is it then reasonable that we should expect it to be more successful in such infant states as these new republics? Time—and we, of all people in the world, ought best to know how long a time—is requisite to bring such good fruit to maturity. ”

“ It may be added, as a matter of important detail, that it would be desirable, in order to give continuity to Indian policy, to select young men to fill the place of Viceroy, and to extend the period of office from five to seven, or even to ten years. ”

“ Under this plan the children in our public schools could study with understanding, not only the form of our government, but also the machinery for making it work successfully, because the plan is not only clear, concise, comprehensive and constructive, but it is so simple that any one can understand it and our youth could be fully equipped for the duties of citizenship when they become of age. ”

“ Your workshops were filled with children and old men, but we hold the period of youth sacred to education, and the period of maturity, when the physical forces begin to flag, equally sacred to ease and agreeable relaxation. The period of industrial service is twenty-four years, beginning at the close of the course of education at twenty-one and terminating at forty-five. ”

“ Our first year in office has been devoted to making hard and painful decisions, to arresting deterioration, to restoring hope, faith and confi­dence, to economic consolidation, and to laying the foundations for realistic growth. ”

“ A scheme of this character, if once put into active and thorough operation, would naturally work itself out, for year by year the number of young fellows to whom it would apply would grow less and less; but while working itself out, it would also work out the salvation of many young men, and bring lasting benefits upon our country. ”

“ But, if the period of its continuance should thus be extended from three to seven years, the natural course of encroachment, or some momentous circumstances like the present, might lead to fresh prolongations, and gradually to an entire repeal of what had been thought so important a safeguard of its purity. Time has happily put an end to apprehensions which are not on that account to be reckoned unreasonable. ”