Chapter 7

In every great city and in every small town there should be a monument to time. Young children should be taken to see it, clergymen should preach at the foot of it on the sacred importance of the few hours of activity given to us here. As the sand runs through an hour glass, so you run your short race on this earth. That passing sand means the passing of your chances for making your life worth while. Instead of thinking how you WILL pass the time, cross-examine yourself and ask yourself how you HAVE passed the time thus far.

What did you do last year--what use did you make of the time as it went by? What did you do yesterday? What are you going to do to-day? You possess a mind organized for practically unlimited thinking and studying. How many of your hours do you live as a thinking, studying man? How many do you live on a par with an ox chewing his cud in the field?

The ox does not waste HIS time. It is his business to grow fat and produce beef. He uses every hour. It is your business to use your time in the development of your mind, in dealing with the duties and problems that are put before you.

Every young man can make a success if he will really look upon each hour as an OPPORTUNITY, and cease to look upon the hours as useless things, to be thrown away.

One hour will give you a knowledge of some good book, or wisely spent, with a purpose of improving your health, it will make your brain more efficient and add to the value of all future hours.

If you have a horse, a bicycle, a gun, you feel that because you HAVE it you ought to USE it.

How much more should you feel that you ought to use your TIME, in using which you use your own brain! Surely, your brain is more important and more worthy of conscientious use than a bicycle or a gun.

Talk to children on this question of time. Teach them that respect for time means respect for their own lives and success in life.

A MOTHER'S WORK AND HER HOPES

This editorial is not written for women. It is written for MEN, and for boys; for the millions who fail to appreciate the work that mothers do, for the millions that ignore the self-sacrifice and devotion upon which society is based.

On a hot night, in the dusty streets of a dirty city, you see hundreds of women sitting in the doorways, TAKING CARE OF BABIES.

In lonesome farm houses, far out on monotonous plains, with the late sun setting on a long day of hard work, you find women, cheerful and persevering, TAKING CARE OF BABIES.

In the middle of the night, in earliest morning, when MEN sleep, all over the world, in ice huts North, in southern tents, in big houses and in dingy tenements, you find women awake, cheerfully and gladly TAKING CARE OF BABIES. ----

We respect and praise the man selfishly working for himself.

If he builds up a great industry and a great personal fortune, we praise him.

If he risks his life for personal glory and for praise, we praise him.

If he shows courage even in saving his own carcass from destruction, we praise him.

There was never a man whose courage, or devotion, could be compared with that of a woman caring for her baby.

The mother's love is unselfish, and it has no limit this side of the grave.

You will find ONE man in a thousand who will risk his life for a cause.

You will find a THOUSAND women in a thousand who will risk their lives for their babies.

Everything that a man has and is he owes to his mother. From her he gets health, brain, encouragement, moral character, and ALL his chances of success.

How poorly the mother's service is repaid by men individually, and by society as a whole!

The individual man feels that he has done much if he gives sufficient money and a LITTLE attention to her who brought him from nothingness into life and sacrificed her sleep and youth and strength for his sake.

Society, the aggregate of human beings, feels that its duty is done when a few hospitals are opened for poor mothers, and a little medicine doled out in cold-hearted fashion to the sick child.

Fortunately, it may truly be said that the great man is almost always appreciative of his greater mother.

Napoleon was cold, jealous of other men, monumentally egotistical when comparing himself with other sons of women. But he reverenced and appreciated the noble woman who bore him, lived for him, and watched over him to the end. He said:

"It is to my mother, to her good principles, that I owe my success and all I have that is worth while. I do not hesitate to say that the future of the child depends on the mother." ----

The future of the individual child depends on the individual mother, and the future of the race depends on the mothers of the race.

Think what has been done for mankind by thousands of millions of perfectly devoted mothers.

Every mother is entirely DEVOTED, entirely HOPEFUL, entirely CONFIDENT that no future is too great for her baby's deserts.

The little head--often hopelessly ill-shaped--rolls about feebly on the thin neck devoid of muscles. The toothless gums chew whatever comes along. The wondering eyes look feebly, aimlessly about, without focus or concentration. The future human being, to the cold-blooded onlooker, is a useless little atom added to the human sea of nonentity.

But to the mother that baby is the marvel of all time. There is endless meaning in the first mumblings, endless soul in the senile, baby smile, unlimited possibilities in the knobby forehead and round, hairless head. She sees in the future of the baby responsibilities of government, and feels that one so perfectly lovely must eventually be acclaimed ruler by mankind.

As a result of perfect confidence in its future, the mother gives to every baby perfect devotion, perfect and affectionate moral education. Each child begins life inspired by the most beautiful example of altruism and self-sacrifice.

Kindness has gradually taken the place of brutality among human beings, because every baby at its birth has found itself surrounded by absolute kindness.

The mother's kindness forms moral character.

The mother's confidence and encouragement stimulate ambition and inspire courage.

The mother's patient watchfulness gives good health, and fights disease when it comes.

The mother's wrathful protection shields the child from the stern and dwarfing severity of fathers.

Truly, a man may and should be judged by his feeling toward his own mother, and toward the mothers of other men--of ALL men.

In the character of Christ, whose last earthly thought on Golgotha was for His Mother, as in the character of the hard-working, ignorant man whose earnings go to make his mother comfortable, the most beautiful trait is devotion to the mother who suffers and works for her children, from the hours that precede their birth through all the years that they spend on earth together.

Honor thy father and THY MOTHER.

And honor the mothers of other men. Make their task easier through fair payment of the men who support the children, through good public schools for their children, through respectful treatment of ALL women.

The mother is happy. For she knows "the deep joy of loving some one else more than herself."

You honor yourself, and prove yourself worthy of a good mother and of final success, when you do something for the mothers of the world.

YOUR WORK IS YOUR BRAIN'S GYMNASIUM

For "buyers" in big stores,

For clerks in little stores,

For office boys,

For typewriters, reporters, car conductors, household domestics, for all who are hired to work for others, this article is intended.

There is no greater mistake than skimping your work--BECAUSE YOU ARE WORKING FOR ANOTHER, AND FEAR YOU MAY DO TOO MUCH.

For your own sake remember that whatever you do in the way of honest concentrated work you do FIRST OF ALL FOR YOURSELF.

Only one thing in the world can improve you and better your condition, and that thing is your own effort.

You begin life with certain mental faculties, and with certain muscular faculties. Their development or decay depends entirely on yourself.

No work that you do is worthless. It will NEVER pay you to neglect or slur the task that you have undertaken.

You may be idle, in the thought that you are indulging yourself at the expense of your employer. It is a dishonest thought, and it is a stupid thought at the same time.

You may rob your employer of the time that he pays for, but when you shirk your work you rob yourself first of all. ----

You may say that your employer pays you too little. Perhaps he does. But that is no reason for hurting your moral character through dishonesty. It is no excuse for failing to develop yourself.

The store, or factory, or office in which you work is to your mind what a gymnasium is to your muscles.

You enter a gymnasium AND PAY FOR THE PRIVILEGE OF WORKING THERE.

You do not say to yourself: "This gymnasium belongs to another man. The profits go to him, and so I'll not work hard."

On the contrary, you realize that the owner of the gymnasium gives you the chance to develop your muscles, and you thank him, although he makes you pay for the privilege. And you do your very best, on the trapeze, rings, parallel bars, or in any other direction.

Act in your work as you do in your gymnasium hours.

There is no kind of work that can fail to make you a better and more successful man if you work at it honestly and loyally.

If you sweep an office, sweep it well. And begin punctually each day, remembering that punctuality acquired in sweeping an office may be used later in governing a city.

Train your mind through your work, whatever it is.

Study the lives of those who have succeeded. You will see that they did whatever they did as well as they could.

Edison was an ordinary telegraph operator. But he was not content with merely working as others worked. He worked very hard, devised means to make more valuable the instruments of his employers. Soon he was an employer himself, and what is far better than being an employer, he was a creator of new ideas and a benefactor of the world. ----

Intelligent readers will not misinterpret this advice to mean that they should OVERWORK themselves, or work regardless of their own physical welfare.

The right course is this:

Do as much as you can in the present, without drawing on your future reserves.

Don't work all night and then go on the next day. Such effort impairs permanently your store of vitality, and that vitality is your capital.

But never form the habit of neglecting work, of shamming and lying instead of achieving honestly.

You may deceive one employer, or ten. But 36> you can't deceive nature, and you can't deceive yourself.

You can form good habits only through regular work. You can develop your faculties only through exercising them honestly and systematically. ----

MERELY WORKING "FAIRLY WELL" IS NOT ENOUGH.

If you want to run a mile fast, you do not merely jog. You try every day to run the mile faster than you did the day before. If you want to learn to jump high, you strain your muscles and try over and over to do what you can't do. Ultimately you achieve it.

Keep that in mind when you work. Remember that you must wind yourself up. The most watchful employer may discharge you. But he cannot wind you up.

Be a self-winding machine, and keep yourself wound up.

Your hardest effort may fail to achieve greatness. But honest work will at least make it impossible for you to be a failure.

Train your brain, nerves and muscles to regular, steady, conscientious effort. Make up your mind that FOR YOUR OWN SAKE you will make every effort your best effort.

You will soon find yourself a more successful, more self-respecting, abler man or woman.

And here is an argument that should be more powerful with you than self-interest:

Remember that the world needs honest, conscientious men and women, able to do good work themselves and to people the earth with children born of honest parents.

Make up your mind to be one of the world's HONEST citizens.

To improve the world begin by improving yourself.

THE STEEPLE, MOVING LIKE THE HAND OF A CLOCK

If you live in the suburbs you devote perhaps two hours each day to travel. Two hours per day means practically one-fifth of your active life.

How many readers make any use of those two hours, and feel each day that they have been well spent? ----

Instead of being wasted, those hours should be among your best. Never mind if you are clinging to a strap because companies are licensed to exploit you. Never mind if you are tired and weary when the day is ended. The tired brain often thinks better than the fresh one. And man, so recently descended from the monkey who had to think while hanging head down, ought to have no trouble thinking as he hangs from his strap--head up. ----

Some in the cars play cards as they travel homeward. Others talk gossip, and tens of thousands waste too much time on this and other newspapers.

Try this experiment: Make up your mind to devote your hours of travel to thinking. The brain, like the muscles, needs definite and well-planned exercise. It must be methodical and regular. There is no limit to its possible results. You would be glad to spend your two travelling hours in a gymnasium on wheels. Make of your homeward car a mental gymnasium. Each night or morning, take up some one line of thought and follow it to its end--or as far as your mind can take you. Learn to observe, to study, to reflect. Don't look at your fellow passengers as calves look at each other on the way to the slaughter house.

Look, as a human being, at other human beings. There they sit or stand or hang. Some chatter, others scowl, fret, fume, complain, brag, grin or otherwise express the strange emotions that move us here.

They are all ghosts, as Carlyle tells you, imprisoned for a time in coverings of flesh, and a car packed full of real ghosts passing over the earth on their quick journey to the grave ought to stir you. ----

The giggling shopgirls whose life of misery is still a joke to them--blessed youth!--should interest you deeply. And the negro, too, with a tired black face, resting for the next day's slavery--slavery on a wage basis, but slavery all the same. Possibly you despise his thick lips. But those lips are carved on every sphinx in Egypt's sand, and if you could go back far enough you would find the ancestors of that negro, before the days of the Pharaohs, laying the foundations of your religion and locating the stars in heaven. At that time your forbears were gibbering cave savages, sharpening bones and gnawing raw flesh. When you see the negro on the opposite seat, the ill-starred one who has gone down in the human race while we have gone up, think about him, study him, speculate as to his ultimate end--and your own. Don't merely say to yourself, "That's a plain negro," and go on chewing gum. ----

The pictures that flash by your car windows should help you to think.

The train rumbles over the switches, and in the dusk a swinging lantern tells you that a man is at work, guiding you safely when your work is done. Can't you take an interest in that human atom, representing the Power that swings our tiny sun in space, lighting us on our journey toward the constellation Hercules? ----

A black steeple is outlined against the dark-blue sky of the evening. That is a finger of stone, built by man to point everlastingly toward Infinite Power. It now points "upward." In twelve hours--as the earth slowly turns--it will be pointing "downward." But there is no upward or downward in the carpentry of the universe. In the twenty-four hours, as it turns round with the earth, that steeple points toward all the corners of space, and constantly it points toward Eternal Wisdom and Justice in every corner. ----

This is tiresome? All right, then we'll stop. But whether we tire or interest you, remember:

As a man thinks, so he grows. Think, study, use all the hours that separate your croupy cradle from your gloomy grave. Those hours are few.

CULTIVATE THOUGHT--TEACH YOUR BRAIN TO WORK EARLY

Two centuries back a young man of twenty-three sat in the quiet of the evening--THINKING.

His body was quiet; his vitality, his life, all his powers, were centred in his brain.

Above, the moon shone, and around him rustled the branches of the trees in his father's orchard.

From one of the trees an apple fell.

No need to tell you that the young man was Newton; that the fall of the apple started in his READY brain the thought that led to his great discovery, giving him fame to last until this earth shall crumble.

How splendid the achievement born that moment! How fortunate for the world and for the youth Newton, that at twenty-three his brain had cultivated the HABIT OF THOUGHT! ----

Our muscles we share with everything that lives--with the oyster clinging to his rock, the whale ploughing through cold seas, and our monkey kinsman swinging from his tropical branch.

These muscles, useful only to cart us around, help us to do slave work or pound our fellows, we cultivate with care.

We run, fence, ride, walk hard, weary our poor lungs and gather pains in our backs building the muscles that we do not need.

Alone among animals, we possess a potentiality of mind development unlimited.

And for that, with few exceptions, we care nothing. ----

Most of us, sitting in Newton's place and seeing the apple fall, would merely have debated the advisability of getting the apple to eat it--just the process that any monkey mind would pass through.

A Newton, a BRAIN TRAINED TO THINK, sees the apple drop, asks himself why the moon does not drop also. And he discovers the law of gravitation which governs the existence of every material atom in the universe. ----

Young men who read this, start in NOW to use your brains. Take nothing for granted, not even the fact that the moon stays in her appointed place or that the poor starve and freeze amid plenty.

Think of the things which are wrong and of the possibilities of righting them. Study your own weaknesses and imperfections. There is power in your brain to correct them, if you will develop that power.

As surely as you can train your arm to hold fifty pounds out straight, just so surely can you train your brain to deal with problems that now would find you a gaping incompetent.

You may not be a Newton. But if you can condescend to aim at being an inferior Sandow, can't you afford to try even harder to be an inferior Newton?

Don't be a muscular monkey. Be a low-grade philosopher, if you can't be high-grade, and find how much true pleasure there is even in inferior brain gymnastics. ----

Take up some problem and study it:

There goes a woman, poor and old. She carries a heavy burden because she is too sad and weak to fight against fate, too honest to leave a world that treats her harshly.

There struts a youngster, rich and idle.

How many centuries of hell on earth will it take to put that woman's load on that other broad, fat, idle back?

Answer that one question, better still, TRANSFER THE LOAD, and your life will not have been wasted. ----

It is THOUGHT that moves the world. In Napoleon's BRAIN are born the schemes that murder millions and yet push civilization on. The mere soldier, with gold lace and sharp sword, is nothing--a mere tool.

It is the concentrated thought of the English people under Puritan influence that makes Great Britain a sham monarchy and a real republic now.

It is the thought of the men of independent MIND in this country that throws English tea and English rule overboard forever.

Don't wait until you are old. Don't wait until you are ONE DAY older. Begin NOW.

Or, later, with a dull, fuzzy, useless mind, you will realize that an unthinking man might as well have been a monkey, with fur instead of trousers, and consequent freedom from mental responsibility or self-respect.

THE WIND DOES NOT RULE YOUR DESTINY

"There be three things which are too wonderful for me; yea, four which I know not.

"The way of an eagle in the air; the way of a serpent upon a rock; THE WAY OF A SHIP IN THE MIDST OF THE SEA, and the way of a man with a maid."

At sunset a long train of cars waited on a bridge as a sailing ship passed through the draw.

The ship sailed up the river toward the cold Winter sun; another ship sailed past it going in the OPPOSITE direction.

Only ONE wind was blowing. Yet, of those two ships blown by the same wind, moved by the same power, one sailed EAST and one WEST.

It may be of use to you in your career to think for a few minutes about these two ships and the lesson which they teach--especially to young men. ----

The man who has sailed, in his life's journey, toward failure and disaster looks always with envy, sometimes with hatred, and very often with an intense sensation of injustice, at the man who passes him going in exactly the opposite direction.

Yet the FORCES that move men bound toward success are exactly the same as those that move other men to failure, humiliation and defeat.

It is all a question of the way in which you use the forces within you--just as on shipboard it is all a question of the use of the common wind which blows.

IT IS A QUESTION OF THE USE OF THE RUDDER.

Two ships pass, each with its sails filled out by the same wind. The difference in direction is accounted for by the handling of the rudder and the adjustment of the sails.

What the force of the wind is to the ship, our varying emotions, passions, ambitions, appetites and aspirations are to us. All of these constitute the power which may be called HUMAN FORCE.

This power differs in different individuals, as the wind differs on different days. It may blow from the east or the west or the north or the south. However it may blow, it can be forced, by proper steering, to send the ship in any direction desired.

It is harder to beat against the wind, of course, and many men have hard struggles to steer themselves to a good port in the face of an adverse start, a hard beginning, or inclinations difficult to overcome. ----

But in all of us the force exists which can be made to move us in the right direction--the force within us can be MADE to obey our will, if the will be strong and the hand on the rudder steady. This can be proved--for instance:

There is a certain force in human beings called LOVE. This force leads sometimes, and happily it leads usually, to domesticity, morality, care of children and lifelong devotion. Then the force is used properly.

The same human passion leads to murder, suicide, theft, to almost all forms of crime.

There is another human passion called AMBITION.

This human force of ambition, with a Lincoln's conscience to guide it, saves a republic.

The same force guided by Benedict Arnold seeks to betray the nation. ----

Consider yourself a ship launched on the sea of life under certain conditions--but with the essential condition in your own control.

The wind may be feeble, you may drift for a while or move very slowly--move at least in the right direction.

The wind may blow a gale, and you may feel, as so many do, that you cannot control your emotions and your appetites. But if that comes show at least as much interest in yourself as a sailor does in his ship. Take in sail and fight the storm, instead of going willingly to destruction. ----

Four things puzzled and impressed the wise man that wrote the nineteenth verse of the thirtieth chapter of Proverbs.

Think to-day about the third of these things:

"The way of a ship in the midst of the sea"

The way of a human being in the midst of life is like that of a ship on the ocean.

Make up your mind that your own way at least shall be controlled by the rudder of conscience, and learn from the passing ships a lesson of use in your own life.

ONE OF THE MANY CORPSES IN THE JOHNSTOWN MINE