CHAPTER 16

PERT POINTERS FOR PROSPECTIVE INVENTORS THAT WILL BE FOUND HELPFUL

While it is impossible to lay down fixed rules for the would-be successful inventor to follow, the following will be found useful:

Observe everything carefully. Try to remember everything you see. Acquire the habit of concentration. Reason logically. Do not overlook details. Be a hard worker. Keep your mouth shut. Don't count your chickens before they are hatched. Don't get inflated with your superiority, neglecting to avail yourself of the accumulated knowledge and experience of others. Don't imagine yourself a Solomon. Don't bite off more than you can swallow. (Read Æsop's fable about the "Eagle and the Jackdaw.") Don't set yourself a Quixotic task, and, on the other hand, don't think it is impossible for you to succeed where others have failed.

Do not start an advance account in greatness by telling everybody you come in contact with what a wonderful invention you are working on, thereby trying to enhance your importance with them. Remember you are not "It" until you have succeeded, and when you do, the world will know it soon enough, and you will not suffer by reason of its having found it out for itself. Remember an inventor is only judged by what he has made good, not by what he has attempted.

Don't, oh! please don't go about with a face as solemn and anxious as if you were an Atlas. Using the inside of your head, should not be sufficient reason for neglecting the outside of it by "boycotting" the barber. Hair is not "Wisdom teeth."

Do not waste your time complaining for the want of appreciation in your wife, for the "great ideas" you have in your head. She may have a strain of Missourian blood in her veins, and "She wants to be shown." When you "do," you can be sure she will not be slow in handing you up the "sugar lumps."

Because Shakespeare, Napoleon, Ruskin, etc., have parted from the partners of their youth, should not lead you to the deduction that it necessarily is the earmarks of greatness to cast aside, when you have become successful, the sharer of your early poverty and struggles. You will be greater by not following anybody's example, in that respect.

Remember that only a temperate abstemious régime of life can give you the healthy brain required for the successful accomplishment of anything worth doing. Don't fail to give credit to others when it is due. Don't forget to repay those who have helped to make your success possible, and, lastly, gain your success in such a manner that your enjoyment of its reward will not be marred by the remorse of your conscience.