with suspicion. They are afraid to think along new lines, to blaze a new path. They want to follow the beaten road; to do things the way father or mother did them. This timidity, this habit of leaning on the past, or accepting as final what some one else has done in any line, has kept many otherwise bright minds from doing great things, because they never could get away from the tethers which hampered their progress. If you are a leaner, a copyist, a hanger-on, always waiting for somebody else to take the lead, to think for you, to tell you what to do and how to do it, you will never exert much influence in your home or in your community; you need to cultivate more projectile power. A bullet starts from the rifle with what we call the vigor of projection. There must be sufficient force back of every such initiative effort to carry it to its goal. Originality is what gives projectile force to a man or a woman. It is the mind that thinks its own thoughts that is creative; it is the original mind that makes one a vital living force. Imitation is negative, and all negative things, negative thinking, all negative mental attitudes, such as doubting one's ability, hesitating to trust one's own opinion or judgment, hesitating to undertake things, the habit of putting off, waiting for more favorable conditions, fearing to begin, reconsidering one's decisions, vacillating, these are all deadly enemies of originality and initiative. Have nothing to do with them. If one does not cultivate a positive mental attitude, self-confidence, selfreliance, courage, and initiative, one will have a weak, wishy-washy character. He will be unmagnetic, uninteresting, non-progressive. It is the original person, the one who is different, more vital, more forceful who interests and holds our attention. It does not matter how humble your sphere, you can elevate it by being natural; by being yourself. You can put the stamp of superiority upon whatever you do by doing it in an original way, in an individual way, in the spirit of a master, not that of a slave or a copyist. Many a woman has put more art into her housework because of the personal pride, the painstaking thought, the distinctive individuality she has put into it, than thousands of others have put into their more pretentious professions. There is many a politician who still cobbles and copies although he is in the Senate or in Congress, and there is many a shoemaker who is a master, because of his distinctive work. There are a large number of patents for improved household devices in the patent office at Washington which have made fortunes for the women patentees. These women were not content to make bread or pies, or do their housework "just as mother did it." They thought for themselves; the final word in household economies had not been said for them. They had new ideas; they put them into form; gave them to the world, and all women are reaping the benefit of them. "Beware when the great God lets loose a thinker on this planet." The world's history was changed when its Benjamin Franklin, its Abraham Lincoln, its Thomas A. Edison were let loose on this planet. How little did the parents or associates of these boys think that they would change the course of American history; that they would cause the modern world to break away from the old method of doing things which had been sacred for centuries! The tradition breakers have cared very little about what had gone before them, how others had done their work, or how they had thought or acted. Men and women with the courage of their convictions never wait for the approval of the crowd. They have faith in their own thought, their own inspiration, they step out of the crowd and act. That is about the last thing the average person ever learns to do. He will imitate, copy other people's ideas, follow the crowd, do anything else rather than use his own brain, do his own thinking, and act upon it. Most people slide along the line of least resistance and do what everybody else does, carry out other people's plans. It is so much easier than to make our own program and follow it independently in the spirit of a master. But it is the people who make their own program who are in demand. It is the young man or the young woman with initiative, with original ideas, the employer is looking for. The clerk who can arrange articles in a striking or original manner; the girl in a millinery shop who can arrange fabrics tastily and design new hats and originate new styles—these are sought everywhere. It is the original worker, the original thinker, the original writer who is everywhere in demand. It isn't quantity so much as quality that is needed in every field. Many a writer has become immortal through a single poem or a few pages of prose. But no one ever yet gained immortality by writing many books. Man was made to be an originator, not an imitator or copyist. Men and women with godlike powers and possibilities were not intended to follow sheep-like in one another's footsteps. Nature and history show us they were not. The progress of civilization is due to the precedent breakers, the brave men and women who dared to be original, dared to step out of the crowd and think and act for themselves. THE QUALITY WHICH —COURTESY There is an indefinable power in fine manners which unconsciously, irresistibly, and instantaneously wins admiration. Give a boy address and accomplishments and you give him the mastery of palaces and fortunes wherever he goes.— Emerson. The good mannered can do without riches. All doors fly open to them and they enter everywhere without money and without price. People instinctively know whether you are well or ill bred, or a lady or a gentleman in reality or a mere ape of gentility. S OME time ago New York newspapers gave an account of the death of a man who was asphyxiated while alone in his rooms in a large apartment house. At the inquest which followed, a woman who lived on the same floor with this man said she had heard him groaning, but that he had always been so very rude to women, she did not make any effort to see what the trouble was. About the same time another news item appeared, stating that a wealthy woman, Mrs. Jane Elizabeth Granice, left in her will to an employee of one of New York's large trust companies, of |