By careful training of the brain and nervous system in right mental and physical habits, it is possible to multiply our powers and our effectiveness in life tremendously. At seventy-five years of age Gladstone had multiplied himself, largely through force of habit forming, into a man twenty times as efficient as he had been at twenty-five.

Think of the tremendous advantage of forming in youth the habit of self-improvement, the habit of reading things which will help and enlarge life, which will stimulate, inspire, and encourage us as compared with that of reading superficial, overstimulating, vicious, or suggestive literature.

What a wonderful self-educator, welfare-promoter is the habit of absorbing knowledge from all sorts of sources, the habit of investigating things, of going to the bottom of everything that is worth while, the habit of thinking, of reflecting. Who could ever estimate the value of the habit of close, keen observation, of not only looking at things, but also of seeing them in every detail.

If you have the habit of seeing things as Ruskin saw them, for example, you are always improving yourself, for you will find food for thought and study in everything you see. Every walk abroad, every visit to the country, every star, every bird, every tree and shrub will yield you a valuable lesson.

It was the habit of observation formed as a boy which gave Ruskin his wonderful descriptive power

as a writer. His father used to make yearly trips into the country every summer in connection with his business as a wine merchant. On these trips, made by carriage, he was accompanied by his wife and son.

"They started usually after the great family anniversary, the father's birthday, on May 10," says Mr. Collingwood in his biography of Ruskin, "and journeyed by easy stages through the south of England, working up the west to the north, and then home by the east central route, zigzagging from one provincial town to another, calling at the great county-seats, to leave no customer or possible customer unvisited, and in the intervals of business seeing all the sights of the places they passed through—colleges and churches, galleries and parks, ruins, castles, caves, lakes, and mountains— and seeing them all, not listlessly, but with keen interest, noting everything, inquiring for local information, looking up books of reference, setting down the results as if they had been meaning to write a guide-book and gazetteer of Great Britain. They, I say, did all this, for, as soon as the boy could write, he was only imitating his father in keeping his little journal of the tours, so that all he learned stayed by him, and the habit of descriptive writing was formed."

The habit of using one's eyes, the habit of seeing things instead of merely looking at them, may make all the difference between success and medio

crity, between a rich, full life and a poor, starved, meagre one.

The habit of wringing from every experience, every opportunity that comes to us, the highest lesson it can be made to yield, the habit of wresting every possibility of self-improvement out of our spare moments before we allow them to slip into oblivion, the habit of punctuality, of self-reliance, of honesty, of truth, of thrift, of industry, of ambition—the whole family of constructive characterbuilding, civilization-building habits, if formed in youth would, in a few generations, change the face of the world.

What a tremendous difference it would have made in the lives of most of us had we been trained in self-control, in masterfulness, so that we could say "no" just as easily as "yes"! How many temptations we would thus have been enabled to resist; how many perils we would have escaped! Had we early acquired the habit of self-reliance, of depending on our own judgment, of acting promptly and with decision, how it would have strengthened character, and enhanced ability!

What a difference it would have made in our destiny had we formed the habit of facing life right, always turning toward the light so that our shadows would fall behind us; had we trained ourselves in optimism, the habit of good cheer; had we acquired the spirit of kindliness, courtesy, instead of, in our ignorance, wearing grooves in

our brains by a succession of unpleasant, antagonistic thoughts and actions! Just think what it would have meant to us if, as children, we could have been scientifically trained in forming the health habit, the habit of being well, instead of holding the ailing thought, the conviction that we must continually have more or less illness, that we can never be free from physical weakness, physical defects of some sort! Why, this one habit alone would have revolutionized our lives!

If we had all had a fine early training in good manners, society itself would be revolutionized. If instead of being allowed to grow up carelessly with little or no regard to the amenities of life, which do so much to smooth the way and "oil the machine," what a different place the world would be!

How different the lives of the vast majority of us would have been had we early formed a habit of consciously, definitely, daily making some effort toward self-improvement! How it would brighten the daily routine had we acquired the habit of constantly thinking of ourselves as lucky and fortunate instead of unlucky; of always looking for and expecting the best instead of misfortune or the worst to come to us, of talking up instead of down, talking good times instead of hard times, a habit of seeing the best instead of the worst in others, of saying kindly things about others or else saying nothing at all! Then, automatically, our

influence would invariably weigh on the side of human helpfulness.

Dr. William H. Maxwell, Superintendent of the Public Schools of New York, in a recent address to teachers on the importance of pupils forming right habits said:

"Do we not every day see the pressing need for the development of such habits? Do not employers complain that our pupils are not accurate in their work; that they make mistakes in addition and have not a place for everything and do not put everything in its place? Is not the name of the people legion who can not read aloud so as to entertain and instruct? Are we not constantly finding men who can not keep their attention fixed on a single task until it is thoroughly accomplished? Is not time everlastingly wasted in every discussion from the debates in Congress and the controversies in the cross-roads grocery by men who can not keep to the point? Is not the world full of weaklings who have never acquired the habit of taking pains to correct their own mistakes? Are there not innumerable failures in life because men have not invested their minds with a general method of attacking problems—the college graduate who can not read Latin at sight because he has not the right habit in extracting the meaning from a new sentence; the farmer who has no correct habits of thought about rotation of crops, fertilizing soil and the selecting of seeds; the clergyman who