No. 7. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 139 



and third class powers. Shakespeare says, 'at is not in our stars 

 but in ourselves that we are underlings." 



It is the one who takes heed of the small things and does not 

 trust to luck who succeeds. A loss of time must always be care- 

 fully guarded against for it is making use of the spare moments that 

 enables us to get ahead of our competitors. "Lost wealth may be 

 replaced by industry, lost knowledge by study, lost health by tem- 

 perance and medicine, but lost time is gone forever." In the words 

 of Franklin, "Dost thou love life, then do not squander time for 

 that is the stuff life is made of." Elihu Burritt acquired a mastery 

 of eighteen languages and twenty-two dialects, not by rare genius, 

 which he disclaimed, but by improving the bits of fragments of time 

 which he could steal from his occupation as a blacksmith. It may 

 not be squandering time to take an occasional day off for an outing, 

 for with many of us it is no paradox to say that we are in such a 

 hurry to live, that living in any true sense of the term becomes 

 impossible. The farmer and laboring man needs more intellectual 

 work, while the teacher and student needs more physical culture. 

 It is the sound mind in the sound body that achieves success. 



A young man must also have "decision of mind, but this, like 

 vigor oi body, is a gift of God; it cannot be created by human effort; 

 it can only be cultivated." Our whole future often depends upon 

 the decision of a moment. A moment lost, and all is lost. The dif- 

 ficulty has to be conquered or it will conquer us. If we conquer we 

 will be strengthened by the effort. If it conquers us we will be 

 weakened and be less able to wrestle with the next difficulty, and 

 before we are aware of it we are on tlie downward road to ruin. 

 Victory or failure may always become a habit with us which will 

 either lift us up beyond even our own expectations or drag us down 

 to depths lower than the deepest seas. Merastasio held so strong 

 an opinion as to the power of repetition in thought and act that he 

 said "All is habit in mankind, even virtue itself." The bond which 

 habit binds you with becomes stronger the longer you practice the 

 habit. Beginning with cobwebs, it ends with chains. We may ac- 

 quire habits of study as well as those of loafing, if we only start 

 right. The six most important habits in l>usiness, ones that are 

 worthy of careful cultivation are — "application, observation, method, 

 accuracy, punctuality and dispatch." 



A person may possess all of the above named qualities and yet not 

 succeed, for the reason that he does not have pro])er manners. 

 Whole books have been written on the subject, but the matter is 

 epitomized in the golden rule — "Do to others as you would have 

 others do to you.'- "It has been truly said that spite and ill-nature 

 are among the most expensive luxuries in life." TTow true it is that 

 "He that ruleth his own spirit is greater than he that taketh a city." 



