CHARACTER AND SUCCESS 



PUBLISHED IN THE "OUTLOOK," MARCH 31, 1900 



A YEAR or two ago I was speaking to a famous 

 Yale professor, one of the most noted scholars 

 in the country, and one who is even more than a 

 scholar, because he is in every sense of the word 

 a man. We had been discussing the Yale-Harvard 

 foot-ball teams, and he remarked of a certain player : 

 "I told them not to take him, for he was slack in 

 his studies, and my experience is that, as a rule, 

 the man who is slack in his studies will be slack 

 in his foot-ball work; it is character that counts in 

 both." 



Bodily vigor is good, and vigor of intellect is 

 even better, but far above both is character. It is 

 true, of course, that a genius may, on certain lines, 

 do more than a brave and manly fellow who is not 

 a genius; and so, in sports, vast physical strength 

 may overcome weakness, even though the puny body 

 may have in it the heart of a lion. But, in the long 

 run, in the great battle of life, no brilliancy of in 

 tellect, no perfection of bodily development, will 

 count when weighed in the balance against that as- 

 (98) 



