NERVOUS SYSTEM 393 



the young but realize how soon they will become mere 

 \ralking bundles of habits, they would give more heed 

 to their conduct while in the plastic state. We are 

 spinning our own fates, good or evil, and never to be 

 undone. Every smallest stroke of virtue or of vice 

 leaves its never-so-little scar. The drunken Rip Van 

 Winkle, in Jefferson 's play, excuses himself for every 

 fresh dereliction by saying, 1 1 won 't count this time ! ' 

 Well ! he may not count it, and a .kind Heaven may not 

 count it ; but it is being counted none the less. Down 

 among his nerve cells and fibers the molecules are 

 counting it, registering and storing it up to be used 

 against him when the next temptation comes. Nothing 

 we ever do is, in strict scientific literalness, wiped out. 

 Of course this has its good side as well as bad one. 

 As we become permanent drunkards by so many sepa- 

 rate drinks, so we become saints in the moral, and, 

 authorities in the practical and scientific spheres by 

 so many separate acts 'and hours of work. Let no 

 youth have any anxiety about the upshot of his educa- 

 tion, whatever the line of it may be. If he keep faith- 

 fully busy each hour of the working day, he may 

 safely leave the final result to itself. He can with 

 perfect certainty count on waking up some fine morn-,, 

 ing, to find himself one of the competent ones of his 

 generation, in whatever pursuit he may have singled 

 out," 



Education. As civilization advances success and 

 achievement in life depend more and more upon the 



