MENTAL PREPARATION. 185 



keep store or go into some kind of business where 

 I can make lots of money." 



When the acquisitive instinct is very strong it 

 frequently makes one extremely selfish, close and 

 miserly. There is a tendency to devote all the Covetousness. 

 energies and talents to making money. This 

 necessarily prevents the development of the better 

 nature. To restrain this tendency one should 

 make financiering a secondary thought in life and 

 give more attention to other things. He should 

 cultivate a liberal, charitable spirit and repeatedly 

 affirm a willingness to give and forgive ; to sacri- 

 fice self for a worthy cause or the happiness of 

 others. By holding mental pictures of liberality 

 in the mind and practicing them in the life; by vitholding 

 diverting the attention from all selfish things to Selfishness from 

 things of an esthetic, intellectual, or religious, 

 character; by fostering continually a spirit of 

 kindness toward all, and ignoring the demands of 

 the propensities, prospective parents may with- 

 hold to a very marked extent the monster of sel- 

 fishness from their offspring. 



The prospective father should be honest in his 

 business relations. 



Business sagacity, when carried to the point of 

 deception in the father often becomes trickery and 

 crime in his son. I have observed that when a 

 man's business requires deception very frequently "* 



his offspring manifest an inclination to follow dis- 

 honest methods of making money. 



A business man who was financially embar- 

 rassed, to avoid a crash and social ostracism 

 forged a draft at a bank where he had been sign- 

 ing clerk. The forgery was repeated several 



