ng to the front first should have every chance
of conserving their vitality and increasing their resistive forces.
Those of us who must do work behind the lines should be kept equally fit
for that larger work without which the machine must inevitably break
down. The method is scientific and it has been tested on men of all ages
from eighteen to seventy. It embodies the elimination of all wasted
effort and concentration upon points of approved and essential worth. It
is as much a man's duty to make himself fit and to keep himself in that
condition as it is to carry on any other part of his work. This method
should be adopted not only in every department at Washington, but
throughout the country; it should be taught in our schools and colleges,
and so thoroughly that never again in a world-wide crisis shall we find
ourselves physically unprepared.

CHAPTER VIII

Vacillation and doubt are poison to the nerves.

This is the reason why it is advisable to teach co-ordination, prompt
response to the command of the brain over the muscles, and the general
sense of self-control which comes to a man when he has only to think in
order to turn that thought into quick action. One of the penalties of
the executive position is that, although the man begins as a disciplined
private, when he goes up higher and gradually reaches the point where he
gives commands only, and never has any practice in obeying them, he gets
the habit of pushing buttons to make other people jump, while there are
no buttons pushed to make him jump.

WORRY AND FEAR

Now as to worry. It has been said, and not untruly, that one of the very
largest causes of worry is bodily weakness. And in more than a majority
of cases this weakness comes from poor physical condition. A good
digestion and proper elimination seem to make the organism move
smoothly, not alone with muscles, but with nerves. Hence if we get the
engine right, the lungs doing their duty, the skin acting as it should,
and the bowels and kidneys taking off the waste products, we generally
find a robust man, little given to that most expensive habit, "worry."

Fear is the forerunner of illness.

There is nothing quite so effective in producing a bad condition of the
human system as fear, and this fear is what worry develops into; later
it becomes pure, downright cowardice.

Worry makes cowards. If a man has enough worry and anxiety, fear follows
in its wake, and then the man becomes a men