ry to keep up the standard of your work, not so
likely to regard your word as sacred as before.

The mental and moral effect of half doing, or carelessly doing things;
its power to drag down, to demoralize, can hardly be estimated because
the processes are so gradual, so subtle. No one can respect himself
who habitually botches his work, and when self-respect drops,
confidence goes with it; and when confidence and self-respect have
gone, excellence is impossible.

It is astonishing how completely a slovenly habit will gradually,
insidiously fasten itself upon the individual and so change his whole
mental attitude as to thwart absolutely his life-purpose, even when he
may think he is doing his best to carry it out.

I know a man who was extremely ambitious to do something very
distinctive and who had the ability to do it. When he started on his
career he was very exact and painstaking. He demanded the best of
himself--would not accept his second-best in anything. The thought of
slighting his work was painful to him, but his mental processes have so
deteriorated, and he has become so demoralized by the habit which,
after a while, grew upon him, of accepting his second-best, that he now
slights his work without a protest, seemingly without being conscious
of it. He is to-day doing quite ordinary things, without apparent
mortification or sense of humiliation, and the tragedy of it all is,
_he does not know why he has failed_!

One's ambition and ideals need constant watching and cultivation in
order to keep up to the standards. Many people are so constituted that
their ambition wanes and their ideals drop when they are alone, or with
careless, indifferent people. They require the constant assistance,
suggestion, prodding, or example of others to keep them up to standard.

How quickly a youth of high ideals, who has been well trained in
thoroughness, often deteriorates when he leaves home and goes to work
for an employer with inferior ideals and slipshod methods!

The introduction of inferiority into our work is like introducing
subtle poison into the system. It paralyzes the normal functions.
Inferiority is an infection which, like leaven, affects the entire
system. It dulls ideals, palsies the aspiring faculty, stupefies the
ambition, and causes deterioration all along the line.

The human mechanism is so constituted that whatever goes wrong in one
part affects the whole structure. There is a very intimate