e.

It is said that Daniel Webster made the best chowder in his state on
the principle that he would not be second-class in anything. This is a
good resolution with which to start out in your career; never to be
second-class in anything. No matter what you do, try to do it as well
as it can be done. Have nothing to do with the inferior. Do your best
in everything; deal with the best; choose the best; live up to your
best.

Everywhere we see mediocre or second-class men--perpetual clerks who
will never get away from the yardstick; mechanics who will never be
anything but bunglers, all sorts of people who will never rise above
mediocrity, who will always fill very ordinary positions because they
do not take pains, do not put conscience into their work, do not try to
be first-class.

Aside from the lack of desire or effort to be first-class, there are
other things that help to make second-class men. Dissipation, bad
habits, neglect of health, failure to get an education, all make
second-class men. A man weakened by dissipation, whose understanding
has been dulled, whose growth has been stunted by self-indulgences, is
a second-class man, if, indeed, he is not third-class. A man who,
through his amusements in his hours of leisure, exhausts his strength
and vitality, vitiates his blood, wears his nerves till his limbs
tremble like leaves in the wind, is only half a man, and could in no
sense be called first-class.

Everybody knows the things that make for second-class characteristics.
Boys imitate older boys and smoke cigarettes in order to be "smart."
Then they keep on smoking because they have created an appetite as
unnatural as it is harmful. Men get drunk for all sorts of reasons;
but, whatever the reason, they cannot remain first-class men and drink.
Dissipation in other forms is pursued because of pleasure to be
derived, but the surest consequence is that of becoming second-class,
below the standard of the best men for any purpose.

Every fault you allow to become a habit, to get control over you, helps
to make you second-class, and puts you at a disadvantage in the race
for honor, position, wealth, and happiness. Carelessness as to health
fills the ranks of the inferior. The submerged classes that the
economists talk about are those that are below the high-water mark of
the best manhood and womanhood. Sometimes they are second-rate or
third-rate people because those who are responsible for their being