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speaks our language fluently. He has studied the map of our country.
He knows its geography, and a great deal of our history, and much about
our resources and opportunities. He said that when he landed in New
York it seemed to him that he saw more opportunities in walking every
block of our streets than he had ever seen in the whole of Turkey. And
he could not understand the lethargy, the lack of ambition, the
indifference of our young men to our marvelous possibilities.
The efficient man is always growing. He is always accumulating
knowledge of every kind. He does not merely look with his eyes. He
sees with them. He keeps his ears open. He keeps his mind open to all
that is new and fresh and helpful.
The majority of people do not _see_ things; they just _look_ at them.
The power of keen observation is indicative of a superior mentality;
for it is the mind, not the optic nerve, that really sees.
Most people are too lazy, mentally, to see things carefully. Close
observation is a powerful mental process. The mind is all the time
working over the material which the eye brings it, considering, forming
opinions, estimating, weighing, balancing, calculating.
Careless, indifferent observation does not go back of the eye. If the
mind is not focused, the image is not clean-cut, and is not carried
with force and distinctness enough to the brain to enable it to get at
the truth and draw accurate conclusions.
The observing faculty is particularly susceptible to culture, and is
capable of becoming a mighty power. Few people realize what a
tremendous success and happiness is possible through the medium of the
eye.
The telegraph, the sewing machine, the telephone, the telescope, the
miracles of electricity, in fact, every great invention of the past or
present, every triumph of modern labor-saving machinery, every
discovery in science and art, is due to the trained power of seeing
things.
The whole secret of a richly stored mind is alertness, sharp, keen
attention, and thoughtfulness. Indifference, apathy, mental lassitude
and laziness are fatal to all effective observation.
It does not take long to develop a habit of attention that seizes the
salient points of things.
It is a splendid drill for children to send them out on the street, or
out of doors anywhere, just for the purpose of finding out how many
things they can see in a certain given time, and how closely they can
observe them. Just the e
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