ful disposition, unbounded enthusiasm in one's calling, and a high
aim and noble purpose insure a very large measure of success.

Youth should be taught that there is something in circumstances; that
there is such a thing as a poor pedestrian happening to find no
obstruction in his way, and reaching the goal when a better walker
finds the drawbridge up, the street blockaded, and so fails to win the
race; that wealth often does place unworthy sons in high positions;
that family influence does gain a lawyer clients, a physician patients,
an ordinary scholar a good professorship; but that, on the other hand,
position, clients, patients, professorships, managers' and
superintendents' positions do not necessarily constitute success. He
should be taught that in the long run, as a rule, _the best man does
win the best place_, and that persistent merit does succeed.

There is about as much chance of idleness and incapacity winning real
success or a high position in life, as there would be in producing a
"Paradise Lost" by shaking up promiscuously the separate words of
Webster's Dictionary, and letting them fall at random on the floor.
Fortune smiles upon those who roll up their sleeves and put their
shoulders to the wheel; upon men who are not afraid of dreary, dry,
irksome drudgery, men of nerve and grit who do not turn aside for dirt
and detail.

The youth should be taught that "he alone is great, who, by a life
heroic, conquers fate"; that "diligence is the mother of good luck";
that nine times out of ten what we call luck or fate is but a mere
bugbear of the indolent, the languid, the purposeless, the careless,
the indifferent; that, as a rule, the man who fails does not see or
seize his opportunity. Opportunity is coy, is swift, is gone, before
the slow, the unobservant, the indolent, or the careless can seize
her:--

"In idle wishes fools supinely stay:
Be there a will and wisdom finds a way."

It has been well said that the very reputation of being strong-willed,
plucky, and indefatigable is of priceless value. It often cows enemies
and dispels at the start opposition to one's undertakings which would
otherwise be formidable.

It is astonishing what men who have come to their senses late in life
have accomplished by a sudden resolution.

Arkwright was fifty years of age when he began to learn English grammar
and improve his writing and spelling. Benjamin Franklin was past fifty
before he began the stud