ess usually follows
the proper conditions.

Thus boys and girls, young men and women, will do well if they train
their bodies and their minds to be successful husbands and wives long
before marriage. It is worth it; for they are in training for the
highest prize obtainable on earth, and yet one open to and won by
millions.

Not being a physician and being ignorant of physiology, I know little
about the value of sex instruction. Yet however important sex
instruction may be to those about to be married, there is one thing more
important--character. Two people unselfish and considerate, tactful and
warmhearted, and salted with humor, who are in love, have the most
essential of all qualifications for a successful marriage--they have
_character_. People about to be married need training in character much
more than they need instruction in sex.

From childhood boys and girls find out how children come, but the secret
of a good character, temperament, and disposition is not so readily
found.

The reason why character is the most important requisite for success in
marriage is not merely that it happens to be the chief cause of
happiness, but that those who have character can turn an unsuccessful
marriage into a successful one, instead of taking the easy way out, and
acknowledging failure. No man or no woman is to blame for making a
foolish marriage; it might happen to anyone. The test of character is
not whether one has or has not made a foolish marriage; the test comes
after the foolish marriage has been made. What a triumph then to turn
that failure into a success, as the statesman turns a minority into a
majority!

This article is addressed to young people, for those who marry late in
life either do not need any suggestions or are already incurable. I am
in favor of early marriages. I am delighted when either the boy's
parents or those of the girl have money enough so that the young pair
can be married at twenty-two, before they begin professional study or
work. And when there is little money but either or both have a job, then
by all means they should be married. When young people marry, they take
difficulties of housekeeping and privations as a lark, even as young
people do camping out. When I was a boy, camping out was absolute bliss;
now it would be absolute horror. Furthermore, in youth neither of them
has "set"; they can accommodate themselves to each other.

The late President Harper of the University of Chica