own houses, would build them just the same again after seeing them
completed? The man who can see a building complete before a brick has
been laid or a timber put in place, who can see it not only in its
details one by one as he runs them over in his mind, but can see the
building in its entirety, is the only one who is safe to plan the
structure. And this is the man who is drawing a large salary as an
architect, for imaginations of this kind are in demand. Only the one who
can see in his "mind's eye," before it is begun, the thing he would
create, is capable to plan its construction. And who will say that
ability to work with images of these kinds is not of just as high a type
as that which results in the construction of plots upon which stories
are built!

THE BUILDING OF IDEALS AND PLANS.--Nor is the part of imagination less
marked in the formation of our life's ideals and plans. Everyone who is
not living blindly and aimlessly must have some ideal, some pattern, by
which to square his life and guide his actions. At some time in our life
I am sure that each of us has selected the person who filled most nearly
our notion of what we should like to become, and measured ourselves by
this pattern. But there comes a time when we must idealize even the most
perfect individual; when we invest the character with attributes which
we have selected from some other person, and thus worship at a shrine
which is partly real and partly ideal.

As time goes on, we drop out more and more of the strictly individual
element, adding correspondingly more of the ideal, until our pattern is
largely a construction of our own imagination, having in it the best we
have been able to glean from the many characters we have known. How
large a part these ever-changing ideals play in our lives we shall never
know, but certainly the part is not an insignificant one. And happy the
youth who is able to look into the future and see himself approximating
some worthy ideal. He has caught a vision which will never allow him to
lag or falter in the pursuit of the flying goal which points the
direction of his efforts.

IMAGINATION AND CONDUCT.--Another great field for imagination is with
reference to conduct and our relations with others. Over and over again
the thoughtless person has to say, "I am sorry; I did not think." The
"did not think" simply means that he failed to realize through his
imagination what would be the consequences of his rash or unki