uarters; they seemed to prefer the dirt and disease, the sickness and vice
to which they were accustomed. "She did not know the force of habit; she
was totally ignorant of the hard and fast condition into which people grow.
She had never stopped to consider how necessary it is for the world at
large to have such repression. Without this control there could be no
peace, no safety, no steady growth in civilized society. The poor would
attack the rich, the lawless and violent would assail the peaceful, the
indolent would refuse to labor, the regularity and studied discipline of
well-ordered life would absolutely cease. In their place anarchy would
reign and each day would make confusion worse confounded. Imagine, if you
can, what animals would be if they lacked restraint of habit. Man's power
over them would cease instantly and their strength would be a terrible
engine of destruction. Men would be as much worse as human intelligence
exceeds brute intelligence. One is quite safe in declaring that habit is
the great flywheel that regulates society."

Desirable habits, therefore, together with all necessary reforms, must
come about slowly; they should be the result of conscious training and
education in all the factors that make for a higher civilization.

LESSON IX

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

1. What are some habits essential to success?

2. When should training to fix these habits begin? Why?

3. Why do many parents fail to fix right habits in their children?

4. How may wrong habits be overcome and right habits established?

5. What does Solomon say in regard to training the child?

6. Give reasons why community habits are so hard to change? What is the
good side of this strength of habit?

7. What is the quickest and surest way to bring about desirable social
reforms?

MAXIMS ON HABIT

_Professor James Gives Four Maxims to Follow in Breaking from an Old Habit
or in Acquiring a New One_

"1. _Take care 'o launch yourself with as strong and decided initiative as
possible_. Reinforce the right motive with every favorable circumstance;
put yourself in a condition that will make the right act easy and the wrong
one difficult. Take a public pledge if the case allows; in short, envelop
your resolution with every aid possible.

"2. _Never suffer an exception to occur until the new habit is securely
rooted_. Each lapse is like the letting fall of a ball of yarn that is
being wound; a single slip undoes