.

The athlete trains for his race; and the mind must be put into training
if one will win life's race.

"It is," says Professor Mathews, "only by continued, strenuous efforts,
repeated again and again, day after day, week after week, and month
after month, that the ability can be acquired to fasten the mind to one
subject, however abstract or knotty, to the exclusion of everything
else. The process of obtaining this self-mastery--this complete command
of one's mental powers--is a gradual one, its length varying with the
mental constitution of each person; but its acquisition is worth
infinitely more than the utmost labor it ever costs."

"Perhaps the most valuable result of all education," it was said by
Professor Huxley, "is the ability to make yourself do the thing you have
to do when it ought to be done, whether you like it or not; it is the
first lesson which ought to be learned, and, however early a man's
training begins, it is probably the last lesson which he learns
thoroughly."

DOING THINGS ONCE.

When Henry Ward Beecher was asked how it was that he could accomplish so
much more than other men, he replied:

"I don't do more, but less, than other people. They do all their work
three times over: once in anticipation, once in actuality, once in
rumination. I do mine in actuality alone, doing it once instead of three
times."

This was by the intelligent exercise of Mr. Beecher's will-power in
concentrating his mind upon what he was doing at a given moment, and
then turning to something else. Any one who has observed business men
closely, has noticed this characteristic. One of the secrets of a
successful life is to be able to hold all of our energies upon one
point, to focus all of the scattered rays of the mind upon one place or
thing.

CENTRALIZING FORCE.

The mental reservoir of most people is like a leaky dam which we
sometimes see in the country, where the greater part of the water flows
out without going over the wheel and doing the work of the mill. The
habit of mind-wandering, of worrying about this and that,

"Genius, that power which dazzles mortal eyes,
Is oft but Perseverance in disguise."

Many a man would have been a success had he connected his fragmentary
efforts. Spasmodic, disconnected attempts, without concentration,
uncontrolled by any fixed idea, will never bring success. It is
continuity of purpose alone that achieves results.

LEARNING TO SWIM.

The way to learn