ion of effort is worse off. In a recent test of the power of
steel plates, designed for ship armor, one thousand cannon were fired at
once against it, but without avail. A large cannon was then brought out.
This cannon used but one-tenth as much powder as did the combined force
of the others, yet, it was found, when the smoke had cleared away, that
the ball had pierced the plate. Ten times the powder needed availed
naught, because, the law of concentration was disregarded.

One of the essential requisites to success is concentration. Every young
man, therefore, should early ascertain his strong faculties, and
discern, if possible, his especial fitness for any calling which he may
choose. A man may have the most dazzling talents, but if his energies
are scattered he will accomplish nothing. Emerson says: "A man is like a
bit of Labrador spar, which has no lustre as you turn it in your hand,
until you come to a particular angle; then it shows deep and beautiful
colors." There is no adaptation or universal applicability in man.
Dryden has said:

"What the child admired,
The youth endeavored, and the man acquired."

Is it not so? Do we not find Michael Angelo neglecting school to copy
drawings? Henry Clay learning pieces to recite in the barn or corn
field? Yet, as Goethe says: "We should guard against a talent which we
cannot hope to practice in perfection. Improve it as we may, we shall
always, in the end, when the merit of the master has become apparent to
us, painfully lament the loss of time and strength devoted to such
botching."

The man who would know one thing well, must have the courage to be
ignorant of a thousand other things, no matter how attractive they may
be, or how desirable it may seem to try them. P. T. Barnum, the veteran
showman, who has lost several fortunes but risen above all, paid every
dollar of his indebtedness, and is to-day a millionaire, says in his
lecture on 'The Art of Money Getting':

"Be a whole man in whatever you undertake. This wholeness is just what
distinguishes the shabby, blundering mechanic from the splendid workman.
In earlier times, when our country was new, there might have been a
chance for the man who gave only one corner of his brain to his chosen
calling, but in these days of keen competition it demands the most
thorough knowledge of the business, and the most earnest application to
bring success. Stick to your business, and you may be sure that y