ing
ignorance, degradation, and want. Over ten times the influence for evil
that there is for good. Where is the remedy? Let Congress, which is
supposed to control our interests, legislate against ignorance and for
education. Suppose that nine hundred millions were yearly used to
educate deserving young men and women in colleges; inaugurated into a
"fresh-air fund" for the children in our large cities who have never
been under its ennobling influence, but who, on the contrary, have never
seen aught but vice and degradation. Nine hundred millions in one year.
Nine thousand millions in ten years. How many thousands of young men
could go through college if aided each, $100 per year. If it were wholly
devoted to this purpose nine million young people could be helped
through college in four years--in ten years there would be eighteen or
twenty million college graduates from this source alone, what would be
the result.

Suppose again that the money was devoted to building tenement houses
that would be fit for human beings to live in, look at the wonderful
good that could be done. I am not desirous of giving here a dry
temperance lecture; but the object of this work is to aid others to
success, and if vice and drink were removed there would be but little
need for further advice. Ah! there lies the root of the evil. Strike the
root, pull it up and trample it under foot until it is dead. Never allow
it to take root again, and you can reasonably expect to be at least
fairly successful.

This chapter is on "Concentration of Effort". Possibly some will imagine
that we have wandered; not at all, as we see it. The abolition of these
vices tends toward concentration; bad habits, of no matter what nature
lead to failure and tend to draw the attention from one's calling. Then
let the young man who would succeed join his heart, his sympathies, his
desires, with the right; let him live a consistent life; let him lead a
strictly temperate life; let him give his whole influence to temperance,
resting assured that if he puts his purposes into action that he will
succeed in more ways than one.

SELF-RELIANCE.

Of all the elements of success, none is more essential than
self-reliance,--determination to be one's own helper, and not to look to
others for support. God never intended that strong independent beings
should be reared by clinging to others, like the ivy to the oak, for
support.

"God helps those who help themselves," an