es a task. His employer
is a taskmaster. He decides that work is not good for him as easily as
when a school-boy he grasped the meaning of escape from his lessons. By
failing to fit studies to a student's interest, or by failing to insure
a student's interest in his studies, schools and colleges miseducate
young men and young women to look upon all work as tasks, as
discipline, necessary but irksome, and to be avoided if possible. Just
as there is a way of turning all the energy of the play instinct into
school work, so there is a way of interesting the factory and office
worker in his job. However mechanical work may be, there is always the
interest in becoming the most efficient worker in a room or a trade.
Routine--accurate and detailed work--does not mean the stultification
of the imagination. It takes more imagination to see the interesting
things in statistical or record work than to write a novel. Therefore
employers should make it a point to help their employees to realize the
significance of the perfection of each detail and the importance of
each man's part. The other day a father said to me, "I want my boys to
be as ashamed to do work in which they are not interested as to accept
graft." When interest in work and efficiency in work are regarded as of
more importance than the immediate returns for work, when it is as
natural for boys and girls to demand enjoyment and complete living in
work as it is to thrill at the sight of the Stars and Stripes,
do-nothing ailments will be less frequent and less costly.

Work--that one enjoys--is an invaluable unpatented medicine. It can
make the sick well and keep the well from getting sick. It is the chief
reliance of mental hygiene. "I should have the grippe if I had time,"
said a business woman to me the other day; but she did not have time,
hence she did not have the grippe.

If you're sick with something chronic,
And you think you need a tonic,
Do something.
There is life and health in doing,
There is pleasure in pursuing;
Doing, then, is health accruing--
Do something.

And if you're seeking pleasure,
Or enjoyment in full measure,
Do something.
Idleness, there's nothing in it;
'Twill not pay you for a minute--
Do something.

CHAPTER XXXIII

HEREDITY BUGABOOS AND HEREDITY TRUTHS

One of the red-letter days of my life was that on which I learned that
I could not have