s to "de feet." It
makes them work harder.

The Plague of Incompetents

Civilization is mostly a conspiracy to keep us from going very far
south.

The one who keeps on going south defies custom and becomes unorthodox.

But contentment with present achievement is the damnation of the race.

The mass of the human family never go on south far enough to become
good servants, workmen or artists. The young people get a smattering
and squeeze into the bottom position and never go on south to
efficiency and promotion. They wonder why their genius is not
recognized. They do not make it visible.

Nine out of ten stenographers who apply for positions can write a few
shorthand characters and irritate a typewriter keyboard. They think
that is being a stenographer, when it is merely a symptom of a
stenographer. They mangle the language, grammar, spelling,
capitalization and punctuation. Their eyes are on the clock, their
minds on the movies.

Nine out of ten workmen cannot be trusted to do what they advertise to
do, because they have never gone south far enough to become efficient.
Many a professional man is in the same class.

Half of our life is spent in getting competents to repair the botchwork
of incompetents.

No matter how well equipped you are, you are never safe in your job if
you are contented to do today just what you did yesterday. Contented to
think today what you thought yesterday.

You must go on south to be safe.

I used to know a violinist who would say, "If I were not a genius, I
could not play so well with such little practice." The poor fellow did
not know how poor a fiddler he really was. Well did Strickland
Gillilan, America's great poet-humorist, say, "Egotism is the opiate
that Nature administers to deaden the pains of mediocrity."

This Is Our Best Day

Just because our hair gets frosty or begins to rub off in spots, we are
so prone to say, "I am aging rapidly." It pays to advertise. We always
get results. See the one shrivel who goes around front-paging his age.
Age is not years; age is grunts.

We say, "I've seen my best days." And the undertaker goes and greases
his buggy. He believes in "preparedness."

Go on south! We have not seen our best days. This is the best day so
far, and tomorrow is going to be better on south.

We are only children in God's great kindergarten, playing with our
A-B-C's. I do not utter that as a bit of sentiment, but as the great
fundamental o