onial and fire him!"

It is dangerous to overboost people, for the higher you boost them the
farther they will fall.

The Menace of the Press-Notice

Now testimonials and press-notices very often serve useful ends. In
lyceum work, in teaching, in very many lines, they are often useful to
introduce a stranger. A letter of introduction is useful. A diploma, a
degree, a certificate, a license, are but different kinds of
testimonials.

The danger is that the hero of them may get to leaning upon them. Then
they become a mirror for his vanity instead of a monitor for his
vitality.

Most testimonials and press-notices are frank flatteries. They magnify
the good points and say little as possible about the bad ones. I look
back over my lyceum life and see that I hindered my progress by reading
my press-notices instead of listening to the verdict of my audiences. I
avoided frank criticism. It would hurt me. Whenever I heard an adverse
criticism, I would go and read a few press-notices. "There, I am all
right, for this clipping says I am the greatest ever, and should he
return, no hall would be able to contain the crowd."

And my vanity bump would again rise.

Alas! How often I have learned that when I did return the hall that was
filled before was entirely too big for the audience! The editors of
America--God bless them! They are always trying to boost a home
enterprise--not for the sake of the imported attraction but for the
sake of the home folks who import it.

We must read people, not press-notices.

When you get to the place where you can stand aside and "see yourself
go by"--when you can keep still and see every fibre of you and your
work mercilessly dissected, shake hands with yourself and rejoice, for
the kingdom of success is yours.

The Artificial Uplift

There are so many loving, sincere, foolish, cruel uplift movements in
the land. They spring up, fail, wail, disappear, only to be succeeded
by twice as many more. They fail because instead of having the barrel
do the uplifting, they try to do it with a derrick.

The victims of the artificial uplift cannot stay uplifted. They rattle
back, and "the last estate of that man is worse than the first."

You cannot uplift a beggar by giving him alms. You are using the
derrick. We must feed the hungry and clothe the naked, but that is not
helping them, that is propping them. The beggar who asks you to help
him does not want to be helped. He want