not because they are good for anything practical, but to get you to take
up figures and be quick with them. Get yourself up a multiplication
table running to 50 times 50--there's something practical. The man quick
and accurate at figures is always esteemed.

OUR LANGUAGE

is a vast record of the changes in pronunciation which have been brought
about by affected people as well as careless and ignorant people. "'Tis
true 'tis pity, and pity 'tis 'tis true." But you cannot change it by
spelling "balance" with two _ls_, or "sure" with an _h_. Be accurate in
your spelling. Restrict yourself to such words as you can spell, and you
will soon improve if you are guilty of such errors. In conclusion, if
you go fishing and catch three perch and one black bass, say that you
caught those fish, and not that you caught three black bass and one
perch. Right there is where you can form habits that will shine out in
your face as you grow to the full dignity of manhood. You see I lay
special stress on habit. The Duke of Wellington said that habit was ten
times nature. Horace Mann said

"HABIT IS A CABLE.

We weave a thread of it every day, and at last we cannot break it." Dr.
Locke said with a wonderful knowledge of life: "Habit works more
constantly and with greater facility than reason; which, when we have
most need of it, is seldom fairly consulted, and more rarely obeyed."
Thus, you see, when a man is spoken of as a person "of good habits," it
means something more than is usually conceived. It means he is under
chains which he cannot break--and, in reality, that he could not be a
bad man without suffering and discomfort.

SUCCESS.

Nothing succeeds so well as success.--Talleyrand.

[Illustration T] The man Talleyrand, who made the above mocking
assertion, was one of the closest observers of human nature who have
ever lived. And yet what he said in a spirit of uncommon hatred of his
fellow-beings is really another way of saying the exact truth--that
success comes only after so many trials and disappointments that the
world, considering it a safe rule, admires the result, and feels that
the reflected credit for a great result belongs to him upon whom it
falls. Beside you toils a young man of your own age. He does not seem to
care to rise. He dislikes the few duties of the present, and would be
inclined to shrink from further responsibilities. It may be that he is
the happier as compared with you, but men must