San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1888-10-16

a matter or facS;- Il is 'ris truest kindness
often TO refuse. A majority Of parents hest
tate TO refuse favors to their children from
the most selfish motives, unrecognized, but
existing, all tho same. Discipline requires
strength Of mind IL requires not only men
tai strength, but moral strength and phys
ical endurance. Very few Of us are endowed
with all Of these, and the great majority OF
US have little of either. 1t takes time and
patience to train dog, therefore 1t is very
much cheaper to pay trainer $40 month
than 1t Is TO bother ones self about It. Pre-
cisely so with children. We spoil them at
home and send them to school for their edu-
cation. There is 50 much in us that is I'M
used, so much that might be made available,
to put it selffshly, for our own comfort, for
our own happiness, for our own delight and
appreciation Of the bounteous gifts which
are showered upon our path, but which we
have not the sight to see.
A man who goes through life with no other
ambition than saving money is mean man;
but after all he has an idea He wants to
die rich man, and he does die rich. Every
body laughs when he dies; but he has had the
solid satisfaction, all his life long, Of pursu-
ing a course designedly and deliberately
marked out The fact that it is an ignoble
aim has nothing to do with the case. He has
an aim, and he follows it the end A man
who desires to become a good public speaker
may fail in convincing Others that he is
good public speaker; but he, having marked
out that line of endeavor, educates himself,
reads books, practices oratory, yells behind
the barn, shouts over the bounding pillows,
talks in the seclusion of his study, speaks as
he walks the crowded streets. Do you mean to
tell me that he is not having good timel
Do you mean to tell me that he is beside HIM
self when he does thati Can't you see that
he is better man, a more useful man, even
if he never succeeds in reaching the goall
The very fact that the moment We begin
to consider the subject of aims, our minds
divides them into classes, proves conclusively,
first, that it is an interesting thought, and
second, that it is one which. outworked, will
do us good Idon't mean to intimate that
the average man, the ditch diggers, the day
laborers, the slaves of capital, the Indians in
their forests, the vast hordes in jungle,
swamp or glade, need be expected ever to
stand upon mountain tops and view the pros
pect DER, hoping by expert eye to detect
some glittering point toward which to shoot
the arrows Of their desire, but do say, If
ambition could be implanted in their breasts,
lowly, humble, poverty stricken though it
be, the man would be happier, more useful,
more contented, and the race would be
elevated many points.
The ditch digger who means to have his
ditch straighter and cleaner than that Of any
other man has an object in life. The man
who builds a stone fence and regards its
neat, regular surface, its direct course, with
satisfaction, and compares or contrasts it
with the fences of others less careful about
him, has an ambition, and he is a better man
for the fact. The express clerk, whose tally
book is legible and whose crate list and
drivers books are neat, with readable ad-
dresses and decipherable figures, is a better
man, a better servant TO his company, q
more acceptable public worker, than his fell
lows who scribble the scrawls we ordinarily
find in express delivery books, the only legi-
BILE feature about it being the cabalistic sign
Of C. o. d. Go into any great printing estab-
lishment and you will find that there are GER
tain clerks In the advertising department
with whom the public prefer to deal Whyl
Because they are DESTROYS not only Of serv-
ing their employer by pleasing his patrons,
but of advancing themselves in their en-
ploy. 1t is their aim to be civil, to be oblig-
ing, to be helpful and to be correct
Gro into the city EDITORS room and talk
with him. If he will condescend, between
his cigarette puffs, to open his oracular lips,
he will tell you Of the twenty or thirty re-
porters under his control three or four are
the group upon whom he chiefly relies.
Whyf Because they are ambitious along
their line of work; because they are al
ways on time; because they have a quick
nose for news; because their copy is clean A.;
because they don't spend an hour in revising
and interlining and crossing out and chang
ing expressions.
| went to school once to a man whose
finger nails were always dirty. He produced
profound impression on me, and don't be-
lieve l have ever had a dirty finger nail
since. He little knew what his object in life
was, but so far as am concerned, the only
thing l ever learned from him was by OBJ
servation of his excessively dirty finger nails.
Joe Howard in Boston Globe