The mirror. (Stillwater, Minn.) 1894-1925, 1900-11-22
W~stteD for The Prison Mirror.

Written for The Prison Mavor
know thyself," runs the old prov
erb. The first step towards building
up a character is to "know thyself."
Each of us has three distinct PERSONAL
tiles. What we think we are, what we
really are, and what other people think
we are. To "know thyself" is to come
10 an understanding with yourself of
what you really are. This essay is
addressed to those who have strayed
from the path of virtue, and have
come to realize that their misfortunes
are partially or in the whole of their
own making. So, "inju innocence"
Or virtue itself can pass this by with
ont taking offense.
The first step toward building up a
character is to frankly acknowledge to
yourself that you are or have teen a
rascal and consequently have lost
caste with your fellow men. That is,
Of course, if this is actually the case.
Then if one is really imbued with
the desire to regain his lost position in
the social organization, he naturally
asks himself if there is way to ac-
complish this. There is way, but the
road is stony and steep and so narrow
that few find it at all, and many of
these when finding it, after looking at
the desolate heights to be surmounted,
grow faint-hearted and return to the
flesh pots of Egypt.
Society is prone to judge an erring
one by the standard of Jean Valjean
before he met the bishop rather than
the Jean Vatican of the latter period.
The second step in building up
character is to fix upon some definite
object in life. And let it be a good
Object-an ideal worth striving for. A
man without an object in life is like
ship without rudder, drifting, drift
ing, on the measureless sea of human
ity. A man with bad object is worse
than one with no object at all. lido not
hesitate to say that man who is not
shaping his daily life with some def
mite end in view will irrevocably drift
into evil, nine cases out of ten.
Each of us at the beginning have
only certain amount of moral force
inherent. Every time one commits
bad action he weakens the moral force
and strengthens the evil within him.
This makes it so much harder each
time to reach a state of virtue. for he
not only has to regain what he has lost
In the past, but also resist temptations
and conquer acquired evil habits. Do
not hope to reform yourself in one day,
or one month. You cannot build up
in one day what you have been life
time in tearing down. The habits of a
score or more of years are not so easily
disposed of. Only those who possess
iron wills can do this. And those who
possess iron wills are geniuses, and
genius is very exceptional phenome-
non. So L say he who is striving to
reform will frequently have a period
IN which for time he retrOgrades.
He who considers this as defeat is
utterly lost. Call it temporary re-
verse, but not total defeat. The
devil or temptation rather is subtle
enemy, full of stratagems we wot not
of; but if the erring one keeps his ulti-
mate ideal in sight he will win at last.
Keep on fighting. Keep on fighting.
One OF the hardest things a criminal
who is trying to reform has to contend
with is the skepticism of those or
rather some of those (for thank God
they are not all skeptics) who are &C.
quainted with his past. These Phari-
sees who have never fallen from their
pedestal of virtue, simply because they
have never been tempted, look on the
poor devil who in a moment of weak
ness has yielded as a creature of an