The Brandon news. (Brandon, Miss.) 1892-1961, 1905-03-02
Home Thoughts.

huAAJ 0AOhS ~ % happy -SO-AuChy W0ys
ignorant or needless of the capacities
of our minds and bodies The preco-
cious youth, the boy or girl of average
intelligence, or the Ounce, should
alike study his own strength, his
weakness, his likes, his dislikes, his
bent. ''Know thyself,'' was spoken
of old at Delphi; and, though the or
acle has long been mute, the words
are of eternal significance. No better
advice was ever given to man. Phil
osophy finds its highest province in
the study of our own natures Knowl-
edge thus gained, and that alone,
will teach the round boy to avoid the
square holes as he would shun false
hood and dishonor. 1t has been we'll
said that no man ever made an i'll
figure who understood his own talents,
nor good one who mistook them
,.%*
Most work is uncongenial, and the
great majority of men and women
think they would be happier in some
other place. To almost everyone the
day of choice comes. What career? ?
What shall my life's work be? If
instinct and heart ask for carpentry,
be carpenter; if for medicine, be
physician. With a firm choice and
earnest work. a young man or woman
cannot help but succeed. But if there
be no instinct, or if it be weak or
faint, one should choose cautiously
along the line of the best ad aptibility
or opportunity. No one need doubt
that the world has use for him, but
great honor and fortune are not for
all. True success lies in acting we'll
your part, and this everyone can do
Better be first rate hod-carrier than
second rate anything.
*&x
One hour a day withdrawn from
frivolous pursuits, and profitably en-
ployed, would enable any man of ordi.
nary capacity to master complete
science. One hour a day would make
an Ignorant man a we'll informed man
in ten years. One hour day would
earn enough TO pay for two daily and
two weekly papers, two leading maya
zines, and asdozen good books. In an
hour day q boy or girl could read
twenty pages thoughtfully over seven
thousand pages or eighteen large vol
umes i'll a year. An hour a day
might make all the difference between
bare existence and useful, happy liv-
ing. An hour day might make =
nay, has made an unknown man a
famous one, useless one benefactor
to his race. Consider, then, the
mighty possibilities of two four yes
six hours Gay that are, on the av-
erage, thrown away by young men
and women in the restless desire for
fun and diversion.
xas
great truck horse would make on the
race track; yet this no more inoogru-
GUS than the popular idea that law,
medicine, and theology are the de-
sirable professions. How ridiculous
too, for fifty-two Fer cent of our Amer,
lean college graduates to study law
How many young men become poor
clergyman by trying to initiate their
fathers, who were good ones; or poor
doctors and lawyers for the same rea-
son. THE country is full of men who
are out of place, disappointed, soured
ruined, out Of office, out of money,
out of courage, out at elbows, out in
the cold" The fact is, nearly every
college graduate who succeeds in the
true sense of the word. prepares him
self in school, but makes himself after
he is graduated. The best thing his
teachers have taught him is how to
study. The moment he is beyond the
college walls he ceases to use books
0AA AOlpS WnlCu w HUI 10EQ duu
seizes upon those that do.
###
The world has been very kind to |
many who were once known as ounces |
or block heads, after they have become |
very successful; but it was very cross
to them while they were struggling |
through encouragement and misinter-
probation. Such lives do mot show,
however that numskull is sure to
climb to the top. Because the last |
boy in his class became Henry Ward |
Beecher, there is no reason to con-
clude that the last boy in the next
class, or the next, must become any.
thing great at all. There must be
some life In the boy, or he will not
rise under any circumstances until the
day appointed for the resurrection Of
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