The Montgomery advertiser., 1906-12-16
By Margaret E. sanRnter.

ny AAuHBNNEt Hzs S%WBSAOEs Copyright, 1906, by Joseph B. BowlesO
 People have been telling you that you must think of the future ever since you left the primary school. This advice forms the burden of platform speeches from school perintendents and visiting friends, and very often boys hear it and forget 1t as soon as the words are spoken.
 To look ahead is not natural to a boy, unless he is ambitious and has early made up his mind what he means to be when he reaches manhood You know that you have plenty to do at present, and your life is full of inter- est about the things of today To- morrow has not yet cast it's spell over you. In fact, you sometimes feel good deal bored when you are asked whether you intend to be a doctor. lawyer a journalist, a farmer or a bus mess man in the days that are to come. You have not decided on this point, and you cannot decide until you shall be older. It is not the easiest thing in the world for a boy to look very far ahead
 Still, every boy has his thoughtful moments. People are not as fair as they should be to boys. Under the gay surface the boy feels stirring within him desires and purposes of which those around him often have not the IAlneSI EuEplClOns HGSS QCSiESS anu beginnings of purpose are occasional, and do not occupy much of the fore ground. They are in tho back of boys mind, and when the right time comes they influence him and make themselves felt as factors in what he means to do and to be.
 Tennyson sounded true note when he wrote a poem to tme melody of gives one visions of things unseen by
 In boyhood, if ever, there should be the dawning of that Inner sense which Follow the Clean"
 the practical and literal person who must weigh and measure everything in actual scales Follow the Clean" if 1t is not yet your motto, may be your motto when you are in college. or later when you have entered the busy world of men.
 Longfellow struck the same chord in his famous lyric, Excelsior" which every school boy knows by heart. "The Youth who bore through snow
 and ice
 The banner with the strange device" neighbor. I wonder whether you do not want to belong to his company, to storm difficult heights as he did, and send down from some white peak the ringing cry. "Excelsior!'
 Let me tell you that whether you are aware of 1t, or whether 1t has never occurred to you, the boys who look ahead, who follow the gleaIn, who make Excelsior their watchword, are the boys who are to be in the van to achieve dis tinction and win success.
 Every boy has in him the germ of the man he is to be. The great lead CTS set about making themselves great when they were boys at school. Napol- con as a student in the military school laid foundation for his magnificent campaigns. Macauley in his unsuitable reading and tireless ardor of study. pre- pared himself to be the future histor- ian while he was yet mere boy. Wash ington, Lincoln, Grant, Mckinley. each in his degree was looking ahead dur ing the period of his preparation for life.
 You see It Is with us all very much as if we were travellers getting out on an unknown road. We can make ready. to a certain extent, for what ever we find on our journey, but we must take some chances;s we cannot tell what a day may bring forth. Every tomorrow lives today. If we are clean, strong, conscientious and resolute to- day, we need not fear anything that may come to us tomorrow. The three periods, yesterday, today and tomorrow are all that Time gives us, and they all affect our destiny.