Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1915-01-09
NATURE IS ON THE
SIDE OF THE WORKER
Life Tissue Of Habiis-The Royal
Road TO Achievement--If We Take
Care of Our Habits Success Will
Take Care of Itself
BY IosEPH II. ODELL

/
little, probably with not more than will ant
a capacity. The first conscious acts of llf,
are the formation OF habits; children dc
things because they like to do them or be.
cause they are compelled to do them. They
do not know at the time that they are build
ing up the self they must carry all through
life. Life says Amie "is but tissue OF
habits"
The late Professor James, of Harvard
stated this fact very clearly i'm his book on
! psychology: I'VE are spinning own
fates, good or evil, and never to be undone.
! Every smallest stroke of virtue or of vice
leaves its scar. The drunken Rip Van Win
kle in Jeffersons play excuses himself for
every fresh derelction by saying, won't
count this timel Well he may not count It
and a kind heaven may not count it, but IL Is
| being counted none the less. Down among
his nerve cells and fibres the molecules are
counting 1t, registering and storing 1t up, to
be used against him when the next tempta-
tion comes Nothing we ever do is, in strict
literalness, wiped out. OF course, this has
its good side as well as its bad one. AS we
become permanent drunkards by so many
separate drinks, so we become saints in the
moral and authorities and experts in the
practical and scientific spheres, by so many
separate acts and hours of work.
Some Fine Morning
let youth have any anxiety about the
upshot of his education, whatever the line
of it may be. If he keeps faithfully busy
each hour of the working day, he may safely
leave the final result to itself. He can GER
tainly count upon waking up some fine morn
ing to find himself one of the competent ones
of his generation, in whatsoever pursuit he
may have singled out"
ie fao Of b,,, IN tfgI, IN
do twice what has been done once with some
degree of success. This tendency is what
makes habit-forming so easy. Seeing that
the second attempt is usually less difficult
than the first, understand how powerful
becomes the liability to constant repetition,
until the liability passes into automatic GER
tainty. In this way movements of the mind
body become instructive and are per-
formed without any conscious effort.
habit has been lkened to a physical
groove in the brain along which impulses
run easily, and the more impulses that pass
along it the deeper becomes the groove and,
the more easily and inevitably the subse-
quent impulses travel This physical groove
Illustration may be itself illustrated by the
history of Broadway, New York. When the
city only a cluster of houses at the ex-
treme tip of Manhattan Island, which we
now call the Battery, the worthy settlers
brought their cows in to be milked along a
path which grew broader every day, because,
being in the centre of the settlement the
people on both sides of 1t drove their cattle
that way. AS the village extended into the
country the houses were built upon either
side of the cowpath, which grew still
broader each year as more COWS went to and
from pasture, until at length it became a
well-marked road. Travel passed along it
and convenient, until 1t became one of the
longest and busiest thoroughfares in the
world.
Necktes and Thought
If we had to dress today for the first time
in life 1t would be long and difficult under
taking We should have to study the mean
ing and probable place of each garment To
put the studs in the shirt, to discover what
to do with the unattached collar, to decide
which was the back and which the front of
each article, would present a series of serious
problems. To adjust the necktie alone would |
involve large amount of physical and |
mental effort. Yet each day we dress and |
undress without giving the process a single |
thought Habit has enabled us to perform |
the series of intricate acts unconsciously and |
while thinking of entirely different sub
ject.
that an expert pianist can strike "a notes in a |
second. Each note necessitates the passing OF
a nerve current from the eye to the brain |
and from the brain to the fingers Each note
requires three movements of a finger the |
bending down and raising up, and at least
one lateral, making fewer than 70 motions
IN second, not TO mention the movements of |
The wrist and elbow and shoulder, and each
requires the control of the will to regulate
The speed, force and direction. Paderewsli |
or Hoffman, can do It easily for an hour with
1ut pause. But the only way in which the
Is possible is by the uncon-
'cious action which nothing but habit can
give.
Habit does away with the difficult task of
making up the mind on every movement or
action which must be performed in life If a
nan has the habit of doing honest and care
'ul work. he does not have to discuss the
question every five minutes of how we'll a
hing needs to be done; there is only one way
10 do IT, and he cannot do it any other. II
he habit of study has been acquired the
student does not have to tight every night to
iecde whether he win sit down to his books
'r spend the evening at some place OF amuse-
nent; he goes to his studies automatically.
,s II It were the only course open.
The Easier Way to Succeed
Professor Virchow, of Berlin, wrote; "EIow
,ften have 1 found myself in a state OF
dependency and with a feeling of depres-
llon! What has saved me has been the habit
II work. which has not forsalSen me even in
he days OF outward misfortune-the habit of
scientific work" TO cultivate good habits is
o found a partnership with nature. For ex-
lmple, food is more easily dgested, the fuuc-
ions OF the body are more regular, the
acuIties are truer In their exercise ana the |