The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-06-07
Life And Habit
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YOu who wish your little boy to erow te be man of sterling qualities honest, indus trlous. thrifty, reliable, conscientious, eff cient-make 1t point, while he stil is very little, to habituate him to think and to be. have according to the qualities you want him to have.
 Don't imagine that he is certain auto. mAtieally to develop these qualities just be. cause he is your son. This is a mistake many fOOlishly fond parents make
 The kind of man a boy becomes depends far less on his ancestry than on what he gets out of his environment after he has come into the world In especial it depends on the habit training he receives from the people in his environment with whom he is most intimately associated usually his pa rents.
 Some close students of human behavior 70 so far as to insist that a mans character is wholly product of habit training. Thus one speaks of character as '.the total GUS tOnary reaction to the environment" An interpretation of habits" By a third, the moralist. T. H. Green, we are told that a strong character is:
 That habitual concentration of a mans faculties towards the fuIfiIlment of certain purposes. good or bad, which commonly pre- vents the disturbance caused by strong de- sire from making its outward sign, from ap- bearing in the man's behaviour
 It is hard-in fact, it is impossible-suc- eeszfully to dispute the dominant part played by habit in the development of character, hence in the shaping of the individuals life. Nor can it successfully be disputed that the majority of parents still fail to appreciate, as all parents should appreciate, their re- spOnsibility as habit trainers
 Were it otherwise we should hardly see as we unquestiOnabIy do see-myriads of people whose great aim in life is self-indul- gent pleasure. who are frankly lazy instead of ereatively energetic, who think only from cOmpulsiOn and then with the utmost diffi- eUlty, to whom thrift is q meaningless word, and whose ineffieiency is the despair of all who employ them
 Hark back to the early days of these people and what do you find?
 You find that mostly they were the chil- dren of parents who, on the plea that child hood should not be robbed of it's joys per mitted the pleasure principle to motivate the little ones lives, indulged their whims, did all their thinking for them, perhaps prated maxims to them but made no real effort to Oblige them to transmute those maxims into habitual behavior.
  If they left their toys lying about for some one else to pick up, what matter? If they came running to mother to do this or that for them, to tell them this or that which they should think out for themselves, what matter?
 They are so young, there was plenty of time for them to learn- Alas, and all the while they were forming habits which would later impel them. as their school teachers would discover, to oppose with resOlute ob- stinaey all correctives. Life, their parents had unwittingiy impressed upon them, was made for the gaining of pleasure. Why then consent to painful effort?
 Happily there yet are homes where effort is demanded of children while they still are children. where thrift and unselfishness and the sense. of duty are by example as by pre-. cept made habitual. If it were not so, the outlook for the nations future would in truth be hOpeleSSly dark.