THE SELF-IMPROVEMENT HABIT
If you want knowledge you must toil for it.--RUSKIN.
We excuse our sloth under the pretext of difficulty.--QUINTILLIAN.
What sculpture is to a block of marble, education is to the human
soul.--ADDISON.
A boy is better unborn than untaught.--GASCOIGNE.
It is ignorance that wastes; it is knowledge that saves, an untaught
faculty is at once quiescent and dead.--N. D. HILLIS.
The plea that this or that man has no time for culture will vanish as
soon as we desire culture so much that we begin to examine seriously
into our present use of time.--MATTHEW ARNOLD.
Education, as commonly understood, is the process of developing the
mind by means of books and teachers. When education has been
neglected, either by reason of lack of opportunity, or because
advantage was not taken of the opportunities afforded, the one
remaining hope is self-improvement. Opportunities for self-improvement
surround us, the helps to self-improvement are abundant, and in this
day of cheap books and free libraries, there can be no good excuse for
neglect to use the faculties for mental growth and development which
are so abundantly supplied.
When we look at the difficulties which hindered the acquisition of
knowledge fifty years to a century ago; the scarcity and the costliness
of books, the value of the dimmest candle-light, the unremitting toil
which left so little time for study, the physical weariness which had
to be overcome to enable mental exertion in study, we may well marvel
at the giants of scholarship those days of hardship produced. And when
we add to educational limitations, physical disabilities, blindness,
deformity, ill-health, hunger and cold, we may feel shame as we
contemplate the fulness of modern opportunity and the helps and
incentives to study and self-development which are so lavishly provided
for our use and inspiration, and of which we make so little use.
Self-improvement implies one essential feeling: the desire for
improvement. If the desire exists, then improvement is usually
accomplished only by the conquest of self--the material self, which
seeks pleasure and amusement. The novel, the game of cards, the
billiard cue, idle whittling and story-telling will have to be
eschewed, and every available moment of leisure turned to account. For
all who seek self-improvement "there is a lion in the way," the lion of
self-indulgence, and it is only by the conquest of this enemy that
progress is assured.
Show me how a youth spends his evenings, his odd bits of time, and I
will forecast his future. Does he look upon this leisure as precious,
rich in possibilities, as containing golden material for his future
life structure? Or does he look upon it as an opportunity for
self-indulgence, for a light, flippant good time?
The way he spends his leisure will give the keynote of his life, will
tell whether he is dead in earnest, or whether he looks upon it as a
huge joke.
He may not be conscious of the terrible effects, the gradual
deterioration of character which comes from a frivolous wasting of his
evenings and half-holidays, but the character is being undermined just
the same.
Young men are often surprised to find themselves dropping behind their
competitors, but if they will examine themselves, they will find that
they have stopped growing, because they have ceased their effort to
keep abreast of the times, to be widely read, to enrich life with
self-culture.
It is the right use of spare moments in reading and study which qualify
men for leadership. And in many historic cases the "spare" moments
utilized for study were not spare in the sense of being the spare time
of leisure. They were rather _spared_ moments, moments spared from
sleep, from meal times, from recreation.
Where is the boy to-day who has less chance to rise in the world than
Elihu Burritt, apprenticed at sixteen to a blacksmith, in whose shop he
had to work at the forge all the daylight, and often by candle-light?
Yet he managed, by studying with a book before him at his meals,
carrying it in his pocket that he might utilize every spare moment, and
studying nights and holidays, to pick up an excellent education in the
odds and ends of time which most boys throw away. While the rich boy
and the idler were yawning and stretching and getting their eyes open,
young Burritt had seized the opportunity and improved it.
He had a thirst for knowledge and a desire for self-improvement, which
overcame every obstacle in his pathway. A wealthy gentleman offered to
pay his expenses at Harvard. But no, Elihu said he could get his
education himself, even though he had to work twelve or fourteen hours
a day at the forge. Here was a determined boy. He snatched every
spare moment at the anvil and forge as if it were gold. He believed,
with Gladstone, that thrift of time would repay him in after years with
usury, and that waste of it would make him dwindle. Think of a boy
working nearly all the daylight in a blacksmith shop, and yet finding
time to study seven languages in a single year.
It is not lack of ability that holds men down but lack of industry. In
many cases the employee has a better brain, a better mental capacity
than his employer. But he does not improve his faculties. He dulls
his mind by cigarette smoking. He spends his money at the pool table,
theater, or dance, and as he grows old, and the harness of perpetual
service galls him, he grumbles at his lack of luck, his limited
opportunity.
The number of perpetual clerks is constantly being recruited by those
who did not think it worth while as boys to learn to write a good hand
or to master the fundamental branches of knowledge requisite in a
business career. The ignorance common among young men and young women,
in factories, stores, and offices, everywhere, in fact, in this land of
opportunity, where youth should be well educated, is a pitiable thing
in American life. On every hand we see men and women of ability
occupying inferior positions because they did not think it worth while
in youth to develop their powers and to concentrate their attention on
the acquisition of sufficient knowledge.
Thousands of men and women find themselves held back, handicapped for
life because of the seeming trifles which they did not think it worth
while to pay attention to in their early days.
Many a girl of good natural ability spends her most productive years as
a cheap clerk, or in a mediocre position because she never thought it
worth while to develop her mental faculties or to take advantage of
opportunities within reach to fit herself for a superior position.
Thousands of girls unexpectedly thrown on their own resources have been
held down all their lives because of neglected tasks in youth, which at
the time were dismissed with a careless "I don't think it worth while."
They did not think it would pay to go to the bottom of any study at
school, to learn to keep accounts accurately, or fit themselves to do
anything in such a way as to be able to make a living by it. They
expected to marry, and never prepared for being dependent on
themselves,--a contingency against which marriage, in many instances,
is no safeguard.
The trouble with most youths is that they are not willing to fling the
whole weight of their being into their location. They want short
hours, little work and a lot of play. They think more of leisure and
pleasure than of discipline and training in their great life specialty.
Many a clerk envies his employer and wishes that he could go into
business for himself, be an employer too but it is too much work to
make the effort to rise above a clerkship. He likes to take life easy;
and he wonders idly whether, after all, it is worth while to strain and
strive and struggle and study to prepare oneself for the sake of
getting up a little higher and making a little more money.
The trouble with a great many people is that they are not willing to
make present sacrifices for future gain. They prefer to have a good
time as they go along, rather than spend time in self-improvement.
They have a sort of vague wish to do something great, but few have that
intensity of longing which impels them to make the sacrifice of the
present for the future. Few are willing to work underground for years
laying a foundation for the life monument. They yearn for greatness,
but their yearning is not the kind which is willing to pay any price in
endeavor or make any sacrifice for its object.
So the majority slide along in mediocrity all their lives. They have
ability for something higher up, but they have not the energy and
determination to prepare for it. They do not care to make necessary
effort. They prefer to take life easier and lower down rather than to
struggle for something higher. They do not play the game for all they
are worth.
If a man or woman has but the disposition for self-improvement and
advancement he will find opportunity to rise or "what he can not find
create." Here is an example from the everyday life going on around us
and in which we are all taking part.
A young Irishman who had reached the age of nineteen or twenty without
learning to read or write, and who left home because of the
intemperance that prevailed there, learned to read a little by studying
billboards, and eventually got a position as steward aboard a
man-of-war. He chose that occupation and got leave to serve at the
captain's table because of a great desire to learn. He kept a little
tablet in his coat-pocket, and whenever he heard a new word wrote it
down. One day an officer saw him writing and immediately suspected him
of being a spy. When he and the other officers learned what the tablet
was used for, the young man was given more opportunities to learn, and
these led in time to promotion, until, finally, the sometime steward
won a prominent position in the navy. Success as a naval officer
prepared the way for success in other fields.
Self-help has accomplished about all the great things of the world.
How many young men falter, faint, and dally with their purpose, because
they have no capital to start with, and wait and wait for some good
luck to give them a lift! But success is the child of drudgery and
perseverance. It can not be coaxed or bribed; pay the price and it is
yours.
One of the sad things about the neglected opportunities for
self-improvement is that it puts people of great natural ability at a
disadvantage among those who are their mental inferiors.
I know a member of one of our city legislatures, a splendid fellow,
immensely popular, who has a great, generous heart and broad
sympathies, but who can not open his mouth without so murdering the
English language that it is really painful to listen to him.
There are a great many similar examples in Washington of men who have
been elected to important positions because of their great natural
ability and fine characters, but who are constantly mortified and
embarrassed by their ignorance and lack of early training.
One of the most humiliating experiences that can ever come to a human
being is to be conscious of possessing more than ordinary ability, and
yet be tied to an inferior position because of lack of early and
intelligent training commensurate with his ability. To be conscious
that one has ability to realize eighty or ninety per cent of his
possibilities, if he had only had the proper education and training,
but because of this lack to be unable to bring out more than
twenty-five per cent of it on account of ignorance, is humiliating and
embarrassing. In other words, to go through life conscious that you
are making a botch of your capabilities just because of lack of
training, is a most depressing thing.
Nothing else outside of sin causes more sorrow than that which comes
from not having prepared for the highest career possible to one. There
are no bitterer regrets than those which come from being obliged to let
opportunities pass by for which one never prepared himself.
I know a pitiable case of a born naturalist whose ambition was so
suppressed, and whose education so neglected in youth, that later when
he came to know more about natural history than almost any man of his
day, he could not write a grammatical sentence, and could never make
his ideas live in words, perpetuate them in books, because of his
ignorance of even the rudiments of an education. His early vocabulary
was so narrow and pinched, and his knowledge of his language so limited
that he always seemed to be painfully struggling for words to express
his thought.
Think of the suffering of this splendid man, who was conscious of
possessing colossal scientific knowledge, and yet was absolutely unable
to express himself grammatically!
How often stenographers are mortified by the use of some unfamiliar
word or term, or quotation, because of the shallowness of their
preparation!
It is not enough to be able to take dictation when ordinary letters are
given, not enough to do the ordinary routine of office work. The
ambitious stenographer must be prepared for the unusual demand, must
have good reserves of knowledge to draw from in case of emergency.
But, if she is constantly slipping up upon her grammar, or is all at
sea the moment she steps out of her ordinary routine, her employer
knows that her preparation is shallow, that her education is very
limited, and her prospects will be limited also.
A young lady writes me that she is so handicapped by the lack of an
early education that she fairly dreads to write a letter to anyone of
education or culture for fear of making ignorant mistakes in grammar
and spelling. Her letter indicates that she has a great deal of
natural ability. Yet she is much limited and always placed at a
disadvantage because of this lack of an early education. It is
difficult to conceive of a greater misfortune than always to be
embarrassed and handicapped just because of the neglect of those early
years.
I am often pained by letters from people, especially young people,
which indicate that the writers have a great deal of natural ability,
that they have splendid minds, but a large part of their ability is
covered up, rendered ineffectual by their ignorance.
Many of these letters show that the writers are like diamonds in the
rough, with only here and there a little facet ground off, just enough
to let in the light and reveal the great hidden wealth within.
I always feel sorry for these people who have passed the school age and
who will probably go through life with splendid minds handicapped by
their ignorance which, even late in life, they might largely or
entirely overcome.
It is such a pity that, a young man, for instance, who has the natural
ability which would make him a leader among men, must, for the lack of
a little training, a little preparation, work for somebody else,
perhaps with but half of his ability but with a better preparation,
more education.
Everywhere we see clerks, mechanics, employees in all walks of life,
who cannot rise to anything like positions which correspond with their
natural ability, because they have not had the education. They are
ignorant. They can not write a decent letter. They murder the English
language, and hence their superb ability cannot be demonstrated, and
remains in mediocrity.
The parable of the talents illustrates and enforces one of nature's
sternest laws: "To him that hath shall be given; from him that hath not
shall be taken away even that which he hath." Scientists call this law
the survival of the fittest. The fittest are those who use what they
have, who gain strength by struggle, and who survive by
self-development by control of their hostile or helpful environment.
The soil, the sunshine, the atmosphere are very liberal with the
material for the growth of the plant or the tree, but the plant must
use all it gets, it must work it up into flowers, into fruit, into leaf
or fiber or something or the supply will cease. In other words, the
soil will not send any more building material up the sap than is used
for growth, and the faster this material is used the more rapid the
growth, the more abundantly the material will come.
The same law holds good everywhere. Nature is liberal with us if we
utilize what she gives us, but if we stop using it, if we do not
transform what she gives us into power, if we do not do some building
somewhere, if we do not transform the material which she gives us into
force and utilize that force, we not only find the supply cut off, but
we find that we are growing weaker, less efficient.
Everything in nature is on the move, either one way or the other. It
is either going up or down. It is either advancing or retrograding; we
cannot hold without using.
Nature withdraws muscle or brain if we do not use them. She withdraws
skill the moment we stop drilling efficiently, the moment we stop using
our power. The force is withdrawn when we cease exercising it.
A college graduate is often surprised years after he leaves the college
to find that about all he has to show for his education is his diploma.
The power, the efficiency which he gained there has been lost because
he has not been using them. He thought at the time that everything was
still fresh in his mind after his examination that this knowledge would
remain with him, but it has been slipping away from him every minute
since he stopped using it, and only that has remained and increased
which he has used; the rest has evaporated. A great many college
graduates ten years afterwards find that they have but very little left
to show for their four years' course, because they have not utilized
their knowledge. They have become weaklings without knowing it. They
constantly say to themselves, "I have a college education, I must have
some ability, I must amount to something in the world." But the
college diploma has no more power to hold the knowledge you have gained
in college than a piece of tissue paper over a gas jet can hold the gas
in the pipe.
Everything which you do not use is constantly slipping away from you.
Use it or lose it. The secret of power is use. Ability will not
remain with us, force will evaporate the moment we cease to do
something with it.
The tools for self-improvement are at your hand, use them. If the ax
is dull the more strength must be put forth. If your opportunities are
limited you must use more energy, put forth more effort. Progress may
seem slow at first, but perseverance assures success. "Line upon line,
and precept upon precept" is the rule of mental upbuilding and "In due
time ye shall reap if ye faint not."