CHAPTER IV. Over and Underdoing

OVER AND UNDERDOING

Learn to do, without overdoing. Too much striving for success is as bad as too little.

Bishop Hall says: "Moderation is the silken string running through the pearl chain of all virtues."

"You have too much respect upon the world," Shakespeare tells us. "They lose it that do buy it with much care."

Do not cram books into your head until you crowd pleasant thinking out of it.

A moderately informed man standing firmly on his two good legs is a much superior man to the wise professor who is unable to leave his bed.

"What is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" And what does it profit him if he shall become a multi-millionaire and lose his health of mind or body?

Success that costs more than it is worth is failure.

Make haste slowly. Be ambitious but not foolish.

Learn a few things and learn them well. He who grasps much holds little. Upon investigating the fund of information possessed by a great many young persons it has been found that the matter with it is the "smatter."

Herbert Spencer says the brains of precocious children cease to develop after a certain age, like a plant that fails to flower.

"Those unhappy children who are forced to rise too early in their classes are conceited all the forenoon of their lives and stupid all the afternoon," says Professor Huxley. "The keenness and vitality which should have been stored up for the sharp struggle of practical existence have been washed out of them by precocious mental debauchery, by book-gluttony and lesson-bibbing. Their faculties are worn out by the strain put upon their callow brains, and they are demoralized by worthless, childish triumphs before the real tasks of life begin."

Carlyle's words upon this subject are worth remembering: "The richer a nature, the harder and slower its development. Two boys were once members of a class in the Edinburgh Grammar School: John, ever trim, precise, and a dux; Walter, ever slovenly, confused, and a dolt. In due time John became Baillie John, of Hunter Square, and Walter became Sir Walter Scott, of the universe. The quickest and completest of all vegetables is the cabbage."

We all know that there is a happy medium between too much preciseness and slovenliness; between laziness and an unwarranted degree of mental activity; between ignorance and an intellect ground to an edge too fine to carve its way through a hard world.

"It is now generally conceded on all hands," says Professor Mathews, "that the mind has no right to build itself up at the expense of the body; that it is no more justifiable in abandoning itself without restraint to its cravings, than the body in yielding itself to sensual indulgence. The acute stimulants, the mental drams, that produce this unnatural activity or overgrowth of the intellect, are as contrary to nature, and as hurtful to the man, as the coarser stimulants that unduly excite the body. The mind, it has been well said, should be a good, strong, healthy feeder, but not a glutton. When unduly stimulated, it wears out the mechanism of the body, like friction upon a machine not lubricated, and the growing weakness of the physical frame nullifies the power it incloses."

The foundations for a splendid working constitution are laid during boyhood.

You are laying yours now.

Is it to be a good, firm, durable foundation that will stand through all the years to come? Or is it being built of faulty material and in a manner so careless that in the by and by when, at great pains and expense you have built your life structure upon it, you will find it untenable or so unstable that it will require a great share of your time and attention to keep it patched up so that you can continue to dwell within it?

Are you playing and working with moderation or are you so thoughtless that you sometimes, in a single hour, inflict wrongs upon your health and your constitution, the sorry effects of which you cannot overcome during your lifetime?

It may be possible that you are studying too hard at school.

I know that there are many who will smile at the suggestion that the average American schoolboy sticks too closely to his books, but I am sure that such is frequently the case.

Sometimes the boy's parents and teachers are eager to have their boy "show off" to the best advantage possible. They urge him, crowd him, compel him to develop as rapidly as he can. In their eagerness to secure results they employ the formulas that require the least possible time for completing the important task of

MAKING A MAN

Hurry the baby as fast as you can, Hurry him, worry him, make him a man. Off with his baby-clothes, get him in pants, Feed him on brain-foods and make him advance. Hustle him, soon as he's able to walk, Into a grammar school; cram him with talk. Fill his poor head full of figures and facts, Keep on a-jamming them in till it cracks. Once boys grew up at a rational rate, Now we develop a man while you wait. Rush him through college, compel him to grab Of every known subject a dip and a dab. Get him in business and after the cash All by the time he can grow a mustache. Let him forget he was ever a boy, Make gold his god and its jingle his joy. Keep him a-hustling and clear out of breath, Until he wins--Nervous Prostration and Death!

A sorry picture, isn't it? No doubt it sets forth, in an extreme manner, the evils that arise from crowding a child into boyhood, and a boy into manhood; still, no one who observes carefully will doubt that such wrongs are constantly being committed by hundreds of ambitious parents and well-meaning teachers.

Yet, I think you have little to fear along the lines of over-study. You must train your mind to grapple with tasks while you are young, for if you do not begin now you may not, later on, be able to summon that concentration of thought that is necessary for winning success along any line of endeavor.

"Difficulties are the best stimulant. Trouble is a tonic," says one of our wise essayists.

"He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves, and sharpens our skill, our antagonist is our helper," says Edmund Burke. "This conflict with difficulty makes us acquainted with our object, and compels us to consider it in all its relations. It will not suffer us to be superficial."

Life is a grind; a sorry few Are blunted in their aim, And some are sharpened, keen and true, And carve their way to fame.

"Don't take too much advice--keep at the helm and steer your own ship," says Noah Porter. All of which is very good advice.

The boy that the world wants most is the one who will think for himself at the same time he is hearing words of wisdom from others. A boy who tried to follow all the advice given him would probably find himself unable to do anything at all. Everyone and everything seems eager to give him the short cut to fortune, as I have endeavored to set forth in a bit of nonsense rhyme which I call the secret of

HOW TO WIN SUCCESS

"How shall I win success in life?" the young man asked, whereat: "Have push," replied the Button; "And a purr-puss" said the Cat. "Find out the work you're sooted for," the Chimney-Sweeper said, Just as the Match and Pin remarked: "And never lose your head."

"Aspire to grater, finer things," the Nutmeg cried. The Hoe Said: "Don't fly off the handle," and the Snail remarked: "Go slow." "Be deaf to all that's told you," said the Adder. "'Mid the strife I've found it best," remarked the Heart, "to beat my way through life."

"Select some proper task and then stick to it," said the Glue. "Look pleasant," said the Camera; "And tied-y," said the Shoe. "Have nerve!" exclaimed the Tooth. The Hill remarked; "Put up a bluff!" "And keep cool," said the Ice, whereat the young man cried: "Enough!"

The right-minded boy will be thoughtful but not so much absorbed that he is unable to take in the educative, uplifting sunshine all about him.

Sharpen your wits as the woodman must sharpen his axe, but counsel moderation. The woodman who would stay at the stone and grind his axe all away in attempting to put a razor edge on it would be deemed very foolish.

Of course you will be, you must be thoughtful, for as Ruskin says: "In general I have no patience with people who talk about 'the thoughtlessness of youth' indulgently. I had infinitely rather hear of the thoughtlessness of old age, and the indulgence of that. When a man has done his work, and nothing can in any way be materially altered in his fate, let him forget his toil, and jest with his fate, if he will, but what excuse can you find for wilfulness of thought at the very time when every crisis of fortune hangs on your decision? A youth thoughtless, when all the happiness of his home forever depends on the chances or the passions of an hour! A youth thoughtless, when the career of all his days depends on the opportunity of a moment! A youth thoughtless, when his every action is a foundation-stone of future conduct, and every imagination a fountain of life or death! Be thoughtless in any after years, rather than now, though, indeed, there is only one place where a man may be nobly thoughtless, his death-bed. Nothing should ever be left to be done there."

But whatever else we may forget, let us remember that it is not work, but overwork that kills. Exercise gained through good, wholesome work is the greatest life-preserver man has yet discovered.

"I always find something to keep me busy," said Peter Cooper in explaining how he had preserved so well his strength of mind and body, "and to be doing something is the best medicine one can take."

The ones who live the longest and best lives are the cheerful workers, those who find a good excuse for liking the task that comes to their hands. The greatest joy and the truest success do not come to the idler, nor the one who overworks, nor yet to the one who does things by fits and starts, but to

THE STEADY WORKER

Whene'er the sun was shining out, Squire Pettigrew would say, "Now, hurrah, boys! it's just the time to be a-making hay, Because, you see, the sun's so hot 'twill cure it right away!" Then all the mowers kept right on a-mowing.

But when a cloud obscured the sun Squire Pettigrew would shout, "Oh, now's the time for working while the sun is blotted out, A cooling cloud like that will make our muscles twice as stout!" And that's the way he kept his men a-going.

Hence, little did it matter were the weather wet or dry,-- If sunshine filled the valleys or if clouds o'erspread the sky, He'd always think of something which he deemed a reason why 'Twas just the time for him to keep a-working.

But, now and then, or so it seemed, the reasons he would seek For working on, were quite far-fetched and faulty, so to speak, But, oh, they were not half so "thin" as are the many weak Excuses lazy people give for shirking.