USE AND ABUSE OF TIME

By Archer Brown

Time is the stuff life is made of, says Benjamin Franklin. Every man has exactly the same amount of it in a year. One improves it and reaps great results. Another wastes it and reaps failure. The first class, they call lucky; the second, unfortunate. 5

To use time aright, have a system. Shape everything to it. Divide the twenty-four hours between work, recreation, sleep, and mental culture according to a scheme that suits your judgment and circumstances. Then make things go that way. The scheme will quickly go to pieces 10 unless backed by persistent purpose.

When you work, work. Put the whole mind and heart in it. Know nothing else. Do everything the very best. Distance everybody about you. This will not be hard, for the other fellows are not trying much. Master details and15 difficulties. Be always ready for the next step up. If a bookkeeper, be an expert. If a machinist, know more than the boss. If an office boy, surprise the employer by model work. If in school, go to the head and stay there. All this is easy when the habit of conquering takes possession. 20

It is wholesome in this connection to read what men have accomplished who have once learned the art of redeeming time. Study the causes of the success of Benjamin Franklin, of Lincoln, of McKinley, of Sir Michael Faraday, of Agassiz, of Edison. Learn the might of minutes. 25 "Every day is a little life, and our whole life is a day repeated. Those that dare lose a day are dangerously prodigal; those that dare misspend it, desperate." Emerson says, "The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn."

Sound and wholesome recreation is important in our scheme; but in this age of athletic frenzy the danger of 5 neglect on that line is not excessive. The real fact is that athletic sports are educating the muscles too often at the expense of the brain.

It is the mind work that differentiates you from the herd. Mental culture calls for study—carefully planned, regular, 10 persistent. One or two hours a day, aiming at some distinct object, mastering what you learn, adding little by little, like a miser to his store, will in a few years make of you a broad, educated man, no matter what your schooling.

To abuse time, have no system. Chance everything. 15 Do your work indifferently. Growl if too much is asked. Hunt for an easy job. Change often. Dodge obstacles. Always come a little short of the standard. Fritter away in silly things the few golden moments left for self-culture. Then you will not crowd anybody very hard in the contest 20 for leadership.

Time abused is bad luck.

1. What great men do you know of who divided up their day in the way suggested here? Make out a timetable for yourself and see how you can improve it and how long you can stick to its use.

2. In what did the "success" of each of the men mentioned in the fourth paragraph consist? Make one of the studies suggested and report your findings to the class.

3. What out-of-door exercises educate both brain and muscles? What is the special value of games played by a team? What great people of ancient times trained the body as well as the mind?

4. Which paragraphs define bad luck? What is it?