Where a weak woman is kindly treated, where children are received with tenderness, where the hungry are fed and the old cared for, there is a monument to Christ—such a monument as He would ask to have built.

The wisdom of Confucius, the self-abnegation of Gautama, the lofty idealism of Zoroaster, may be fitly commemorated and perhaps magnified by human monuments or human praise.

But men can build nothing that shall add to the glory of that life which is the basis of good among all men.



THE VAST IMPORTANCE OF SLEEP

MIschievous stories are told about the ability of great men to do without sleep.

The foolish young man reads that Napoleon slept only three or four hours at night—and he cuts down his hours of sleep. He might better open a vein and lose a pint of blood than lose the sleep, which is life itself.

Most of the stories told about great men doing without sleep are mere lies. Some of them are true. For instance, it is undoubtedly true that Napoleon—an inconceivably foolish, reckless man in matters affecting his physical welfare—did deprive himself of sleep in his early years. But he paid for it dearly. In his last battles his power of resistance was so slight that he actually went to sleep during the fighting. Chronic drowsiness weakened his brain, weakened his force of character. The foundation of his final ruin was laid in Russia, when lack of sleep, and unwise living generally, had taken away his mental elasticity and deprived him of the power to form and carry out resolutions. ——

It is mainly the young man who needs the lecture on sleep, for the experience of years soon proves to every human being the folly of cheating nature by adding a few hours of drowsy consciousness to the day.

You begin life with a certain amount of vitality, a certain initial vital VELOCITY, which carries you through life and makes possible certain accomplishments. When you deprive yourself of sleep you squander this original capital. Just as surely as the young spendthrift ruins himself financially when he throws away his money, just so surely you bring irreparable loss upon yourself when you go without sleep.

THE FOOD WHICH YOU EAT IS DIGESTED AND TRANSFORMED INTO NEW TISSUE, INTO BLOOD, NERVE, MUSCLES AND BRAIN WHILE YOU ARE SLEEPING.

Look at the men who engage in the atrocious six-day walks and bicycle races. They eat enormously, absorbing in one day five times as much as the ordinary man can possibly swallow. But the end of their task finds them extremely emaciated. Lack of sleep has made it impossible for them to TRANSFORM THE FOOD INTO NEW TISSUE.

Any man or woman who has suffered from insomnia will confirm this statement, that lack of sleep decreases weight and diminishes vitality more quickly than anything else. ——

Remember this when you brag foolishly about going without sleep!

A man can go forty days without solid food. He can live seven days, or even longer, without food or water. He cannot live seven days without sleep. The Chinese, ingenious in torments, discovered no worse death than killing their victims by depriving them of sleep.

Of course, every young man can go without sleep for a whole night occasionally and go on with his work. He can do this because, from his father and mother, he has inherited a certain amount of vitality, which, if he knows no better, he can squander stupidly, just as he can squander, if he will, what money is left to him.

But no man can deprive himself of sleep, or sleep irregularly, without suffering permanently, without diminishing his chances of success in the world. ——

Many a woman among those called "fashionable" looks at the healthy child of a gardener, and wonders that her child is so different.

The reason is simple. The gardener's wife did not cheat her child by giving to balls and late hours the vitality needed by her babies.

The woman who loses sleep will make a failure of her children.

The man who loses sleep will make a failure of his life, or at least diminish greatly his chances of success.

WOMAN SUSTAINS, GUIDES AND CONTROLS THE WORLD

Of all events here on earth, the greatest is the birth of a baby.

Great battles are fought, won and lost. Nations and religions rise and fall. Great cities flourish to-day, and to-morrow the sand lies heavy over them. And of all these events the eternal Niagara of new babies is the first and essential foundation.

He knows little of real life, its greatest happiness, deepest devotion, intensest suffering, who has never witnessed the arrival of a new human being in this life of progress and struggle.

There lies the new baby at last, its black face gradually turning pink, its first gasping breaths changing the color of its blood, its tiny fists opening and closing—reaching out for nourishment already, its face tying itself into the first philosophical, cosmos-interrogating knot. Its feet turn inward and its legs are crooked. Its head is so shapeless as to discourage any one but a mother; it has three years of gurgling, ten years of childhood, ten years of foolishness, ten years of vanity—and possibly a few years of real usefulness ahead of it.

Some one must be patient, hopeful, interested, proud, never discouraged, always devoted, through all these years.

That "some one," the mother, lies there weak and white on the bed.

Her forehead and all her body are wet with agony—but she thinks no longer of that.

She has heard her baby's first cry, and whether it be her first or her tenth, the feeling is the same. Her feeble, outstretched arms and her hollow, loving eyes are turned toward the helpless little creature.

Those arms and that love will never desert it as long as the mother shall live.

The mother's weak hand supports the heavy, dull baby head and guides it to its rest on her breast.

And that hand which supports the head of the new-born baby, the mother's hand, supports the civilization of the world.

THE STORY OF THE COMPLAINING DIAMOND

The Rev. David James Burrell, in "A Quiver of Arrows," presents a very interesting parable on the benefit of trials.

Here is the parable:

Trials are profitable.

The rough diamond cried out under the blow of the lapidary: "I am content; let me alone."

But the artisan said, as he struck another blow:

"There is the making of a glorious thing in thee."

"But every blow pierces my heart."

"Ay; but after a little it shall work for thee a far more exceeding weight of glory."

"I cannot understand," as blow fell upon blow, "why I should suffer in this way."

"Wait; what thou knowest not now, thou shalt know hereafter."

And out of all this came the famous Koh-i-noor to sparkle in the monarch's crown. ——

There is a lesson in the story of the diamond for every man, and there is an ESPECIALLY good lesson for the young man who is succeeding too fast.

That diamond became the extraordinarily beautiful stone that we read about, and that many of us would foolishly like to own, because of the trials through which it passed.

We do not mean to suggest that men, to succeed, should NECESSARILY undergo repeated poundings and hammerings, although, as a matter of fact, the really great men of the world have undergone such grinding and polishing and hard knocks as no diamond was ever submitted to. But we do say distinctly that almost every man needs in the course of his life a FIRST-CLASS FAILURE.

No man is more unfortunate than he who succeeds too quickly and too easily. His success makes him exaggerate his own importance and ability. It makes him underestimate the strength of those who compete with him, and the difficulty of winning in the long run.

The world is full of all kinds of disappointed beings—artists, writers, business men—workers of all sorts, who lead disappointed lives.

Of these men, a great many started out hopefully and promisingly.

But fate failed to do for them the work of the polishing lapidary that we all need.

They succeeded too soon, they made money too easily, they rose too suddenly.

Failure at the right time would have made them think, work and do better. But failure came too late, and when the energy to fight and overcome was no longer there.

If every young man who thinks well of himself will realize that he mistakes good fortune for great ability, and that the failure that has been put off will come sooner or later, unless he thinks of it and struggles to improve himself in spite of success, many disappointments will be saved in the future.

Discount your failure. Don't wait for it to discount you.



DON'T BE IN A HURRY, YOUNG GENTLEMEN

There are many young men on earth who fail because they lack ambition and determination to advance. There are many more whose trouble is hasty ambition. They fail to realize their present chances in their hurried reaching out for something better. You may see in any club, pool-room or other resort for wasting time crowds of young men smoking and deploring their lack of success.

"I've been working three years at the same job and the same salary," one will say, "and I don't see what chance I have for getting ahead."

The young man who talks in this way does not realize that success depends on developing the qualities which are in him. He can develop them if he will, no matter what his place in the world. Once he is ready to do good work, once he is developed, the work will find him out. ——

When Napoleon Bonaparte was resting from his labors at St. Helena he used to tell this story:

"One day on parade a young lieutenant stepped out of the ranks much excited to appeal to me personally. He said to me that he had been a lieutenant for five years and had not been able to advance in rank. I said to him, 'Calm yourself. I was seven years a lieutenant, and yet you see that a man may push himself forward, for all that.' " ——

Napoleon, when he preached this lesson to the young, dissatisfied officer, was the self-made Emperor of the French and of a great many other nations. He had come to Paris a thin, hollow-cheeked, under-sized boy from the conquered and despised island of Corsica. He stuck in the humble grade of lieutenant for seven years. When the time came he blossomed out.

When he was lieutenant he was developing himself. He studied and mastered the art of war. He wrote the history of Corsica, and no one would publish it. He wrote a drama which was never acted. He wrote a prize essay for the Academy of Lyons, and did not win the prize. On the contrary, his effort was condemned as incoherent and poor in style. These were a few failures; enough to make your ordinary young man throw up his hands and say: "I've done all I can do; now let the world look out for me."

Just as he became hopeful about the future when he knew that he had real military genius, he was dismissed from the army, and his career seemed to be ended. He made the thin soup upon which he and his brother lived. He could afford to change his shirt only once a week. He said:

"I breakfasted off dry bread, but I bolted the door on my poverty."

He kept at it, and all the time, successful or otherwise, he was developing himself. He developed into an emperor. Young men will please notice that fact, and the fact that Napoleon worked and tried under adversity and monotony instead of grumbling. ——

The newspaper reporter who does not get ahead very fast, the author whose manuscripts are treated as were Napoleon's first efforts, may study with considerable profit a young American writer named Richard Harding Davis. That young man had been a reporter in Philadelphia for seven years when he went to work on a New York evening newspaper at a small salary. He had written and was writing some of his best stories, but could not get ahead, apparently. Nevertheless, he kept on trying, and developed himself. When other young men were busy talking about themselves or deploring their lot Davis was writing and grinding away out of working hours at the effort to get out and realize what was in him. He succeeded. ——

A few cases have been mentioned for young men to think over. They are selected at random. No young man need worry about himself so long as he can honestly say that he is doing his best.

Being in the same place at the same salary for seven years can do you no harm, if you are developing during that time what is in you. But you may well worry if you are drifting aimlessly, pitying yourself, making no effort. If your mind stays in the same spot for years, that is dangerous. But don't worry about anything else.



WHEN THE BABY CHANGED INTO A FOURTEEN-YEAR-OLD

Nothing is more common than to hear men—especially great and moral men—deplore the results of civilization, of mechanical, industrial and scientific progress. We quote a typical lament by a noble and sincere man, the Reverend Charles Wagner, author of an admirable book called "The Simple Life." The author says:

"If it had been prophesied to the ancients that one day humanity would have all of the machinery now in use to sustain and protect natural existence, they would have concluded therefrom, first, an increase of independence, and in the second place, a great decrease in the competition for worldly possessions, They would have thought that the simplification of life would have been the result of such perfected means of action, that there would follow the realization of a higher standard of morality. Nothing of this sort has come to pass—not happiness, nor social peace, nor energy for good has increased."

Naturally, from a superficial point of view, it is discouraging to see poverty, ostentation of wealth, injustice and the love of money increasing, instead of declining, with the great developments in human power.

Suppose it had been said two hundred years ago that some day one single man, with a loom, would be able to make cloth enough to clothe scores in one day; that a few children working in a stocking factory would be able to produce more stockings than a million women could knit.

It would, of course, have been prophesied that when these great inventions came everybody would be well clothed, every woman and child would have warm stockings—and so on.

But we find, as society's powers increase, as machinery improves, and the means of producing and distributing wealth develop, that the struggle for existence and the display of avarice are accentuated.

The pessimistic man, observing these conditions, is filled with despair for the future of humanity. He predicts worse and worse times ahead, while he longs for the peaceable old days before the steam engine had appeared among us. ——

Now, in order to map out a parable, we must ask you to do a good deal of supposing.

Suppose, in place of the human race, one single human baby. Suppose that its mother had never seen another baby, and had no idea of the laws governing a baby's development.

And suppose, as the helpless baby lay on its back in the cradle, waving its arms, kicking its legs, gasping and blinking, that the following prophecy had been made to the mother:

"Some day that baby of yours will be five feet high. Some day it will be able to walk and run, and throw stones, and carry weights, and fight, and do all kinds of things."

Of course, the mother, hearing this, would have been very much rejoiced, saying to herself:

"My baby now is feeble and helpless, and I must watch it all the time to see that it does not roll out of the cradle, or that the cat does not bite it. When my baby gets to be five feet high and able to fight and run and jump, of course it will be free from danger, it will live happily, and I shall be free from anxiety."

Now, suppose that fourteen years have passed. The mother has seen the baby grow to be five feet high and fourteen years old, and the prophecy is fulfilled.

Is the mother happy? She is weeping bitterly. The baby has certainly improved in its powers most wonderfully. It can run and jump and fight. As a result of its abilities, it comes back one day with a black eye, the next day with a broken nose, the next day with a sore toe. It is always in trouble. It has even developed vicious traits of its own. It tells lies, it steals, it is even disrespectful to its mother.

You supposed, don't forget, that this mother never saw another baby, and knew nothing about the development of human beings along certain lines. Would she not be horrified at her child's condition? Would she not think it getting worse and worse, and that it must end horribly and tragically? Would she not sigh for the old days of the cradle, and wish that her baby might go back to its babyhood and live comfortably once more, on its back, with its hands and feet in the air and a vacant look in its eyes?

——

The human race has gone ahead, as that supposititious baby goes ahead in fourteen years. We have obtained many new forces, many new accomplishments. We have learned to use steam and electricity, as the child learns to use its legs and its hands. But, like the child of fourteen, we have not developed morally or mentally in proportion to our physical development.

But just as surely as the child passes on from childhood, with its follies, its quarrels, and its accidents, to mature, self-respecting manhood, just so surely will the human race go through its babyhood, through its boyhood, and on into years of wisdom, justice, self-control and real accomplishment. ——

At present we are in a childish condition as a race, just about able to walk and run around a little. We do not see our future clearly, and many of us look back regretfully to the simple days of industrial babyhood.

But those days can never be brought back, even if we wanted to bring them back. The thing for us to do is to remember that great progress and a great future are ahead of us, and do all we can to prepare for the future and hurry it along. We should refrain especially from feelings of pessimism. We should study and work to control ourselves as well as we can, and look ahead into the future.

Remember this very true saying and apply it in your attitude toward the world:

"It is not enough to believe in God; one must believe in man, in humanity and its future."

THE EYE THAT WEIGHS A TON

All our fussing and fuming about little matters must end in time.

It is a comfort to feel sure that the time will come when questions of wages, starvation, justice, supply and demand, finance, and all the miserable worries of to-day, from Presidential elections to the digging of sewers, will be things of the past.

Had we been intended for such things exclusively, we might as well have been put in a hole in the ground or in some cool corner of Hades to fight out our troubles. We should not have needed for our home a beautiful globe, swinging through endless space, bathed in sunlight or blessed with the companionship of other suns and planets whirling with us on mysterious errands.

Man's work of to-day—the fighting, the sweating, the starving, the cheating and lying, the miserable births and the dull, stupid, monotonous living—will end soon. Real HUMAN life will dawn and end the period of savage life.

Control of nature's forces will supply every man with what he needs to keep his body alive, his soul and his brain free from care.

Then men will cease their animal lives, cease eating to live and living to eat. They will live to think. The brain, which differentiates them from the animals, will give the real interest to their lives. Mental work—art, science and things worth while—will occupy them. ——

Does it not seem probable that when the day of organized life comes our chief interest will be the study of the universe—the other worlds outside of our own?

The great man will be he whose genius shall cross interstellar space as Columbus crossed the ocean. The great newspaper editor will be the first to get a signed statement from Mars.

The discoverer of that day will get from some older planet information millions of years ahead of our own.

As the dull mind of the field-plodder now looks toward the great cities—toward the vast movement outside his own little life—so shall men look away from this little, limited, but by that time well regulated, planet, to the mysteries and the grandeurs of the worlds outside.

Life will be complete in those coming days. Men will look back with pity to the time when they quarreled about little metal money tokens, locked each other up in jail, or choked each other to death legally.

Let us hope and believe that we may come back then to share the pleasure of the world's mature days, since we are sentenced to exist here to-day in the greasy, clammy period of struggle and half-bakedness. ——

While the infant sits drawing milk, with never a dream of solid food, the teeth are growing beneath its gums. And while we crawl around here now, with no conception of our future state, some of the forces at work among us are preparing for the days when real life shall begin. Among these forces you may count the constructors of the great cosmic eye—the huge telescope that is now building in Paris. Compared with all other exhibits at the Paris Fair, that great instrument will be as a giant among babies, a Corliss engine among children's toys.

It is the precursor of the great instruments which in the future will take man on his travels through space. Imperfect as it is, it fills the mind with awe and the imagination with delight. ——

Think of the great celestial eye, flint and crown glass lenses more than four feet in diameter, weighing a ton, and suspended at the end of a tube one hundred feet long! It will reach out thousands of billions of miles into space, giving us, perhaps, new secrets of the universe. Yet it is but a child's toy compared to the instruments which must follow it.

And you who read this, if your mind is fresh and your imagination not jaded, may be the man who shall add to the power of this instrument as Galileo added to that given to the world by Lippershey, the humble Dutchman.

We invite the young American of ambition to study this latest proof of man's growing skill, and see whether he can imagine anything to add to it. ——

"I have not seen it" say you. If you are the right man, you do not need to SEE it. Galileo only HEARD of Lippershey's discovery. He thought hard on the problems of refraction for one night, and as a result produced a telescope capable of magnifying threefold. He finally produced a telescope of thirty-two-fold power.

This French telescope magnifies six thousand times, but it is only a baby telescope, full of faults. It is rendered imperfect by the wavy motion of the air, which affects our sight just as the motion of the waves affects the sight of a fish. It lacks any adequate arrangement for light supply. The great trouble of the astronomer is the getting of more light in his telescopes. You may be the man to tell him how to do it without adding to the diameter of his object glass.

Anyhow, think about the big telescope. If it does not make you an astronomer or a great inventor, it may stir up your brain to the pitch of inventing a really good chicken coop. That is still lacking, and in great demand.



WHAT ANIMAL CONTROLS YOUR SPIRIT?

Of all animals upon earth man came last.

All of earth's animal creations are bound up in man.

As to the first statement there is no difference of opinion.

The Bible and Darwin agree that man was created last of all the animals.

Very superficial observation will convince you that man contains in his mental make-up all of the "inferior" animals, or at least a great many of them.

You, Mr. Jones, or Smith, who read this are in your single self a sort of synthesis of the entire animal creation.

If you could be divided into your component animal parts there would be a menagerie in your house, and you, Smith or Jones, would be missing. That thing we call a "soul" would be floating around, impalpable, looking for its house to live in. ——

Of course, you can see the animal make-up in your neighbor more readily than in yourself.

How do men describe each other? Do they not speak as follows, and mean exactly what they say

"He is as sly as a fox."

"He eats like a pig."

"He has dog-like faithfulness."

"He is as brave as a lion."

"He is as treacherous as a snake."

"He was as hungry as a wolf," etc. ——

Our good and our bad qualities alike are mapped out in our humble animal relations.

The horse stands for ambition, which strives and suffers in silence. The dog represents friendship, which suffers and sacrifices much, but whines loudly when injured.

We have no doubt that of the twelve passions which enter into Fourier's complex analysis of man each has its prototype in some one animal. ——

To rebel at the animal combination which makes up a man would be folly.

The Maker of us all, from ants to anti-imperialists, naturally gathered together the various parts in lower animal form before finishing the work in man.

A harmoniously balanced mixture of all the animals is calculated undoubtedly to produce the perfect man. ——

Therefore, study your animal make-up. Analyze honestly and intelligently the so-called "lower" creatures from whom you derive your mental characteristics. If you have not yet done so, study at once some good work on embryology, and learn with amazement and awe of your marvelous transformations before birth.

Then do your best to control the menagerie that is at work in your mind.

Stultify Mr. Pig, if he is too prominent. Circumvent Mr. Fox, if he tries to rule you and make of you a mere cunning machine. Do not let your Old Dog Tray qualities of friendship lead to your being made a fool.

In short, study carefully the animal qualities that make up your temperament and prove in your own person the falseness of Napoleon's irritating statement that a man's temperament can never be changed by himself. ——

It may interest you to note that when man becomes insane, the fact is at once made apparent that his mind, dethroned, had acted as the ruler of a savage menagerie. Many crazy men imagine themselves animals of one sort or another. Nearly all of them display the grossest animal qualities, once their mind is deranged. Women of the greatest refinement sink into dreadful animalism when insane. Heine tells of a constable who, in his boyhood, ruled his native city. One fine day "this constable suddenly went crazy, * * * and thereupon he began to roar like a lion or squall like a cat."

Heine remarks with calculated naivete: "We little boys were greatly delighted at the old fellow, and trooped, yelling, after him until he was carried off to a madhouse."

There is, by the way, much of the natural animal in "little boys." It takes years to make a fairly reasonable creature of a young human. For that reason many ignorant parents are foolishly distressed at juvenile displays of animalism, which are perfectly natural. ——

The same Heine, whose writings you ought not to neglect, describes beautifully a human menagerie. We'll quote that, and then let you off for the day. Heine was living in Paris in the forties, and used to visit a curious revolutionary freak named Ludwig Borne. Of this man's house Heine wrote:

"I found in his salon such a menagerie of people as can hardly be found in the Jardin des Plantes (the Paris zoological garden). In the background several polar bears were crouching, who smoked and hardly ever spoke, except to growl out now and then a real fatherland 'Donnerwetter' in a deep bass voice. Near them was squatting a Polish wolf in a red cap, who occasionally yelped out a silly, wild remark in a hoarse tone. There, too, I found a French monkey, one of the most hideous creatures I ever saw; he kept up a series of grimaces, each of which seemed more lovely than the last," etc.

If Heine's polar bears, wolf and monkey had studied themselves, as we advise you to study yourself, they might have escaped the sarcasm of the sharpest tongue ever born in or out of Germany.



FROM MAMMOTHS TO MOSQUITOES —FROM MURDER TO HYPOCRISY

You are standing with this writer on the edge of a stagnant pool in Northern Europe, fifty thousand years ago.

The trees are strange, the life is strange. There are certain familiar things visible. For instance, on one side of the pool there is an angry mammoth, with long hair and long tusks.

He is a huge, savage beast, monster of power with tiny, vicious eyes, and a curled trunk of unlimited force.

You recognize his resemblance to the modern elephant, and you feel at home.

In the middle of the pool, standing up to his waist in water, there is another queer creature. He has long, red hair, and through his lips you can see that in his rage he is grinding a large set of teeth with the canine incisors abnormally developed.

He is a shaggy, savage-looking brute, with a bloody and an apprehensive eye. You will recognize him as a human being.

As he stands in the pool there is a familiar slap of his right hand on the back of his left shoulder—he has killed a mosquito.

That is the picture. We leave the mammoth, primitive man and the mosquito to settle their troubles.

We call your attention to this. If you really witnessed that scene you would have undoubtedly said to the red-eyed savage in the pool:

"My friend, you can kill that mosquito easily, and possibly in time you will kill all the mosquitoes. But that MAMMOTH is a problem that you will not solve for a long time, if ever."

Had you known that the red-eyed human animal in the middle of the pool was sent there by Providence to regulate the globe, cultivate it, destroy the noxious forms of animal life, etc., you would certainly have believed that that person would have got rid of the mosquitoes long before getting rid of the mammoth.

As a matter of fact, the mammoth has gone, the woolly rhinoceros of Northern Europe has gone, the sabre-toothed tiger prowls no more. Even wolves have disappeared, and the mosquito is still flourishing in his millions and billions.

We have only just learned that it is he who gives us malaria, that it is he who spreads yellow fever and undoubtedly many other diseases.

The human race, which in its earliest, incapable childhood easily managed to dispose of the mammoth and his huge fellow-monsters, still stands helpless before the little mosquito, deadliest of VISIBLE animals on earth.

Is it not interesting to realize that the hardest work of the human race, as of the individual, is the most minute work; that the intellect, which easily copes with the heaviest and the biggest problems, is baffled by the tiniest?

Ultimately, and perhaps soon, we shall send the mosquito, the house-fly and the other buzzing pirates to join in the grave's silence their big brothers—the mastodon and the rest.

Then our fight will begin against invisible animal life, against the actual microbes of disease which the mosquito has been carrying around and injecting into us. It is a long fight, but, of course, we shall win it. ——

And is it not interesting, also, to reflect that in the moral, as in the physical, battles of life man requires the longest time to deal with his smallest enemies?

Morally we are still primitive savages. We are still combating murder, arson, theft—like the cave-dweller fighting the physical mammoth, we are fighting the mammoths of moral deformity.

Eventually they will disappear. Murder will be unknown, and theft, rendered unnecessary by decent social organization, will have disappeared also.

At that time we shall be fighting the smaller and more dangerous, more elusive and more persistent moral troubles—HYPOCRISY, CONCEIT, UNCHARITABLENESS. These are the mosquitoes and flies of the world of immorality that will pursue us when the big fellows—murder and theft—shall have been killed off.



THE MONKEY AND THE SNAKE FIGHT

We wish to tell you of the monkey and the snake fight, described by a witness in the Lahore Tribune. ——

Before men arrived on earth, when all the animals were racing for supremacy, the monkey seemed to have the smallest chance. No one would have guessed that the descendants of this feeble, defenseless little brute would eventually rule the earth, killing off tigers, lions and the other huge monsters at pleasure.

We have before called your attention in this column to the fact that the monkey, or some animal like him, had the honor of contributing our proud human services as the world's rulers BECAUSE HE COULD USE HIS BRAIN.

That fight between the monkey and the cobra illustrates this quite clearly.

The monkey was a little monkey, with scarcely enough muscle to strangle a hen.

His little black finger-nails could hurt nobody. His teeth were fit only to nibble fruit or to chatter in rage at his fellow monkeys.

This monkey had the misfortune to annoy a huge cobra.

Mr. Cobra is the most dangerous, the most formidably armed, of all living animals. He is a solid mass of muscle, gifted with lightning speed. The slightest touch of his fangs means death.

The brain of the cobra is about as big as a mustard seed. The brain of the monkey—even a small one—is several hundred times as big as the brain of the largest snake. We refer to the cerebrum, the front brain, which does the thinking.

The monkey annoyed the snake, and the snake chased him. Mr. Monkey, shrieking and chattering, rushed over the ground until he came to a rock. He stood still in front of the rock.

The snake dashed its head at him to annihilate him; the monkey jumped to one side and let the snake beat its head against the rock.

Over and over, this operation was repeated, the monkey with lightning speed avoiding the dart of the snake, and the snake, with never-ending stupidity, dashing its head against the rock.

Eventually the powerful, dangerous snake was stretched out at full length, bleeding and tired out.

The monkey was not bleeding and not tired. He was extremely cheerful. He seized the snake by the neck, just back of the head, and placidly proceeded to rub its head off on the stone.

When he had rubbed the head to a pulp. incidentally destroying its primitive brain, he left the dead snake lying there, and gratefully accepted the Indian corn and sugar-cane donated by the admiring humans-his relatives-who had witnessed his performance. ——

The monkey used his brain—the snake did not.

The monkey did not say, but he might as well have said:

"You need not wonder that my half-sister, Eve, crushed the serpent's head. We monkeys and humans have soft hands and no poison sacs, but WE KNOW HOW TO MAKE OUR BRAINS WORK, and that means that we rule creation."

TOO LITTLE AND TOO MUCH

Here is a quotation from a very wise person called Aristotle.

This Greek philosopher was the teacher of Alexander the Great, and incidentally he has been the teacher of millions of men since he began to talk philosophy, more than twenty centuries ago.

"First of all, we must observe that in all these matters of human action the too little and the too much are alike ruinous, as we can see (to illustrate the spiritual by the natural) in the case of strength and health. Too much and too little exercise alike impair the strength, and too much meat and drink and too little both alike destroy the health, but the fitting amount produces and preserves them.... So, too, the man who takes his fill of every pleasure and abstains from none becomes a profligate; while he who shuns all becomes stolid and insusceptible."

The next time you fall into a philosophical mood, and begin reviewing the causes of your troubles, see if you can't find some useful suggestion in the common-sense statement of Aristotle we give today.

How about the "too much" of one thing and "too little" of another?

Are you quite sure that you don't do too much talking and too little thinking?

Are you sure that you don't do too much drinking and playing and idling, and too little reading?

Are you sure that you don't do too much of things you like that do you no good, and too little of things that you ought to like, and that would help you to succeed? ——

We believe that every one of our readers has some friend or brother or son who can be really helped by the reading of this quotation from the old Greek wise man.

You can state to any young man or woman to whom you send this advice that the man who gave it formed the character and judgment of Alexander, the world's most successful young man.



DO YOU FEEL DISCOURAGED?

A young man lost his money in stocks the other day and killed himself. Other young men lose heart when things go against them and drift through life helpless, useless derelicts. Let us give such men a bit of advice:

Don't let failure discourage you. Almost all the brilliantly successful characters of history have known early trials and reverses. The great philosopher, Epictetus, was a slave. Alfred the Great wandered through the swamps as a fugitive and got cuffed on the ears for letting the cakes burn. Columbus went from court to court like a beggar to try to raise money for the discovery of the New World and when he finally won the favor of the Spanish Queen he was so poor that he could not go to court until Isabella had advanced him money enough to buy decent clothes.

When Frederick the Great was fighting all Europe he fell into such desperate straits that he carried a bottle of poison about with him as the last way of escape from his enemies. If he had taken that dose the whole history of our time would have been different. Instead of shaking a "mailed fist" at the world, young William of Hohenzollern might have been a mediatized princelet on the lookout for an American heiress; there might never have been a Leipzig or a Waterloo, as there certainly would not have been a Sedan, and the heirs of Napoleon might now have been ruling over an empire covering all Central Europe, from the Tiber to the Baltic.

Nobody ever had greater cause for discouragement than George Washington had when he led the straggling remnants of his army across the Delaware in December, 1776. But in the very darkest hour, when absolute ruin seemed inevitable and a British gallows appeared the probable ending of his career, he struck a blow that cleared the way to the highest place in the world's history.

Andrew Jackson was born in a cabin, suffered every sort of adversity, lost his mother and two brothers from the sufferings of war, was cut with a sword for refusing to clean a British officer's boots, and grew up almost without education.

Abraham Lincoln, poor, ignorant, sprung from the lowliest stock, deprived of all advantages for culture or for money making, distressed by domestic troubles, might have had some excuse for discouragement. But he kept on, with what results the world sees.

If ever there was a man who seemed doomed to failure it was U. S. Grant in the spring of 1861. He had cut loose from the profession for which he had been trained, and, after drifting from one occupation to another and failing in all, he was now, at thirty-nine years old, a clerk in a country store and unable to make ends meet at that. Three years later he was Lieutenant-General of the armies of the United States, and five years after that he was President.

Solon said it was never safe to call any man happy until he was dead. Unhappiness is equally uncertain. If you are poor now you may be rich to-morrow. If you are unknown now you may be famous to-morrow. If you are even in the penitentiary now you may be running a street-car system to-morrow.

So don't be discouraged if your fortunes are in temporary eclipse. The savage is in despair when the sun goes into the moon's shadow, for he thinks that some monster has swallowed it, and that there will never be any daylight again. But to the astronomer an eclipse is merely an interesting opportunity to make scientific observations. Be as sure of the coming of daylight as the astronomer is, and your moments of darkness will trouble you no more than his trouble him.

TWO KINDS OF DISCONTENT

Emerson says:

"Discontent is the want of self-reliance; it is infirmity of will."

Another individual, at least as solemn if not as wise as Emerson, says:

"Discontent is the foundation of all human effort."

Both are right, for there are two kinds of discontent.

Almost everybody is afflicted with one kind of discontent or the other.

It would be well for you, Mr. Reader, to decide what kind of discontent afflicts you. If you have the wrong kind, hurry and get the other as fast as possible.

THE DISCONTENT THAT WHINES

This is the kind of discontent which Emerson refers to when he says that "discontent is the want of self-reliance."

The WHINING discontent ruins many lives; it is used as the excuse for much foolish conduct, much neglect of duty.

It is the discontent which reflects the feeble soul, the self-indulgent, worthless being.

A young man who gets drunk or dissipates otherwise, who offers as an excuse, "Well, I was feeling kind of DISCONTENTED and had to do something," is afflicted with the wrong kind of discontent in its most virulent form.

The office boy with small wages who is caught smoking cigarettes, or evading his duties, or undermining his moral character by gambling, will also say, "I was discontented and had to do something."

If you have THAT discontent, try to get rid of it and get the other kind.

THE DISCONTENT THAT MEANS AMBITION

Alexander the Great lived and died discontented, but Emerson would scarcely have attributed that gentleman's discontent to lack of self-reliance.

Alexander was discontented, first, because he could not conquer the whole world, and, second, because there were no others that he could conquer. He was a vast genius, almost humorous in his ambitious discontent sometimes—especially when he looked at the stars and said, as alleged, that he was ashamed to look at all those other worlds when he had barely conquered this one little world that he lived on.

If you have in you Alexander's brand of discontent you may well be grateful.

You are still more to be envied if you have the discontent which has impelled thousands of great men to devote their lives ceaselessly to the discovery of truth, working for others. ——

When Taglioni, the great ballet dancer, was a little girl, with skinny legs and a skinnier future, being extremely homely and with no prospects of success, she was discontented.

Other skinny-legged little ballet dancers of her class were discontented also.

But Taglioni's discontent impelled her to spend every spare moment whirling on her big toe, practicing her entrechat, or laboring over the art of smiling, naturally, with aching toes, aching back, aching thighs, and solar plexus almost exhausted from the unnatural strain.

The other skinny-legged discontented ones exercised their discontent on their patient mothers, instead of exercising it on their own big toes. THEY never were heard of, whereas Taglioni pranced on HER big toe before every court in Europe, and her smile, which ultimately became natural, attracted the opera glasses of all the great men.

There are thousands of young musicians, young business men, young singers, young electricians—thousands and hundreds of thousands of human beings engaged in all kinds of effort in all directions.

ALL OF THEM ARE DISCONTENTED. Those that have the right kind of discontent will go at least as far as their natural capacity can take them, and those that have the wrong kind will collapse, achieve nothing and devote wasted lives to wasting pity on themselves. ——

Try to acquire the discontent of Alexander, Carlyle, Pagallini, Taglioni, or even that of the honest bootblack who "shines them up" so hard that the perspiration comes through his check jumper in cold weather.



WHAT THE BARTENDER SEES

A young man with a cold face, much nervous energy and a tired-of-the-world expression leans over the polished, silver-mounted drinking bar.

You look at him and order your drink.

You know what you think of him, and you think you know what he thinks of you.

Did you ever stop to think of ALL THE STRANGE HUMAN BEINGS besides yourself that pass before him?

He stands there as a sentinel, business man, detective, waiter, general entertainer and host for the homeless.

In comes a young man, rather early in the day.

He is a little tired—up too late the night before. He takes a cocktail. He tells the bartender that he does not believe in cocktails. He never takes them, in fact. "The bitters in a cocktail will eat a hole through a thin handkerchief—pretty bad effect on your stomach, eh?" and so on.

Out goes the young man with the cocktail inside of him.

And the bartender KNOWS that that young man, with his fine reasonings and his belief in himself, is the confirmed drunkard of year after next. He has seen the beginning of many such cocktail philosophers, and the ending of the same.

The way NOT to be a drunkard is never to taste spirits. The bartender knows that. But his customers do NOT know it. ——

At another hour of the day there comes in the older man. This one is the fresh-faced, YOUNG oldish man.

He has small, gray side-whiskers. He shows several people—whom he does not know—his commutation ticket.

He changes his mind suddenly from whiskey to lemonade. The bartender prepares the lemon slowly, and the man changes his mind back to whiskey.

Then he tries to look more dignified than the two younger men with him. In the midst of the effort he begins to sing "The Heart Bowed Down with Weight of Woe," and he tells the bartender "that is from 'The Bohemian Girl.'"

He sings many other selections, occasionally forgetting his dignity, and occasionally remembering that he is the head of a most respectable home—partly paid for.

The wise man on the outside of the bar suggests that the oldish man will get into trouble. But the bartender says: "No; he will go home all right. But he won't sing all the way there. About the time he gets home he'll realize what money he has spent, and you would not like to be his wife."

The bartender KNOWS that the oldish man—about fifty-one or fifty-two—has escaped being a drunkard by mere accident, and that he has not quite escaped yet.

A little hard luck, too much trouble, and he'll lose his balance, forget that there IS lemonade, and take to whiskey permanently. ——

At the far end of the bar there is the man who comes in slowly and passes his hand over his face nervously. The bartender asks no question, but pushes out a bottle of everyday whiskey and a small glass of water.

The whiskey goes down. A shiver follows the whiskey and a very little of the water follows the shiver. The man goes out with his arms close to his sides, his gait shuffling and his head hanging.

It has taken him less than three minutes to buy, swallow and pay for a liberal dose of poison.

Says the bartender:

"That fellow had a good business once. Doesn't look it, does he? Jim over there used to work for him. But he couldn't let it alone."

The "it" mentioned is whiskey.

Outside in the cold that man, who couldn't let it alone, is shuffling his way against the bitter wind. And even in his poor, sodden brain reform and wisdom are striving to be heard.

His soul and body are sunk far below par. His vitality is gone, never to return.

The whiskey, with its shiver that tells of a shock to the heart, lifts him up for a second.

He has a little false strength of mind and brain and that strength is used to mumble good resolutions.

He THINKS he will stop drinking. He thinks he could easily get money backing if he gave up drinking for good. He feels and really believes that he WILL stop drinking.

Perhaps he goes home, and for the hundredth time makes a poor woman believe him, and makes her weep once more for joy, as she has wept many times from sorrow.

But the bartender KNOWS that that man's day has gone, and that Niagara River could turn back as easily as he could remount the swift stream that is sweeping him to destruction. ——

Five men come in together. Each asks of all the others:

"What are you going to have?"

The bartender spreads out his hands on the edge of the bar, attentive and prepared to work quickly.

Every man insists on "buying" something to drink in his turn. Each takes what the others insist on giving him.

Each thinks that he is hospitable.

But the bartender KNOWS that those men belong to the Great American Association for the Manufacture of Drunkards through "treating."

Each of those men might perhaps take his glass of beer, or even something worse, with relative safety. But, as stupidly as stampeded animals pushing each other over a precipice, each insists on buying poison in his turn. And every one spends his money to make every other one, if possible, a hard-drinking and a wasted man. ——

You, Sir. Reader, have seen all these types and many others, have you not?

WHY did you see them? What REASON had you for seeing them?

The bartender stands studying the procession to destruction, because he must make his living in that way. He is a sort of clean-aproned Charon on a whiskey Styx, ferrying the multitude to perdition on the other side of the river. But what is YOUR business there?

You might as well be found inside an opium den.

The drink swallowed at the bar braces you, does it? If you think you need a drink, you REALLY need sleep, or better nourishment, or you need to live more sensibly. Drink will not give you what you need. It may for a moment make your nerves cease tormenting you. It may do in your system for an hour what opium does in the Chinese for a whole day. But if it lifts you up high, it drops you down HARD.

And remember:

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS MODERATE DRINKING AT A BAR.

You THINK you can take your occasional drink safely and philosophize about the procession that passes the bartender.

But the bartender KNOWS that you are no different from the others. They all began as you are beginning. They all, in the early stages, despised their own forerunners.

They were once as you are, and the bartender KNOWS that the chances are all in favor of your being eventually like one of them.

Even like the poor, thin, nervous drinker of hard whiskey, who once wondered why men drink too much. ——

The bartender's procession is a sad one, and you who still think yourself safe are the saddest atom in the line, for you are there without sufficient excuse.

It is a long procession, and its end is far off.

It is born of the fact that life is dull, competition is keen, and ambition so often ends in sawdust failure.

A better chance for strugglers, a more generous reward for hard work, better organization of social life, solution of the great unsolved problem of real civilization, will end the bartender's procession.

Meanwhile, keep out of it if you can. And be glad if it can be suspended, temporarily at least, on Sundays.

WHAT SHOULD BE A MAN'S OBJECT IN LIFE?

Sermons in stones are familiar, but few take the trouble to dig them out. Certainly none looks for sermons in a one-cent evening newspaper.

At the same time, will you kindly think over and answer the question that heads this column?

Here we are, marooned for a few days on a flying ball of earth. We don't know how we got here. We don't know where we are going.

We are full of beautiful and satisfying FAITH. But we don't KNOW.

Into this Universe, and WHY not knowing, Nor WHENCE, like Water, willy-nilly flowing; And out of it as Wind along the Waste, I know not WHITHER, willy-nilly blowing.

That's the way Omar, the old tent-maker, puts it. ——

We drift from dinner to the theatre, thence to bed, thence to breakfast, thence to work, and so on. Or, if in hard luck, we struggle and wail, "cursing our day," or more frequently cursing society.

We rarely stop to think what it is all about, or what we are here for. ——

We know the pig's object in life. It has been beautifully and permanently outlined in Carlyle's "pig catechism." The pig's life object is to get fat and keep fat—to get his full share of swill and as much more as he can manage to secure. And his life object is worthy. By sticking at it he develops fat hams inside his bristles, and WE know, though he does not, that the production of fat hams is his destiny. ——

But our human destiny is NOT to produce fat hams. Why do so many of us live earnestly on the pig basis? Why do we struggle savagely for money to buy our kind of swill—luxury, food, etc. —and cease all struggling when that money is obtained?

Is fear of poverty and dependence the only emotion that should move us?

Are we here merely to STAY here and EAT here?

A great German scientist, very learned and about as imaginative as a wart hog, declares that the human face is merely an extension and elaboration of the alimentary canal—that the beauty of expression, the marvellous qualities of a noble human face, are merely indirect results of the alimentary canal's strivings to satisfy its wants.

That is a hideous conception, is it not? But it is no more unworthy than the average human life, and the average existence has much to justify the German's speculations.

What SHALL we strive for? MONEY?

Get a thousand millions. Your day will come, and in due course the graveyard rat will gnaw as calmly at your bump of acquisitiveness as at the mean coat of the pauper.

Then, shall we strive for POWER?

The names of the first great kings of the world are forgotten, and the names of all those whose power we envy will drift to forgetfulness soon. What does the most powerful man in the world amount to standing at the brink of Niagara, with his solar plexus trembling? What is his power compared with the force of the wind or the energy of one small wave sweeping along the shore?

The power which man can build up within himself, for himself, is nothing. Only the dull reasoning of gratified egotism can make it seem worth while. ——

Then what IS worth while? Let us look at some of the men who have come and gone, and whose lives inspire us. Take a few at random:

Columbus, Michael Angelo, Wilberforce, Shakespeare, Galileo, Fulton, Watt, Hargreaves—these will do.

Let us ask ourselves this question: "Was there any ONE THING that distinguished ALL their lives, that united all these men, active in fields so different?"

Yes. Every man among them, and every man whose life history is worth the telling, did something for THE GOOD OF OTHER MEN.

Hargreaves, the weaver, invented the spinning-jenny, and his invention clothes and employs hundreds of millions.

Galileo perfected the telescope, spread out before man's intellect the grandeur of the universe. Wilberforce helped to awaken man's conscience. He freed millions of slaves. Columbus gave a home to great nations. We thrive to-day because of his noble courage. Michael Angelo and Shakespeare stirred human genius to new efforts, and fed the human mind—a task more worthy than the feeding of the human stomach. We ride in Fulton's steamboats, and Watt's engine pulls us along.

Men who are truly great have DONE GOOD to their fellow-man. And the greatest Soul ever born on earth came to urge but one thing upon humanity, "Love one another." ——

Get money if you can. Get power if you can. Then, if you want to be more than the ten thousand million unknown mingled in the dust beneath you, see what good you can do with your money and your power.

If you are one of the many millions who have not and can't get money or power, see what good you can do without either.

You can help carry a load for an old man. You can encourage and help a poor devil trying to reform. You can set a good example to children. You can stick to the men with whom you work, fighting honestly for their welfare.

Time was when the ablest man would rather kill ten men than feed a thousand children. That time has gone. We do not care much about feeding the children, but we care less about killing the men. To that extent we have improved already.

The day will come when we shall prefer helping our neighbor to robbing him—legally—of a million dollars.

Do what good you can NOW, while it is unusual, and have the satisfaction of being a pioneer and an eccentric.



CRUEL FRIGHTENING OF CHILDREN

The most acute suffering is that produced by FEAR, and those who suffer most acutely from fear are YOUNG children.

Who does not remember the intense agony in youth based upon the superstitious teachings of some foolish older person?

And how many children are made miserable through the hideous fear that comes from threats and from punishment postponed?

If a man should be whipped incessantly for three or four hours he would think his tormentor a monster of brutality.

Yet you say to a child:

"I will whip you for that to-morrow."

You sentence that child to hours of the most acute mental suffering, and if the child be nervous and unusually sensitive, you may permanently injure its health. ——

Here is a scene unfortunately not rare in this country:

A thin, nervous little boy, perhaps ten years old, was walking along a suburban street. Suddenly, on turning a corner, he was confronted by a man, apparently his father.

The child stood trembling. The man, in a voice of cold, concentrated anger, said:

"Didn't I tell you to come early. You go to the house and WAIT THERE TILL I COME BACK AND FIX YOU."

The man walked on, to get the drink of beer or whiskey that should add to his natural cruelty, and the poor child, without a word, started for home to await the coming punishment.

No more cruel treatment was ever endured by any human being than the punishment inflicted by that thoughtless man on the nervous, helpless child placed in his power.

Later, of course, there followed the punishment; a huge, powerful man striking repeatedly the delicate body of the child, emphasizing the brutality of his blows with more brutal words, and feeling when it was over that he had gloriously done his duty as a typical American father.

Of course, the actual brutal beating was only a small part of the child's ordeal.

The most horrible part was the waiting for the punishment. No man in the death cell ever suffered more than thousands of children suffer every day waiting for the brutality which is to exemplify our savage notions concerning the education of children.

If such a monstrous parody on a father should be met in some lonely wood by a huge gorilla and treated as that father treats his own son, he would complain bitterly of the gorilla's ferocity. Yet it would not equal in any way his own brutal and less excusable cruelty. ——

If a parent says that he cannot bring up his children and control them without beating them, you may say to that parent:

You never struck a child in your life except when you were angry, and you would not have dared to strike it if it had been of your own size.

Children born of decent parents can be brought up, and ARE brought up, without beatings, and if yours are a different kind of children it is a reflection on YOU, and on your whole brood and family.

The poor, ignorant hen can teach its young ones to scratch and hunt worms, and acquire whatever education they need without hurting them, and a human being should be able to do for his own as much as a hen can do.

IT IS NATURAL FOR CHILDREN TO BE CRUEL

You have perhaps read that Mrs. Isabelle Bailey, of Palmyra, N.J., was cruelly tortured by three little girls.

The unfortunate woman was eighty-five years old, paralyzed, and confined to her bed.

The three children, two of them eight and one eleven years old, tormented the poor woman in a brutal manner, of which details shall not be published here.

The helpless woman ultimately died, and the children were charged with murder. ——

This horrible story is mentioned in the hope of concentrating the minds of mothers and fathers on the fact that children are naturally more cruel, more vicious, than grown people.

The children mentioned in this case were, perhaps, abnormal and unusual monstrosities. But they serve to illustrate the fact that infancy and childhood duplicate, in the individual, the primitive animal life on earth.

Many children are brutally punished and ruined for life because ignorant parents imagine that childhood is naturally pure and innocent and good, and that a child which misbehaves must be abnormally wicked.

If parents knew more about the physical and mental development of their children, they would be better fitted to have charge of them. ——

It is a fact taught by embryology that the human body before its birth passes through numerous stages of development which correspond exactly with the lower forms of animal life.

After birth the child develops MENTALLY in the same way, passing through inferior mental stages and reaching a state of benevolence, honesty, truthfulness and self-restraint only as a result of long education and wise control.

A perfectly truthful child probably never existed. All childish races of savages are incessant liars and thieves. All children passing through the primitive stages of mental development are naturally given to deception, and even to theft, especially when they are frightened by the consequences of truth, and when things which they desire are denied them.

All children are cruel—and there is no greater brutality than confiding a helpless animal to the tender mercies of a young child.

There may be a few exceptions, but they are very rare, and there is no reason why parents should expect their particular children to be the exceptions.

You may see a man of mature age, kind-hearted, absolutely benevolent and just. And you may learn that when he was a baby he bit his nurse, lied, and was cruel to animals and to other children.

But parents are stupidly egotistical, and believe that their pretty children ought to be born morally perfect.

This moral perfection can be obtained only as the result of education.

Don't expect your children to be models of virtue.

Don't brutalize them by punishments and contempt because you discover that their primitive mental life duplicates the mental conditions of inferior animals.

Set them a good example, and by education make them what you want them to be.

The ignorant and stupid belief that children are born naturally good accounts for the brutality of many fathers and the ruin of many young lives, making cowards of children, accentuating their untruthfulness and cowardice and their cruelty through a desire for revenge.



TWO THIN LITTLE BABIES ARE LEFT

The authorities of New York City, at this writing, have two babies to give away.

A few days since there were about two hundred babies in the city foundling asylum to be had for the asking.

Of all these little ones there remain but two whom nobody seems to want.

These two forlorn little things are described as "thin and nervous; inclined to cry, and not taking kindly to those who come to pick out free babies for adoption."

Hundreds of women anxious for children have gone to the asylum, have passed by the two little skinny babies, and have asked to be informed as soon as fat babies should be on hand.

Presently we shall tell childless persons—especially bachelors—why they should get a baby and bring it up.

But first, learn that the best possible choice would be one of those two despised "thin" babies.

In all the world's history, the greatest men have begun life as THIN babies.

You must know from common observation that in babyhood the head is big out of all proportion to the rest of the body.

A baby one year old has in its brain alone at least one-third of all the blood in its body.

THE BIGGER AND MORE ACTIVE THE BRAIN the more blood is required to nourish it, and THE MORE THE REST OF THE BODY SUFFERS.

A baby luckily born may combine a good brain and a fat body. But such luck is very rare.

Nine times out of ten the best baby MENTALLY is the poorest-looking baby PHYSICALLY.

We have told you in this column about the pathetic babyhood of the great Voltaire. Had he been in the foundling asylum during the recent selection of babies, he would surely be among the despised and rejected. Yet what a glory to have picked out and raised the wonderful Voltaire!

Voltaire, whose name as a baby was Arouet, was the thinnest and most nervous of babies. He had a disease very much like rickets; he cried night and day, and there was little hope of keeping him alive.

Pitt, the great British Prime Minister, was as sick and skinny a baby as was ever seen. Pope, when a baby, would not have seemed worth keeping alive to anybody but a loving mother.

We advise the women who have spurned the two thin babies in the asylum to take another look at them. They may be the best two babies in the entire lot.



A BABY CAN EDUCATE A MAN

If you will read Drummond's beautiful work "The Ascent of Man," you will learn that we owe to children the good that is in us. It is the child that educates the father and mother.

If you are a solemn bachelor, gradually drying up in your selfish life, try having a baby around for a while.

Get a despised thin one from the asylum. Get some good, kind old woman to take care of it. Give the woman and the baby the quietest room in your house or flat, and then watch the improvement in your character.

You can feed the baby for the cost of one or two cocktails daily.

Your health will improve if you give up the cocktails, and watch the effect of their substitute, milk, on the little child.

When you get up in the morning, if the hour is early, you will find the old woman giving the baby its bath. The poor, little thin thing will wriggle joyously in the warm water, once it gets used to the daily bathing. Its head will be soaped first, then sponged. It will be dried with a warm towel, and you can hit the tin bathtub with your keys to keep it from crying while its clothes are put on.

Hold the baby for a while each morning, letting its head rest on your shoulder that its neck may not be strained. (This will give the nurse a chance to prepare the bottle that follows the bath.)

It will get used to you after a few mornings. The first time it shows affection for you, you will be the proudest man in your office.

If asked to take a cocktail you will say:

"No, thank you. My cocktail money is spent to make a thin baby fat."

If others boast of their friends, you will know that YOU have a friend whom money cannot influence, one skinny little admirer at home whose affection is genuine.

If a man shows delight in the love of his dog, you will say to yourself:

"Any dog will like any man. But there are few that could get a baby to like them in six days as that thin Jimmy likes me."

If you go home early, before the baby is put to bed, you will find him trying to crawl along the floor, or trying to eat the pattern in the carpet. He will look at you out of his pale, little, blue eyes and reach his skinny arms toward you.

See if that does not make you glad that you tried the baby experiment.

Gradually the thin body will get fatter, and the small, busy mouth will begin a mumbling language of its own. The old nurse will pretend to understand everything it says and will insist that it knows your name.

The first tooth piercing the heated, suffering gum; the first feeble steps with the help of a chair; the first tottering effort all alone, with arms outstretched toward you, ending in a flabby collapse, will delight you more than much experimenting with race horses, if you are the right sort of man.

It will not be long before you will decide that the bringing up of babies is your destiny, and a good one.

But when you bring a wife into the house, and she brings you other babies, thin or fat, of your own, don't forget the original thin Jimmy baby. Provide for the old nurse and for the youngster. Say to your wife:

"Be fond of that Jimmy baby, for it was he who taught me that I could not get along without you."

THE END