Notes

NOTES.

Sarcasm is the weapon of the weak.

Self-reliance and independence should be instilled from infancy. Respect for all honest employment and for all who are honestly employed cannot be dwelt upon with too great force by parents and teachers.

This teaching alone will work an unfathomable reform, and snobbery

will entirely become unfashionable, while a general and wholesome

respect for all that is respectable will grow in favor and popularity. To

be capable of doing something well, or of doing many things well, is

commendable, and it is not an infrequent happening that such always capability stands for bread and butter in the long run, and where it had

been least expected.— Mto Houghton.

that Some genius with an eye to figures, has come to the conclusion about thirty-three years. Onethe average duration of human life is reach their seventh year, onefourth of "the inhabitants die before they half before their seventeenth year. Of every thousand persons, only hundred years; of every hundred only six one reaches the age of one and not more than one in five hundred, lives reach the age of sixty-five, There are about 1,500,000,000 inhabitants to see the eightieth year.

546 IMPROVEMENT ERA.

on the globe. Of these, 50,000,000 die every year, 137,736 per day, 5,595 per hour, about ninety per minute, or three in every two seconds.

A very sensible decision has lately been made by Chief Willis L. Moore, of the United States Weather Bureau. He has issued an order prohibiting persons connected with the service from smoking cigarettes during office hours, and further has requested that all who smoke at any time shall be mentioned in the confidential reports made quarterly to him by chiefs of the offices and divisions throughout the entire service. The reason for this action is that the best, most thorough and competent men in the service gradually become careless and lax, and an investigation proved that in a number of cases, it was found to be directly attributed to the use of cigarettes. And so cigarette smoking must cease in the entire service of the weather bureau. Young men should think over the matter, and be very loth to begin the smoking habit. It

is a serious evil to health, it deadens ambition, and makes the person a

slave to stimulants, besides disqualifying him for clear thought and energetic action. But do not stop where the weather bureau has drawn — — the line at cigarette smoking let tobacco alone in all its forms if you would have a clear mind and an elastic step.

After once choosing your occupation, never look backward; stick to it with all the tenacity you can muster. Let nothing tempt you or swerve you a hair's breadth from your aim, and you will win. Do not let the thorns which appear in every vocation, or temporary despondency or disappointment, shake your purpose. You will never succeed while smarting under the drudgery of your occupation, if you are constantly haunted with the idea that you could succeed better in something else Great tenacity of purpose is the only thing that will carry you over the hard places, which appear in every career, to ultimate triumph. This determination, or fixity of purpose, has a great moral bearing upon our success, for it leads others to feel confidence in us, and this is everything. It gives credit and moral support in a thousand ways. People always believe in a man with a fixed purpose, and will help him twice as quickly as one who is loosely or indifferently attached to his vocation, and liable at any time to make a change, or to fail. Everybody knows that determined men are not likely to fail. They carry in their very pluck, grit and determination, the conviction and assurance of success. —J. Lincoln Brooks, in Success.