--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 5 number: 3 published: 1902-01 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations, "Notes," *Improvement Era* 5, no. 3 (January 1902): 234–235.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera0503unse transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers. identifier: improvementera0503unse start_page: 234 end_page: 235 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1902-01) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera0503unse publication_year: 1902 note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1902, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # Notes NOTES. Ambition is the mother of industry, and when the latter is properly directed, reflects honor upon its parentage. — George W. Crocheron. Success is costly, if we pay for it in lowered standards and degraded manhood and womanhood. Poverty and hardship have ever been great schoolmasters of the race, and have forced into prominence many a man who would other- wise have remained unknown. Every man feels instinctively that all the beautiful sentiments in the world weigh less than a single lovely action; and that, while tenderness of feeling and susceptibility to generous emotions are accidents of tem- perament, goodness is an achievement of the will, and a quality of life. — Lowell. "A man's house," says Beecher, "should be on the hilltop of cheer- fulness and serenity, so high that no shadows rest upon it, and where the morning comes so early, and the evening tarries so late, that the NOTES. . 235 day has twice as many golden hours as those of other men. He is to be pitied whose house is in some valley of grief between the hills, with the longest night and the shortest days." In view of what we have seen to the Qontrary from young authors, and even from missionaries, the following instructions to writers, are timely: "Never write crosswise on a letter; use sufficient paper to say what you wish to. Avoid the habit which so many have fallen into of repeating ideas. Frame your sentences to clearly convey your thought or idea. Use no unnecessary words. Our little griefs and cares and anxieties do not cloud the sun's brightness or draw a veil over the blue sky, nor do they rob nature of any of her charms or deaden the joyous sounds of life. They are all there trying, trying to woo us from our selfish absorption, pleading with us to look up and out, not down and in. "We talk of human misery," says Canon Farrar; "how many of us derive from life one- tenth part of what God meant to be its natural blessing?" Happiness is normal; unhappiness is abnormal. God meant for us to be happy; it is our own fault if we are otherwise. Circumstances and conditions may control our bodies, to a certain extent, in that we may be constrained to be at a certain place and do a certain work for a cer- tain number of hours each day; but no circumstances or conditions, no man or woman, should control our minds. We can become whatever God intends us to be, no matter how hard the tasks which our hands have to do. The president of the London Chamber of Commerce gives these twelve maxims which he has tested through years of business experience* and which he recommends as tending to insure success: — 1. — Have a definite aim. 2. — Go straight for it. — 3. — Master all details. 4. — Always know more than you are expected to know. 5. — Remember that difficulties are only made to be overcome. 6. — Treat failures as stepping- stones to further effort. 7. — Never put your hand out further than you can draw it back. 8. — At times be bold; always, be prudent. 9. — The minority often beats the majority in the end. 10. — Make good use of other men's brains. 11. — Listen well; answer cautiously; decide promptly. 12. — Preserve, by all means in your power, "a sound mind in a sound body."