--- 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: 7 number: 1 published: 1903-11 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* 7, no. 1 (November 1903): 59–60.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera0701unse 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: improvementera0701unse start_page: 59 end_page: 60 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1903-11) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera0701unse publication_year: 1903 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 1903, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # Notes EDITOR'S TABLE. g9 that year for the admission of Utah, and was elected by the Con- stitutional convention of 1872, with Hons. Thomas Fitch, and George Q. Cannon, to co-operate with Hon. Wm. H. Hooper in pre- senting the Constitution to Congress and the President. The election was held March 18, when the people of Utah ratified the Constitution by a vote of twenty-five thousand one hundred and sixty for, and three hundred and sixty-five against, and also chose Frank Fuller their representative to Congress. Later the Legis- lature, April 6, chose Wm. H. Hooper and Thomas Fitch, senators. Mr. Fuller has done many kind acts for the people of Utah, and remains today their staunch friend. The Era is enabled to present his portrait by courtesy of Elder Junius F. Wells who obtained it specially from him for publication in this magazine. NOTES. A young man who reads the proverbs of Solomon say once every month and makes them a part of his principles, of his very being, has a fund of wisdom, a basis of character that will help him in temptation, and win him the respect of his fellow-men. They should be read and studied, believed and remembered, and their precepts practiced in daily life. Digging in the soil and chopping wood is hard work, but it requires no special skill, hence the wages paid are the smallest. The pay in- creases in proportion to the thought and skill required. Learn a good trade and it will be with you when your friends and money are gone. Few boys take to tasks that require thought and persistent effort. Yet skilled work is the only employment in demand. Hod-carriers and com- mon laborers glut the market everywhere. The tradesmen and arti- zans are the ones that get the easiest jobs and the most money. The others are always hunting work. Should they accidentally stumble upon A superficial knowledge will not do. It must a job they cannot hold it. be thorough. Boys, learn a trade while young. After you are twenty years old few will be found who will take time and trouble to teach you one. When you are that old you will want a man's pay. If you don't know anything you won't get it. Know-nothings work at odd jobs and are paid the lowest scale. The Gem. In standing beside the open grave of a friend one thought often oc- 60 IMPROVEMENT ERA. curs to men in later years, and that is : What does the world owe this man and how much of the debt has he collected? The world owes to every man a living, providing he has the industry and determination to collect it. The world owes to every man more pleasure than pain; more good than bad; more gain than loss; more happiness than sorrow; more success than failure; more love than hate; more friends than en- emies; but it rests with the man himself whether he collects that debt, for the world holds hard fast to the good things which it possesses, and lets free the bad; and it is only by labor and energy, only by determination and character that the debt which the world owes to everyone is col- lected. Depew. No man or woman of the humblest sort can really be strong, pure and good without the world being the better for it; without somebody being helped and comforted by the existence of his goodness. Phillips Brooks. "Give kindness to the living. No wealth of Funeral pomp, no late, endearing words Atone for past neglect." A man who is guided by a low ambition is cold, unsympathetic, and grasping. One who is led by aspiration is magnanimous, helpful, and sympathetic. Ambition tends to deteriorate health and morals; aspir- ation, to improve them; for high ideals elevate everything above one. They express themselves in the body as surely as the thought of the artist expresses itself on canvas. Ambition desires to have more; as- piration to be more. Ambition often lures us, even to our own destruc- tion. Aspiration is the ladder by which we climb to true greatness. Success. No boy can afford to neglect his work; and with a boy work, as a rule,means study. I am no advocate of senseless cramming in studies, but a boy should work, and should work hard at his lessons, in the first place, for the sake of the effect upon his own character of settling to learn it. Shiftlessness, slackness, indifference to studying, are almost certain to mean inability to get on in other walks of life. Of course, as a boy grows older it is a good thing if he can shape his studies in the direction toward which he has a natural bent; but whether he can do this or not, he must put his whole heart into it. I do not believe in mischief- making in school hours, as this is the kind of animal spirits that makes poor scholars; and I believe that those boys who take part in rough, hard play out of school will not find any need of it—President Roosevelt.