--- 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: 8 published: 1904-06 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations, "Talks to Young Men. VIII—System, and Use of Spare Moments," *Improvement Era* 7, no. 8 (June 1904): 601–605.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera0708unse 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: improvementera0708unse start_page: 601 end_page: 605 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1904-06) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera0708unse publication_year: 1904 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 1904, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # Talks to Young Men. VIII—System, and Use of Spare Moments TALKS TO YOUNG MEN. Vlll.— SYSTEM, AND USE OF SPARE MOMENTS. There is not an hour of youth but is trembling with destinies— not a moment of which, once past, the appointed work can ever be done again, or the neglected blow struck on the cold iron. —Buskin. Did you ever think of that? You, young man, in the busy city, or out there on the ranch; in 'the quiet village, on the farm, at the homestead, did you ever think that such thoughts apply to you? You appear to think that you have too much time; or rather, that when you are engaged in work, the time is too long. That is be- cause you are not interested in your work. But when your alloted task is over, the hours seem short; they pass quickly, so quickly that you have no time for much of anything but to stand around. When you have time after the day's labor, you gather at the gate with your companions, and you stand around, "talking about nothing much," There are only a few moments, half an hour at most, when you must do your chores, or run an errand, so you while the time away, and thus thirty precious minutes, ''trembling with destinies," are lost! It occurs in your life every day, some- times two or three times a day. You are losing time; some iron is growing cold that you might be hitting. "Oh! but one must have some time for fun and rest," you say. "But you are not having fun and rest to any purpose. There should be an aim in pleasure and rest, as much as in work," say I. I don't advocate dividing your day into stiff, statistical parts, and doing things at set times, as they do in class exercises in school. I hate too much form, but I like system, aim, purpose, economy. You love gardening, but have no time. Look at your father's house. How beautiful that front yard could be made! What a fine resting place could be created in the back yard, by planting trees, leveling the ground, sowing some grass! In time, oh, so short, there would be shade, flowers, a hammock-place where mother could rest, and where the little brothers and sisters could play, so that there would be no need to run away to the neighbors. — But you have no time only a few minutes, two or three times a day! Then there's getting the tools, the clearing of rubbish, going after seed! It all takes much time; so you just "stand round" and behold your father's house, how bare and comfortless ! Why don't you have system, and fix things so that you can put in ten minutes' work without spending thirty minutes or an hour getting ready every time you wish to work? You have reading, but there's never a book that you can get at without spending more time hunting it than you have to read. Why don't you have system, so that you can find a book in a mo- ment, and begin and end promptly? You love to jump, pitch quoits, box, pole-vault; but you have only a few minutes with your companions who have sauntered over to see you, and it would take too long to get the poles or the gloves, or the horseshoes, and so you all just "stand round." Why don't you have system, so that you can go at your fun, and enjoy it, if only for ten minutes? You love to study, but you have no time for anything much, and so you go to the library, and pick up a book, and read at random, and another, and read the title; and another, and read a disjointed part, receiving little sense or benefit, when read in that way. Why don't you have system, select a subject, read to a purpose; know where to begin, remember where you end, hold in mind your aim in reading, and so learn, and accumulate knowledge to a pur- pose? In this way you can utilize one minute or five, to some use- ful end. No time? Why, the trouble with you, my boy, is that you have plenty of time, but you don't know its value nor how to use it. Then why not set about learning this lesson? Spare moments are very precious, and their proper use will perform miracles? But these broken fragments of time must be linked in system to form a chain of value, and this chain must be used to a purpose. TALKS TO YOUNG MEN. 603 And the plea that this or that man has no time for culture will vanish as soon as we desire culture so much that we begin to examine seriously into our present use of time. —Matthew Arnold. Lycurgus, the Spartan legislator, is said to have taught the Spartans the great virtue of having no part of life vacant and un- improved; "but even with their necessary actions," says Plutarch, "he interwove the praise of virtue and the contempt of vice; and he so filled the city with live examples that it was next to im- possible for persons who had these from infancy before their eyes not to be drawn and formed to honor." Lost wealth may be regained, by industry and economy; knowledge, by study; health, by temperance and care; but lost time is forever vanished. "Only five or ten minutes till breakfast. No time for any- thing now!" Have you not often heard that? But if you have a system and a book, lo! what treasures of information may be gleaned in these spare moments. Just consider the time lost in frivolous nothings ; the hours thrown away by young men in mere restlessness, and purposeless "standing around!" "Where have you been since meeting adjourned at 8? It is 9:30 now." "Oh, just standing around with the boys," sauntering, killing time, flipping rocks; hanging around the country post ofiice or co-op. store; or, if you live in the city, "going down town." Joseph Smith became learned in the odd moments which he snatched for study from the days of turbulence, anxiety, care and labor incident to the establishment of the Church, in his less than forty years of life. To the improvement gained from his spare moments as a surgeon, Galileo gave to the world some of its greatest discov- eries. While a workman on a farm, Burns wrote some of his most beautiful poems. In his spare time, Hugh Miller, wtile working as a stone mason, found time to read scientific books, and so prepare him- self to write the glorious lessons learned from the blocks of stone he handled. The best thoughts that have been given to you in the pages a €04 . IMPROVEMENT ERA. of the Improvement Era have been contributed by men and women who have used their spare moments to this useful end. It has been said that in Dante's time, nearly every literary man in Italy was a hard-working merchant, physician, statesman, judge, or soldier. It can truthfully be stated that every writer in the Church, from Pratt to Penrose, Roberts, Whitney, Talmage and Widtsoe, has been a hard worker as a farmer, mechanic, mission- ary, school teacher, editor, scientist, merchant, or professor of ed- cation; and that his best labors in literature emanated from his improvement of spare moments. George Stephenson learned arithmetic during the nightshifts when he was an engineer. Hiram Powers, the great artist, as a boy used even his whit- tling time to a purpose, by carving his wood into something — paper knife, a box, a lid — while the other boys simply whittled theirs away to no useful end. Some five or six years ago, an officer at Fort Douglas, finding spare time on his hands, started gathering butterflies and beetles. Then he corresponded with other collectors in surround- ing states, and in a short period had a wonderful natural collec- tion from several western states, which he sold for $10,000. His fellow officers just "stood around" the while. Luke Crawshaw, a grocery clerk in Z. C. M. I., in Ogden, oc- cupied his spare moments for years in moulding. He succeeded so well that he bids fair to become famous in this line of art work. Lincoln studied law during his spare hours while surveying, and learned the common branches while tending a store. It was while surveying, with the pioneer civil engineer, Jesse W. Fox, that Matthias F. Cowley studied Bible passages and ac- quired the habit of Bible study which has made him the most ready user of scripture among the present apostles. Harden states that Charles C. Frost, a celebrated shoemaker of Vermont, resolved to devote an hour a day to mathematics, and he became one of the most noted mathematicians in the United States. John Hunter, whose specimens, twenty-four thousand in num- ber, in comparative anatomy it took Prof. Owen ten years to ar- range and classify, began his studies while working as a carpenter. TALKS TO YOUNG MEN. 605 Waste of time means waste of energy, waste of vitality, waste of character in dissipation. It means bad companions, bad habits. It means the waste of opportunities which will never come hack.— Mar den. Every young man would do well to have some absorbing pur- suit —a hobby, you please —to occupy if his spare moments, to which he can turn with delight when he has a little leisure. It may be either in line with his work or otherwise, but his heart must be in it. If he shall choose wisely his study, research or occupation, use system, and have an aim and purpose in it all, he will thereby broaden and even transform his character. Work is just the needed thing for every young man. Keep busy. Don't loiter nor be idle. Have something useful to do, and you will be safe from temptation to evil. This applies especially to leisure hours. What are you about during lunch hour? Where do you go after supper? After your regular work for the day i& done? What do you do on Sundays and holidays? How do you occupy your spare moments? The answer to these questions re- veals the character of a young man; and what he does in his spare moments goes far towards forming his character. The vast im- portance of odd moments is therefore clearly seen. A writer has well said that "each evening is a crisis in the career of a young man. The great majority of youths who go to the bad are ruined after supper. Most of those who climb upward to honor and fame devote their evenings to study or work, or the society of the wise and good."