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Show !r''l I DO EVERYTHING , 311 1 i TO A FINISH. jxtOTHING else reveals tho very H' h' 'f I i heart and marrow of character so H? !! V V lM much as the way In which wo do P 1 .'I our work. A botched job shows a 'V J'M poor maker, while a finely-wrought 't I ''' !) piece of work gives one an Impression S r truu nob,,lLv and masterfulness. t ; l M1 We n building overy day, ' W ' 'I 1 In a good or evil way; ll i ' . , And tho structure na It grows HUj ' j. '. i Will our Inmost self disclose. H'i 1 ''s:l' 'Tho lmbiL of half-doing things Is a j f M il'' great demoralizer of character, lnduc- I 1 ,ns ,a m3ntnI and moral shlftlcsaness it''. I' ; ! j which is fatal to achievement. Slip- ; 1 il.-j Bhou work means slipshod men or wo- .i I j .f men. Unless you put the best of your- L!it jl; self into whatever you do your char- l ('.' J acter will deleriorale. The slipshod ' ' fil,, I'j' mind loses confidence In Itself and is HJ i I' '','.) soon Incapable of producing fine, exact, ' systematic work. You cannot afford to half-do things, ). ' I' no matter what you get out of It. On j ' the contrary, an Indescribable some- v , i j thing la added to the very character and 1 Im ' fiber-of the man who does everything ' 1 ' ! to a finish; there is a sense of complete- j! i' ,.'' ness, of wholeness, of satisfaction l 'I, jj which comes to the man who does his . :,j f very best every time. He Is not haunt- ' If ed by the tail ends of half-llnlshed ll , , ;l tasks. He is not kept awake by j ;. ; thoughts of dishonest, slipshod jobs. 'I "When he gets through doing his day's i j, ,' work to a finish he Is conscious that ho J 'I , ;, has been a man, honest with himself j ! I , " and wl.th his employers; he Is sure that ! '' , 1 ' what he has done will bring him only 1 Ij'jj' i Increased credit and honor as time goes ' . j on; he knows that no fault or lmperfec- 1 1"! tlon will come back to reproach him. yU i '; He Xcels a sense of pride In his work ' in k t, which the slipshod man never feels. He j , I has put character Into his day's work, , I ; oj and If he should not get his salary, he , 'jj has at least kept his self-respect, has 1 f , s W added to his manhood by his honesty '( of purpose and the Integrity of his I ' work. , 1 The Master Violin-Maker. I 'j ' 1 "Are you looking for gold nuggets in K 'I j! those rocks?" askad a passer-by of a Ji1! !. man who was building a stone Avail, "jij ,j ,' "No, I am looking for their indlvld- ; ', il uallty," said the laborer. "Every stone, r like a human being, has Its own Indl- ' i , ,j vlduallty, and he who would build a , , wall as it should be must get acqualnt-i acqualnt-i I '! ' ' i jj ed with every stone he handles and j' ; , place it just where it was Intended to !! '! 1 " e'p." This man was putting his conscience jli,!', h even into a stone wall. He was deter- , ' , i'"1!" mlnod that it should never rebukehim y(k' , I' . when he passed that way In after I I '; . years. Because Stradlvarlus thought it lijlj ' worth while to put his conscience into il i hi? violins some of them arc worth 1 , ., from 55000 to $10,000, or several times k j j j; their weight In gold. He says in a VV-U ' ll poem by George Eliot: jj' p , , If my "hand slacked, 1 I ''Htjl I should rob God since he la fullest good Leaving a blank Instead of violins. i, !, Maydolo thought it worth while to ( , "j; put his conscience into a hammer and Hj 1 'I to make It as good as it could be made, .1 until a Slaydole hammer was the best ,.f in the world. The man who would put U j 'l immortality Into his work must put his 'V i I t.lj , conscience into It, must do It to a finish, Vfl (Mi i I must do It as well as It can be done. Hr Balzac, the great French novelist, " , W l somqtlmes worked a week on a single Hj; !f nage, and yet many a modern mush- , ' , ! , ' j ' roont writer wonders where Balzac's H i ; , fame comes from. I, I ''I Don't think you wIIKnevcr hear from I i ,,' '' a nalf finished job or neglected task. . j . ' i f .'t will never die. It will appear to you M) 1 ' i ' ' a; tne most unexpected times, in the , JI nicst, embarrassing situations. A single '"A ' ,; broken thread in a web of cloth Is 'i!' 1 j ' I traced back to the girl who neglected ' ' Tj'; her work In the factory and the amount ' I Ir of damage Is deducted from her wages. 1 , ; ,;' So your botched jobs, your neglected ' ji tasks, will mortify you years hence and ' ' ! Jteep you from the success you cxpect- f , ! Many a youth thinks it does not mat- j ' i ' fer much whether he dobs an errand m- '. , '; jj properly, finishes his problems or com- I ' pletes a sled he has started to make, J i hut years afterward, In manhood, these li half-finished tasks of his youth and l tl tnR habits they formed In his character W!' continually embarrass and humiliate 1 '.j, ' him,, tripping him up and Impeding his , ! protreas. The shlftlessncss of his ; youth becomes a habit so strong that ' .I?,? not een the strength of his maturer i years can break 11. I! i ,(. "When n. yoiing men applies for a po- I i! j sltlon he Is amazed at being rejected t ' !' I ' because a loosely-constructed, bddly- H'Hi ;'t spelled letter he wrote years before to 1 il ! a member of the firm, never thinking It ,f "i could affect his future, or Home poor I , wouk done elsewhere has given him a , 'SJ reputation that bam him from a new ' "'1, situation. However unjust it may be, . 'h ( 'lj It is 'almost Impossible for a convict to i, vl Hyo a respected and successful llfo , ' , ! C' evei1 years after his liberation. Take I ;!) care 1101 t0 1)e convicted of shoddv ;J I , ll work and careless ser'ice if you hope !" ;,,') for business success. The habit of i' J', ' i Bkinmlng, of skipping points, Is fatal KVJ I I , ', i! to all high achievement. I ' ! 'he Deatl Letter Avalanche. l , Oh; every hand wo see evidences of ' i ' blighting carelessness. The dead let- ' tor department received last year more . j thanfT.000.OCH) pieces of undelivered mail. ,K' '. Of these more than S0.000 bore no ad- BVJ , ' - I dress whatever. A great many of t i thesedetters were from business houses. '3 ' ' Are ' the clerks responsible for this ,1 . ' j!! . waste likely to win promotion? 1 i(1r It costs a prominent New York mer- ,1 ' chant S25.000 a year to, correct mls- VJ 'I II tafces In commercial papers, blunders VJ J,'' due to poor writing or the poor Eng- BVJi , Ush of his employees. Everywhere we ill I ,' see Broat establishments paying enor- IBH. I,, ) I mouS sums In damages for the blun- 11 Ht dersand avoidable mistakes of om- (ii I - ployees. Thousands of pers'onir every ! i' I' l year lose their lives through some- 1 , ' i body's careless and slipshod work, vlc- , ,,- f hi tlms of inaccuracy and Indifference. ,, t U Some one has said, "It la a racu be- j i , 1 i i tweqn negligence and ignorance ns to J j' i flj wr.idh can make the more lroubk.' Hi Doing things "just for now," exoect- Mih, 1 I? Ing-to finish them a little later." has Yfli " ruined many a boy's prospects In life, f if , ! "Oh. that's good enough: what's the H' '' i rtPj usc.ofrbelng ?o particular?" which we J t t jki hoai' so often from careless boys.Te- j f .I yji comes a lifelong handicap, In ?very 1 j T.l city and every village the boy who ! , never quite finished anything he un- ''i If! 1 dertook, the boy of half-learned les- , " I'll ons and poor recitations, the boy who TfllJ "4 ' L ll skinned through his examinations, has ill t ( CONSCIENCE IN WORK. j g By Dr. Orison Swett Marden. been heard from, and Is a disappointment disappoint-ment to his parents and friends, for what Is put Into the first of life Is put Into the whole of life, If one of these careless boys grows up and goes Into business there Is always some defect in his transactions. He lacks system and thoroughness; he Is slovenly in his business habits and nc'cr knows qulto how he stands. He never thinks It worth while to be exciting In little things; his books are not accurate, his desk Is loaded with papers and letters and confusion reigns everywhere. His slipshod methods are Infectious. Everyone who works for him catches the contagion and perpetuates bin weaknesses. He carries little weight In the community, for no one dares to intrust in-trust Important matters to him. knowing know-ing that he blunders. Is not accurate or reliable. All are afraid of him and shun him In business affairs. Nobody has confidence In the man who half-does things. He cannot get credit, however honest, because he lets his notes go to protest; ho Is late with his deposits; he misses his engagements, Results of Shiftless Work. What a misfortune for a youth to grow to manhood and find his whole future compromised or endangered by the habit of half-doing things in his boyhood. Of course, he- did not know that careless, Indifferent work makes careless. Indifferent character. That an engineer does not know the bridge Is down does not prevent his train from being wrecked. The youth cannot learn too soon what the later consequences of his thoughtless acts may be. If a general. Invading a hostile country, coun-try, would leave here and there a fort untaken because of the great difficulty of capturing It and should push on with his army along the line of least resistance, re-sistance, he would soon find himself In serious trouble. If wo do not conquer our enemies as we go along, If we do not clear up the country as we march, If we do not do every task to a finish, we shall find endless trouble and mortification mor-tification later on. "What a pcrpetifal humiliation to be conslcous that we possess native ability to fill positions of honor and trust, and yet are Incapacitated for doing so adequately, ade-quately, because of the skipped points and neglected tasks away back In youth. We know of a young man who missed a splendid position In an In- i stltution of learning simply through a misspelled word in a letter. A great many men and women are obliged to halt just at the threshold of the goal because of neglected training, or slighted work In early life, and have been humiliated In Inferior positions all their lives because they could not entirely en-tirely overcome the handicap of early neglect. Many a young man Is being kept down by what probably seems a smnll thing to him lack of accuracy. He never quite finishes anything; he cannot can-not be depended uon to do anything quite - right; his work always needs "looking over" by some one else. Hundreds Hun-dreds of bookkeepers arc getting small salaries in pcor positions today because they have novcr learned to do things absolutely right. Plodded to Cabinet Honors. It Is not alone the careless boys who are heard from. The thorough boys are heard from too, and from posts far higher up. One such boy IsJSIIhu Root, recently Secretary of War, and one of the most powerful members of the Government. Gov-ernment. When he was a boy in the grammar school at Clinton, N. J;. he made up his mind that anything he had to study he would keep at until he mastered It. Although not considered one of the "bright" boys of the school, his teachers soon found that when Elihu professed to know anything he knew It through and through. He was fond of hard problems requiring application and patience. Some time the older boys called him a plodder, but Ellhu would only smile pleasantly, for he knew what he was about. On winter evenings while the other boys were out skating Ellhu frequently remained In his room with his arithmetic or algebra. In recent re-cent years Mr. Root has said that If his close application to problems in his boyhood taught him nothing else. It made him careful about Jumping at conclusions. There was only one answer, an-swer, and patience was the price to be paid for It. Carrying the principle of "doing everything to a finish" into the law, he became one of the most noted members of the N6w York bar, Intrusted In-trusted with vast interests, and then a Cabinet member, whose every move Is of importance to the Nation "When I was quite a. lad," said a Wealthy a"nd distinguished merchant to one asking the secret of success in his life, '1 went to pay a visit to my grandfather, grand-father, a venerable man, whose velvet cap, blue coat and huge silver knee buckles filled me with nwc. On my bidding him good-bye ho drew me gently to him, and placing his hand on my head, said: 'my grandson, I have one thing to say to you: will you try to reme'mber it?' I looked into his face and nodded, for I was afraid to promise aloud. 'I want to give you a piece of advice,' he continued, 'which, if you follow it, will prove a sure passport to sucoess. It Is this: In whatever you undertake always do your best.' " The merchant told how he acted on this principle In his school and college days, and then said. "The habit I had formed of faithfully doing my best In whatever I had to do proved very valuable, valu-able, and, although I did not possess unusual talents. I found difficulties vanish before me. I gained the confidence confi-dence of those with whom I had dealings, deal-ings, and, In short, prosperity has, with the blessings of God, crowned my efforts. ef-forts. My only secret of success has been my grandfather's legacy always do your best-" Tour "Best" Must Be Right. However, you must likewise be sure that your "best" is good enough to satisfy sat-isfy the strictest requirements. A certain cer-tain employee met a criticism with the plea: "I tried to do my best." "Look here," raid the department chief, "what we want Jo not that you will try to do your best, but that you will do the work given you to doy do It thoroughly and completely. If all wo wanted was a man trying to do" hla best, we could bring In a street laborer labor-er or hod carrier and would be sure that he would try to do his best. Best or no best, the work must be done, and done properly, and the man who cannot can-not do It Is the man we do not want." After that there was no more "trying" "try-ing" to do the best; the work was done I SUCCESS A HABIT NEMESIsi 3 (5 1 OF HALF-DONE TASKS. satisfactorily, for It was a case of "fish, cut bait or get ashore." Employers soon lor confidence In slipshod workers, for botched work Is; associated with botched mentality. We are all of a piece, and are judged by eamplco of what we do. George Eliot In "Mlddlemarch" eald that the gradual grad-ual decline of Mr. Vlncy'a prosperity dated from the time he began to Uf chc-ap dyeo recommended by his religious re-ligious brother-in-law, which wer. won found to rot the Bilks for whlcl he had once been famous. On the othc hnnd, the man who. like Adam Bode, always drives a noil straight and places a board true, Is tho man who v em-played em-played at good wages; he la the maker of his own fortune. The man who works for permanence must do everything to a finish. A young lady working on a paper ?wld rhe did not try to do hnr best work because Mit did not get much pay. This dolr.pr pcoi work bccmiFo It noes not pay much Is Just what keepy thousands of young people from getting on In the world. It Is a question of character, not remuneration. One has no right to demoralize de-moralize hl own character by doing slovenly or unfinished work simply be-ployee be-ployee ha something at stake besides his salary. Character, manhood and womanhood are at stake, compared with which salary is nothing. Build It well whate'er you do; Build It straight nnd strong and true; Build It clean and high and broad; Build It for tho eye of God. ORISON SWRTT MARDEN. Editor Surct-P3 Magazine. Author of "Pushing to the Front." "Ulsing ir the World, or Architect of Fate," etc |