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Show WORKING IN THE AFTERNOON By THOMAS ARKLE CLARK Dean of Men, University of Illinois. WE START out pretty fresh usually usu-ally in the morning. We have 8k jt well; the cares of yesterday have been forgotten. The morning ! sun Is shining, a fresh breeze is blow- ; ing from the south, and we feel re- freshed and vigorous. Noon finds us j weeary, however, with whatever men- j tal or physical toil has engaged us, j and as the sun grows hot and the j day lengthens out in the long after- noon, we lose our enthusiasm, our strength wanes, and we feel like giving giv-ing up the task. It is not easy to work with vigor in the afternoon. It ! requires Interest and persistence and courage. You cannot judge a man fairly by what he does in the morning; morn-ing; it is how he sticks out the afternoon after-noon that counts. A good beginning j augurs well, but it is the finish that ! counts. Wagner got a good deal of praise for his accomplishments. He was the head of a great organization, and ! those who knew him intimately were 1 constantly referring to his unusual j vision. He planned wonderful things j for his organization to accomplish ano ' he started a good many of these, lie ; did not fully count the cost, however. He started this thing and that, and what he started was no doubt worth while, but he never quite finished anything. any-thing. His changes of organizations were never quite carried to a conclusion con-clusion nor completely thought out. The buildings which he started were never quite completed. He" was a man who could work well in the morning, but he lost his vigor and his enthusiasm in the afternoon. Some one else had to take up what he began be-gan and carry it to a conclusion if it were ever finished. Middle age is one of the most critical criti-cal times in any man's life. The enthusiasms en-thusiasms of youth and its bodily vigor vig-or may easily carry one up to forty-five. forty-five. Until then the morning seems l fair and balmy, but noon comes and the sun is hot and blistering, and presently pres-ently the afternoon creeps on and night approaches. The work drags, the body is weary. It takes courage and character to go on. The great majority of business men fail at about fifty. They have found it easy work in the morning, but they give up in the afternoon. The world looks drab. "They see the gray rain over the waters," and they lose heart. I called on Grant last week. Forty-seven Forty-seven he Is, with an unusual mind and a fine training, and he has done a good work in his profession, but the task has been very hard during the fast few years. The afternoon faces him now. He has met a hard problem prob-lem in life at a critical time and he eefems unequal to It. All of his vivacity vi-vacity has gone out to him. He spends his days thinking, and his thougWs carry him nowhere. His friends try to cheer him, his family attempts to stimulate his interest in life, but he Just cannot pull himself together. It Is afternoon, the interest and the enthusiasm, en-thusiasm, of , morning have disappeared, disap-peared, the sun Is climbing down the 1 'western sky; he knows that night is coming on nnd he shudders. (. 1927, by Western Newspaper Union.) |