In the blackest soils

grow the fairest flow

fact, if you are so fortunate as to own thoughtful, intelligent parents, the work of fitting you for the victories of life was begun before you were old enough to give the subject serious consideration.

"When shall I begin to train my child?" asked a young mother of a wise physician.

"How old is the child?" inquired the doctor.

"Two years."

"Then you have already lost just two

ers, and the loftiest years," was his serious response.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, when asked the same question, said: "You must begin with the child's grandmother."

But no matter what has or has not been done for you up to the present time, you and I know that from now on your future welfare will be largely of your own making and in your own keeping. If you will thoughtfully plan your purpose as definitely as conditions will permit and then learn to stick to it through thick and thin, your success in life is quite well assured, and you need not fear that at the end of the journey you will have to say, as does many a man while retrospectively viewing his years:

O'er life's long and winding pathway,

Looking backward, I confess
I have not at looking forward
Been a genuine success.

What is there for you to do? Everything and anything you can do or care to do. You are to take your pick of all the trades, professions, and vocations of mankind. Look about you and note the thousand and one things now being done by the men of to-day. It will not be so very long till all of these men will be old enough to retire from active service, and then you and the other boys, who in the meantime have grown to man's estate, will be called upon to perform every one of the tasks these men are now doing. Does n't it look as if there would be plenty of honest, earnest, wholesome toil for hand and head in store for you as soon as you are ready to undertake it? You cannot wonder that the busy old world is ever and always hanging out its notice

Of task that a busy world can find.

There are towns to build; there are paths to clear;
There are seas to sail; there are gulfs to span,
In the ever onward march of man.

No, the world does not insist that you are to accept a position and begin work with your hands at once, but it wishes you to begin to think right things. "As he thinketh in his heart, so is he." What you think will have much to do in detersidering when to be mining what you are to become.

While we are con

gin, it is often too late

to act.-QUINTILIAN.

The mind is master of the man,
And so "they can who think they can."

This influence of the mind in thus shaping the man is very well set forth by

Where boasting

gins.-YOUNG.

Impossible is a word found only in the dictionary of fools.

James Allen, who says: "A man's mind ends, there dignity bemay be likened to a garden, which may be intelligently cultivated or allowed to run wild; but whether cultivated or neglected, it must, and will, bring forth. If no useful seeds are put into it, then an abundance of useless weed-seeds will fall therein, and will continue to produce their kind. Just as a gardener cultivates his plot, keeping it free from weeds, and growing the flowers and fruits which he requires, so may a man tend the garden of his mind, weeding out all the wrong, useless, and impure thoughts, and cultivating toward perfection the flowers and fruits of right, useful, and pure thoughts. By pursuing this process, a man sooner or later discovers that he is the mastergardener of his soul, the director of his life. He also reveals, within himself, the laws of thought, and understands, with ever-increasing accuracy, how the thought-forces and mind-elements operate in the shaping of his character, circumstances, and destiny."

-NAPOLEON.

I am in earnest. I will not equivocate. I will not excuse. I will not retreat a single inch; and I will be

So it is not too early for you to begin | heard.—GARRISON. to think bravely and resolutely and hope

While you stand deliberating which book your son shall read

first, another boy has

read both.-DR. JOHN

SON.

Dost thou love life?

Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of.FRANKLIN.

When passion is on the throne, reason is out of doors.-MATTHEW HENRY.

fully upon the life you intend to live, and to cultivate the mental and physical strength that shall help you later on to put your good thoughts into permanent good deeds. Certainty of victory goes far toward winning battles before they are fought. The boy who thinks "I can" is much more likely to succeed in life than is the one who thinks "I can't."

"COULD N'T" AND "COULD"

"Could n't" and "Could" were two promising boys Who lived not a great while ago.

They had just the same playmates and just the same

toys,

And just the same chances for winning life's joys
And all that the years may bestow.

And "Could" soon found out he could fashion his life
On lines very much as he planned;

He could cultivate goodness and guard against strife;
He could have all his deeds with good cheer to be
rife,

And build him a name that would stand.

But poor little "Could n't" just couldn't pull through

All the trials he met with a sigh;

When a task needed doing, he could n't, he knew;
And hence, when he could n't, how could he? Could

you,

If you could n't determine you'd try?