And it cannot be too strongly emphasized that regular daily work in early life is invaluable in establishing habits of industry.
A common expression used to be: "He has good habits," or "He has bad habits." We do not hear it so often nowadays, but the words are full of meaning. As a man's habits are, so is he.
"Could the young but realize," says Mr. Moffett, "how soon they will become mere walking bundles of habits, they would give more heed to their conduct while in the plastic state."
It is then that we mothers must mold them into the workers that we want them to be, and we must use the patriotic motive to quicken their love of industry. In certain states this motive is strengthened by laws compelling idle men to work.
Robert Gair is the founder of what is now the greatest "paper-products" business in this country, and probably in the world. It is located in the Borough of Brooklyn, New York City. There Mr. Gair, on the occasion of his seventy-fifth birthday, made an address to his employees, a portion of which, as reported in the Brooklyn Eagle, was as follows:
"No permanent achievement, whatever its form may be, appears to be possible without stress of labor. Nothing has come to me without persistent effort of the head and of the hand. Hard labor will win what we want, if the laws of nature are obeyed. Self-coddling and the fear of living strenuously, enfeeble character and result in half-successes. Hard labor has no penalties. It is the loss of hardihood through careless living that brings penalties. Do the one thing before you with your whole heart and soul. Do not worry about what has gone by, nor what lies ahead, but rivet your mind and energies on the thing to be done now. Self-indulgence and late hours produce leaden hands and a listless brain, robbing your work of 'punch.'"
Mr. Gair cast his first vote for Abraham Lincoln. He enlisted early in the Civil War and saw hard service. Less than two hundred of the original 1,087 of his regiment remained to be mustered out at the close of the war.
Surely his wise and uncompromising words indicate one of the most necessary ways in which our young people, who desire to show how much they love their country and wish to promote her glory, can contribute to it.