When are you to begin?
Things don’t turn up in this world until somebody turns them up.—Garfield.
Oh, I sincerely hope that you have already begun to begin; that is, that you have already begun to train your hand and head and heart for making the most of the opportunities that await you. In 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.
Work has made me what I am. I never ate a bit of idle bread in my life.—Daniel Webster.
“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.”
In the blackest soils grow the fairest flowers, and the loftiest and strongest trees spring heavenward among the rocks.—Holland.
“Then you have already lost just two years,” was his serious response.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, when asked the same question, said: “You must begin with the child’s grandmother.”