11. Listen well, answer cautiously, decide promptly.
12. Preserve, by all means in your power, “a sound mind in a sound body.”
PART I
Relation to Self
CHAPTER I
Be Neat
INTRODUCTION TO CHAPTER I
By Robert J. Burdette
You can make yourself look an inch taller by neat, well-fitting dress. You can actually make yourself taller by an erect, manly carriage. Slovenliness is contagious. It communicates itself from the dress to the character. The boy who slouches and slumps in figure and gait, is dangerously apt to slump morally. The dust and grime on your clothes is liable to get into your brain. The dirt under your finger-nails is likely to work into your thoughts. Grease spots down the front of your coat will destroy self-respect almost as quickly as a habit of lying. Tidiness is one of the cheapest luxuries in the world. It is also one of the most comfortable. When you know, when you are “dead sure” that you are just right—“perfectly correct”—from hat to shoe-tie, the King of England couldn’t stare you out of countenance; he couldn’t embarrass you, and, he wouldn’t if he could.
CHAPTER I
Be Neat
A high column was to be built. The workmen were engaged, and all went to work with a will. In laying a corner, one brick was set a trifle out of line. This was unnoticed, and as each course of bricks was kept in line with those already laid, the tower was not built exactly erect. After being carried up about fifty feet, there was a tremendous crash. The building had fallen, burying the men in the ruins. All the previous work was now lost, the material wasted, and several valuable lives sacrificed, all through the misplacement of one brick at the start. The workman at fault little thought what mischief he was making for the future. It is so with the boy, building character. He must be careful in laying the foundation. Just so far as he governs, guards and trains himself, just so far will he succeed or fail in the estimation of others. Tennyson wisely wrote: