Chapter XXI.

       Self-Improvement As An Investment

       Table of Contents

      It is not by leaps or bounds, but by steady, persistent growth that strong characters are made.

      The trouble with most of us is that we are too ambitious to do great things at once. It is the persistent trying to make ourselves a little larger, a little broader, the continual effort to push the horizon of ignorance a little further away by good reading or study, that counts.

      We can not help believing in the youth who is always trying to improve himself, who takes advantage of every opportunity to make himself a little better informed, who always has some good reading on hand for his leisure moments, and who is always asking questions, observing, and trying to get an education.

      Such eagerness to improve oneself is an indication of a mark of superiority, the genius that wins. Ambitionless, lazy, indifferent youth prefer “a good time” to acquiring knowledge. They are not willing to give up their pleasure, ease, and comfort for the sake of improving themselves. Our opportunities for self-improvement, for mind training and heart training in every-day life are not well appreciated. No matter what our occupation may be, we can always be in the best kind of a school. It is a question of holding the mind alert. Those who form the habit of gaining the best from books, the best from conversation, the best from every experience in life, know the secret of perpetual growth.

      There is nothing else that will give you greater satisfaction in after years than the forming of such systematic habits of self-culture early in life as to make your self-improvement processes automatic. In this way it becomes just as natural for you to seize every bit of leisure for the reading of something helpful or useful, or for storing up valuable knowledge from your observation, as it is for you to breathe.

      I am acquainted with a young man who travels a great deal by rail and water, who always carries with him wherever he goes some good reading matter in as condensed a form as possible, miniature classics or the lesson papers of a correspondence school. He is always doing something to improve himself in the odds and ends of time which most people throw away. The result is, he is well informed upon a great variety of subjects. He is very widely read in history, in English literature, in the sciences, and in other important branches of knowledge. What this man has accomplished in the odds and ends of time is a constant rebuke to those who waste all their time in doing nothing, or in doing that which is infinitely worse than nothing.

      You perhaps do ot half realize the inestimable value of time spent in good reading or some other form of self-improvement.

      You perhaps do not half realize the inescated like Mr. Blank, if you only had opportunities like some others, you could have done much better than you are now doing.

      But did you ever think that scores of people have given themselves the equivalent of a college education in their spare moments, and long winter evenings?

      A person might as well say that there is no use in trying to save anything from his small salary or income, because the amount would never make him rich, so he might as well spend it as he goes along, as to say he never can get a liberal education by studying during his spare time.

      The more one saves, the nearer he comes to being rich. The more you know, the better educated you are. Every bit of knowledge you store up enriches your life by so much. All these little self-investments make you so much better off,—make you so much larger, fuller, so much better able to scope with life.

      You can never make a better investment, than by forming the good reading habit. It will multiply your efficiency, give you so much more power to break away from your iron environment, to throw off the yoke of dependence which galls you. It will make you more independent and self-reliant. The increased knowledge will increase your confidence in yourself. And, in addition to all this, if your knowledge is practical and you use it wisely, it will make you think more of yourself, make you more of a man.

      There never was a time in the history of the world when education was worth so much as to-day, when added knowledge adds so much power.

      Competition has become so terrific, and life so strenuous that you need to be armed with every particle of mental culture possible. The greatest work you can do in the world is that of raising your own value. There is no gift which you can ever make to the world like that of a superb manhood, or a beautiful womanhood. You can do nothing higher than this.

      What a golden opportunity confronts you for coining your bits of leisure into knowledge that will mean growth of character, promotion, advancement, power, riches that no accident can take from you, no disaster annihilate. Will you throw away the opportunity, as so many others are thoughtlessly doing?

      Within the last ten years our great railroads have spent many millions of dollars straightening curves on their lines, to save a few minutes’ time. The late Mr. Harriman spent vast sums for this purpose. In early railroad days the great object was to avoid expense. The railroads often took a serpentine direction, winding around mountains, hills, and long distances to avoid heavy cuts, fillings, or bridges. Time was not so valuable then as now, but, as life became more strenuous, competition keener, and men’s time of more worth, the roads were shortened and better beds, heavier cars, and heavier rails came.

      Modern business men consider it great economy to take short routes and fast trains because of the rapidly increasing value of time, insure speed, safety, and economy of the great mottoes of to-day.

      Everything possible is now done to save time, ensure speed, safety, and economy of energy. Any railroad to-day which could cut the Twentieth Century Limited’s time between New York and Chicago half an hour would very quickly put the Twentieth Century out of business, unless it also could increase speed. This is an age of bee-line short cuts and quick methods in everything.

      Business men will pay more for any device or facility which will save time than for almost anything else. No expense or ingenuity is spared, especially by the great railroads which run competing lines, to accomplish shortened routes, to quicken service.

      In the pioneer stage days of our history, before competition had become so fierce, a liberal education and special training were not so necessary as they are to-day. Now the youth must be a specialist, must spend years in training for his specialty. He must lay a larger and firmer foundation for preparation than formerly if he expects to get anywhere near the top of his