Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page.

THE SNAIL GOES LIKE A RABBIT i i— - .. 1 111 I «I ■ ——————— ■■■ ■II —— Il I ■ !■! ■■■ II ■■■ ■ I I ■ —n I. -V —IF w 1 1, JI 111 ■■ »————————11. ■ n ——— I— I ,-*r ------ i ~ fc *‘~ win I J MMMigggIMMTC A~- - ,- ■ r c /~ <”=— -xC --st . •* ‘ ‘’==u i'WHM BWBBMB ~ -rp- ■•■ —~ - ? y? W t’ -^i ' nL> —-’ yE3SoW . " 1 >Y hKv - f-T. .■ *• V / \ :A ■ ■ . —=»«3SJs=!ix— T . t I \' «££**! I \ .■- ■■-•: - ' -~4»-vv I vMfxl \ \l jgW® ■ k “~' PPORTUNITY comes like a snail, and once it has passed you it changes into a fleet rabbit and is gone. Show this picture to the boys and girls to-day, and let ©Fjl Mil them think it over. Whenever you see a good cartoon, encour age the young people to think about it and formulate their thoughts. Let them read the editorial afterward if they choose. But one thought OF THEIR OWN is worth many col umns and pages written out for them. ft * ft What is OPPORTUNITY? It is the chance to do something, to get something, to achieve something, to climb out of the rut, I'o BE SOMEBODY of value in the world. Opportunity is life itself. That which we call conscientiousness, or soul, or thought, can be imagined floating in infinite space without any material body to bring it in contact with the world. Then thought is put into the body. The body is able to do its part in a world of solid matter, and of other bodies. And with the coming of life OPPORTUNITY COMES. There arc millions of opportunities around us every day. Some of them we see, and we know that they are beyond us, or we believe that they are beyond us, and we do not try. Others we see, and look upon them as be neath us—and in considering an opportunity too low, we often miss the opportunity that is the best. One man who began poor and died very rich, in Chicago, had a little stand on the street and sold fruit. He saw an opportunity to add dried fruit to his fresh fruit, and he did that. He saw the opportunity to add part of a window to his little fruit stand, and to have tea and coffee for sale in small, neat packages. He did that. He died the biggest coffee man in the coun try. with more millions than he needed. Stand ing in front of his cheap, rickety fruit stand, he saw opportunity coming and he was ready for it. ft ft ft Thomas A. Edison sat at his key. sending telegraph messages like millions of others. His brain enabled him to see an oppor tunity, which was the sending of more than one message over the same wire. He didn’t simply think about it. speculate about it. and drop it. HE MADE IT A REALITY. When opportunity came crawling toward Edison it found him ready. That is why everybody in the world knows about Thomas A. Edison. ft « ft In youth we have the opportunity to ab sorb information, and in mature years we have the opportunity TO L’SE IT. Too often we neglect the opportunity in youth and spend the later years regretting that the opportunity was neglected. There are as many opportunities as there are human beings in the world, or very nearly ■s This Is Perhaps the Oldest Editorial in the World. The Cave Man Recited it to His Son When He Told Him How to Hunt for His Prey. The Squaws Out West Told It to Their Little Papooses as Soon as They Were Old Enough to Listen. Lord Chesterfield Wrote It to His Boy. Every Mother in the Country Impresses It Upon Her Children Once a Month. Yet, Over and Over, the Same Thing Needs to Be Said. Meet Opportunity When it Comes Toward You. It You Wait Until it Passes You Will Never Catch It. In a million ways men achieve success, big or little. One man becomes rich and useful because he sees the possibility of building a railroad across the continent, or because, like Cecil Rhodes, his mind can carve out an empire in Africa. And another simply sees the opportunity of putting one dollar on top of another, getting more dollars as rapidly as possible, keeping them all and spending none—and he develops into a Russell Sage, whose millions, left to a wise and generous woman, are now doing so much good in the world. # ft ft There is something almost human and in telligent, something mysteriously knowing in opportunity. It comes toward you so very slowly that you can't help seeing it. if you WILL see it. It creeps up like a snail, it passes you, it seems to make up its mind that you are not the per son to seize opportunity, AND IT IS GONE IN A SECOND. Some of us miss opportunity because we are too dull to try. And others let opportunity go by. because we are too much startled when we see it to take hold of it. We are like the man w ho sees his first deer in the forest and forgets to use his gun. ♦ * ft Such a picture and such an editorial as this are useless unless they can persuade readers to think of their own opportunities, their ow n neglected chances, and fill them with deter mination to watch for and seize the next op portunity that shall come along. Fortunately, a long procession of slowly moving opportunities meets ail of us. And fortunately, also, in some form, opportunity is before us all the time. The commonest form, one most often neglected, and the safest opportunity for the average man to seize, is HARD WORK. There is scarcely a sane, average, moder ately healthy human being that could not end life comfortable and prosperous, if he would seize the two possibilities alwavs with us— HARD WORK AND ECONOMY. * # ft All of us still have opportunities ahead if we will look out for them. For instance: Health means power, and power means opportunity. Every one of us can improve his health if he will. Sensible living, temperate eating and drinking, regular sleep. WITHOUT ADDED EXPENSE, will increase health, power and op portunity. Information gives the power that brings opportunity. The books are in the libraries. We can ail read and learn if we will. How many young men can truly say that they do not throw away every day two hours? Two hours a day in five years will make an educated man, one able to seize an opportunity when he sees it. In our life of money making and commer cial struggling opportunity very often comes labelled with this little sign: “I am for the man w ho has saved up a little money.” Many a man has missed his opportunity because he hadn't the thousand dollars or the fi'n hp ndred dollars that the opportunity called for. * How many mon are there that can reallv say that it is IMPOSSIBLE for them to save five hundred dollars? You can’t save it this hIS y T’ A r ? ext year P erl »aPs. But you CAN save it. And once you have monev in your pocket, money that is yours, money over and above all your debts, many an op. that j gOes around you Will come st aight toward you. Only be sure that if ie an OPPORTUNITY, and not somebody cunning than yourself who sees the o nnor tumty m YOU AND YOUR GUILELESSNESS* ft ft ft To see opportunity and to seize oppor tunity the mind must he free from rubbish and useless lumber. If you are thinking of your own misfortunes, about your qualities that are not appreciated, about your high deserts and nobility of soul, your nose will be in the air and your eyes won’t he on the ground when opportunity comes craw ling along. AAA Free your mind from rubbish and especial ly from self-complacency and self-approval. Say to yourself: “The world is full of op portunity; the men that have succeeded had no better chance than I. They succeeded because they saw opportunity, they seized it, and they hung on to it. “If I don’t succeed it is because I have not DESERVED to succeed. If I have not seized any good opportunities in life, it is not because the opportunities have all gone the other way and have never passed me. Hundreds have passed me. It is time now for me to seize the next one that comes along.” The man who stops blaming conditions, blaming government, blaming Mothers, his rela tives. his employers, his friends, and who blames himself, is the man that will seize and use the next opportunity that comes. • ft ft ft There never lived a man who “never had a chance.” although many complain that op portunity has never come their way. Only a man born an idiot can say truly that he has had no opportunity. The trouble is that too many insist on saying what KIND of an op portunity it shall be, and WHEN it shall come. If you see four boys together, three of them smoking cigarettes and one not smoking, you know that one of them has a better chance than the others. You may see a half dozen young men working in stores in this busy, crowded sea son. five of them complaining about the public, about hard work and long hours, and the sixth saying to himself: “If I can’t succeed as an em ploye I shall never succeed as an employer.” If you find the five pitying themselves and the sixth determined to do what is good for him, you know the sixth is the one that will take opportunity when it comes, for he has al ready taken the opportunity of making him self a worker. RE READY. The way to he ready is to be at work. Op portunity comes to the worker, not to the idler who is waiting for opportunity to come. Edison was working at his key when his thought and his opportunity came to him. Newton was not lounging, idling, when the apple fell. He was thinking on the problem of gravitation and falling bodies. And when the apple fell—assuming that old story to be true —he combined the happening with his thought and his work, and seized the oppor tunity to solve the greatest problem in celestial mechanics. In every shop, every store, ever) farm, there is opportunity. If your work is bad, if your employer is bad, you can watch for the opportunity to get out. But be sure that vou GET the opnor tunity. WAIT UNTIL IT COMES. To drop one thing until you have another is one of the shortest roads to failure. ft ft ft Any kind of work is a gymnasium in which you develop your own power and talent. Success depends on being exact, industrious, intelligent, obliging, practical. You can develop the good qualities INSIDE of yourself just as well in the humblest work as in the highest work. A young man working as street car con ductor has just as many opportunities of un derstanding human beings, which helps to real success, and of developing himself, as the president of the railroad, hidden away in his big office. AAA We are getting along toward the end of another year. Some of us are old, some of us young, and some of us in the doldrums of middle age. But none of us is too old for op portunity, if we will see it and take it. The new year means 365 new opportuni ties. Every day means opportunity, every hour means possibility of good work, of foolishness abandoned. Study this picture, which is excellent, ami give it to the children and make them thinh about it. Five minutes of earnest thought am! «‘lf analysis on this Sunday may mean a good mm’' years of comfort and useful work hereafter.