is intensely suspicious of the unknown. But that excuse, while sound, would carry us out of the line of argument.)

Women should try to think for themselves. As that great man, Buckle, said, compressing volumes of advice into few words: "Women should learn to be ashamed of ignorance."

If women could get their blinders off and be as thoroughly ashamed of ignorance as they are of last year's hat, or of a sleeve with the idiotic ornament in the wrong place, the world would jump miles ahead. That's all about women; no man has the heart to scold them.

Young men of today are the champion wearers and manufacturers of mental blinders warranted to make breadth of view impossible.

They start out with the idea that they personally are pretty nearly "all right." They want the world to recognize their value and do the right thing by them but they are not willing to wait long. When a young reporter has been beaten on the news for a while at a salary of thirty dollars per week and wants forty, just remind him that he is paid more than the engineer of the Empire State Express, and ask him if he is a better man. He'll show you such a pair of mental blinders as would fill the heart of a white Spanish mule palfrey with bitter jealousy.

And tell the editorial writer that he says the same thing over and over, writing very commonplace stuff at that. You'll see visualized on the instant such a

his lack of growth.

Young men suffer from self-satisfaction most deplorably, partly because old age, with us, pays too much attention to youth; partly because we wear the old men out and make youth conceited by premature

success.

The young man who will tear off his blinders, look around at others and at himself, even if it does hurt his vanity, will grow in speed and strength, and very likely discover a short cut across lots-once the blinders have gone.

Millions of us have blinders fitted to us by unfortunate conditions of birth. Ignorance is of all things the heaviest handicap. Many suffer with it, through no fault of their own.

Our public schools, happily, will tear off the blinders from the future generations more and more, as men learn the art of inculcating real knowledge, and of teaching men to use what they know. Knowledge is the great enemy of blindness, both partial and absolute.

Knowledge fights against superstition, its worst enemy, and wins every battle. Knowledge combats petty meanness, planting love of truth and justice in the poor soil where only love of money grew before.

Knowledge in time will free all of us from the blinders that we wear-producing a human race as far ahead of us as we are ahead of the horse.

But as that good day will not come in our lives, let us attend each to his individual set of blinders now.

identify them and tear them off.

Get your friends to help you. A good friend can tell. you what is the matter with you in a minute. He may not seem such a good friend after telling. But if you are sensible you will be a better man.

One thing is important in this world, one onlythought.

Reading, of itself, is nothing.

Thinking is all.

Thinking is to reading as digesting is to eating.

Is anybody thoroughly educated? Certainly not, for a really educated man or woman would be the perfect man or woman. We are thousands of years from seeing that specimen.

Each must discover himself, for himself. There is very little use of relying on others to do it for you.

Do your part to make the nation cheerful.

Fear and anxiety tighten the heart, dull the mind, check effort.

Persist in cheerfulness. Talk it to your children and to your friends.

a Man Have?

The ambition TO KNOW HIS POWERS,to know THEIR LIMITATIONS, and to work accordingly.

Is a man happy "if he remains in the humble place and station of his birth"? A reader asks that question. A man may find in the lonely cottage, or the village, or the big city street of his birth full opportunity to develop all his powers, to do all the good that is in him, to utilize wisely the uplifting force that we call ambition.

As a general proposition, however, a cultivated and civilized human being, like a cultivated and civilized shade tree, demands occasional transplanting. Man's destiny is to move about on the face of the earth. If he sits in one spot like a tree or a gooseberry bush, he doesn't give himself a full chance.

It is good for the country boy to go into the city. It is good for the city boy to go into the countryit is good for each to study that which he has not seen.

As to the man remaining in the "station of his birth," that is impossible.

At his birth a human being is little better than a mass of putty. He is a poor, almost bald, toothless, deaf and blind little creature, unable to do anything for himself. From this "station of his birth," which is a condition of absolute helplessness and uselessness, he may develop to be one of the great men of the world.

intermediate stations. He may stop off in his progress, so to speak, at the first station, which is that of physical development and commonplace life.

The force we call ambition is a feeling not only of restlessness and desire for change and achievement, but especially a moral impulse to do good.

We all feel within ourselves a force stirring vaguely, indefinitely. We want to do something, and that desire to do something, if it is based on desire to be useful to other people, may properly be called ambition.

The successful ambitious human being is the one that makes the best possible use of his or her powers.

The world is full of perverted emotion, improperly called ambition.

That perverted ambition is selfishness, vanity, baseless egotism that makes us refuse to do useful work that we might do because it does not seem important enough.

The young girl should be ambitious-in the future and in the present.

As to her future ambitions, she may let her mind roam as far as she will. If she wants to think of marrying a king, or marrying the little boy around the corner and making a king of him by her influence, let her do so. If she wants to think that she will combine the powers of Rachel, Jenny Lind and Bernhardtthat won't hurt her.

But she must have an ambition right in the present -a definite ambition.

She must make up her mind that she will do what