The ignorant person cannot act effectively when nice dis-
crimination and wide knowledge are necessary, as they often
are. Even the learned person ordinarily cannot go fat, pro-
vided his attention is wayward and fitful. His effort is too
disconnected ever to accomplish large results. The person
who is flighty and precipitate is either a genius or a fool-
commonly the latter. On the other hand, the hopelessly
careful person, whose life is spent in a morass of doubt and
indecision, balancing imponderable considerations and split-
ting insignificant hairs -- he, also, is likely to belong to the
incompetents and inefficients. Evidently the attainment of
a will which can fill all these requirements for the avoidance
of pitfalls requires a training on every side of one's nature,
requires a rich experience and a powerful dominant purpose
running through it. All life offers such training, and our
success in building up a strong, rich character depends much
more on how we do our work than upon what work we do.
There is no calling so humble that it may not afford scope for
the expression and development of all the great human in-
forests, if we really put ourselves into it, and not our mere
labour.

-439-