AH 2 O 192b
i
MAY* a
The Ch emawaAm erican
Printed at Chomawa,
Vol. XXVI
Oregon, and Devoted to the Interests of Indian Education
Wednesday, January 14, 1925
THE VALUE OF GOOD HABITS
Young people, if a high purpose at Chemawa is your
starting point and the all-conquering motive, no time
must be lost in adopting it. Now is the time—right
now. The decisive time with every-one is when the
ambition is fired and the will takes command. Until
then impulses, freaks, indifference, perhaps laziness,
rules. Must we admit that with the great majority of
young people the higher ambition is never fired at all?
We will admit that soft surroundings stifle motive and
paralyze effort.
It is said with some truth that our Indian schools do
not require sufficient self-denial and sustained effort on
the part of a student because everything comes so
easily; that a good many of those who attend drift;
only a comparative few with the manhood or woman
hood of the highest type realize their opportunities and
take full advantage of them. Laziness is easy; labor
is hard.
Candidly, now, do you think the application of in
dustry and persistence required to fit you for some
thing in life worth while is effort lost? High char
acter costs something. If it was money, and if the
school and father or friends would pay for it, by all
means it would be the thing to have. But suppose it
means hard, unflinching intelectual work and denial of
a lot of the things that one likes—why, of course that
comes too high! The greater number reject the terms.
They will not pay the price.
Here and there a strong boy or girl with faith in
themselves and in their undeveloped powers set the
high aim before them, summon their will to their com
mand and march forward. After the aim, or main
purpose of using every opportunity to advance, char
acter begins to build.
If the purpose is a high one the ambitious student
will attain his end much more quickly by knowing
how best to use the means at his command. There
is one powerful aid that should be seized at the very
outset. It will work for you early and late, never tir
ing, never varying, and stops only when life ceases.
It is easy to enlist it in your behalf, either for good or
evil, and it is hard to shake it off it you conclude at any
time you have had enough of it. What is it? Habit.
It is very easy to form or prevent a habit—very hard
No. 13
to break one when formed. If you doubt this try for
yourself on that habit which you can “stop at any
time.”
It is positively vital that you form correct habitsand
crush bad ones right at the start, and right now, at the
beginning of a new year, is the time to make good reso
lutions. The longer a bad habit is tolerated the more
hopeless is the uprooting of it. Here are some things
that should be formulated into habit: Think carefully
on every subject in connection with your class and in
dustrial work; assimilate the knowledge that comes
from observation, study and reading; be as correct as
you know how in conversation and manners; keep reg
ular hours; have physical exercise; apply industry and
economy; use method in work of every kind.
It is needless to say that the opposite of these habits
—slipshod thinking, careless observation and reading,
lack of physical exercise and regular hours, laziness,
etc., is far easier to crystalize than the right and help
ful way. So it behooves the young man or woman who
desires this potent influence of habit to work for them
in the struggle to reach the top to stop every bad habit,
to rally the full force of will and crush it out. In like
manner let them patiently, persistently plant, cultivate,
and nourish the habits that help until they are unalter
ably fixed and become sure companions for life.
It has been said that “time is the stuff of which life
is made.” Every young person here or elsewhere has
the same amount of it in a year. One improves it and
harvests great results—another wastes and gathers fail
ure. The first are called lucky, the second unfortu
nate, and the unfortunate form the mass of mankind
everywhere it should be noted.
Hence, use your time rightly, shape everything to
it, and then make things go that way. This scheme will
go to pieces quickly unless backed by a pesistent pur
pose and determination that wins. When you work,
work—put your whole mind and heart into it; know
nothing else; do everything the very best; distance
everybody about you. This will not be hard, for the
other fellows are not trying much. Be always ready
for the next step up. If a vocational farmer, be an ex
pert. If a machinist, try to know as soon as possible
(Continued on page 4)