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About The Chemawa American (Chemawa, Or.) 19??-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 27, 1926)
I 1926 . 3 MAY 8 The Chemawa American Printed at Chern aw a, Oregon, and Devoted to the Interests of Indian Education Vol. XXVII Wednesday, January 27, 1926 CONSTANT EFFORT Young people, the great things of the world are not done by jerks—nor by single strokes. One of the most successful men we have ever known had no brilliancy whatever. He was just an average, ordinary young man. His success was due to his having resolved early in life that each day would find him just a little bit further along. This man never made any brilliant strokes in his achievement, but the constant effort to improve, to make each day’s work better than the best that he had done the day before wrought marvels in his career. People could not understand how a young man of apparently ordinary ability could have achieved so much. The everlasting effort to do his best by stick ing and plodding was the secret of it all. There is no young person, be they ever so humble, but who can wonderfully improve their condition if they are constant in their work, no matter what their aim may be. The plodder who tries to do everything bet ter each day, who is everlastingly trying to do his best, gets away ahead of the person who is waiting for the big opportunity, for a chance to do what he considers worth while. Young people, it is simply amazing what a single year in school, or outside at work, will accomplish where this constant plodding and sticking policy is carried out. It is just a little more improvement here and a little better work there that will accomplish the things worth while. A little better work here and a little more painstaking work there, 365 days in the year, will effect what may appear as a miracle. No matter what kind of work you take up the es sential feature is that you perform your tasks a little better than the other fellow. Everybody is expected to do his duty, but the person who constantly does a ‘ * more is certain of promotion and advancement. The person who pushes the standard of excellence a little higher, who 10 ^nginal, resourceful, who is al ways alert for the slightest imHivvement in his way of doing things, is the one who forces his way to the front. All over the world there is a standing adver tisement for this kind of a person. It is the capacity for doing your very best, fordoing a little more than was expected, that enables people to stand outas lead ers, not followers. No. 18 Students, always be on the lookout for ways of im proving your work, and manage to attract the attention, not only of your immediate teacher, but of all those in authority. You can tell very quickly when going through any of our departments what are the principles of that place. If you find an employe who is not satis fied with what was done yesterday, or last week, who is always striving to make today a little better than any day before, who is always improving the service of that department, who is constantly striving for greater ef ficiency, you will have discovered a certain winner. It is in every young man or woman here to be first- class in something if he or she so wills. There is absolutely no excuse for incompetence in this age of opportunity and efficiency; no excuse when really capable people are in demand. If our boys and girls take full advantage of their opportunities here, no matter what their condition or circumstances may be, no matter what their race or color, they will in time be in great demand. If they excel in their calling, no matter how humble it may be, nothing can keep them from success. But excellence, superiority, costs something. You must sacrifice for it. You must keep your mind alert, you must be on your job every minute, trying con stantly to improve day by day. Of course it seems much easier to slide along the line of least resistance, to be superficial, sloppy and slovenly in your daily duties, than to pay the price of excellence in a daily struggle for improvement. It rests practically entire ly with each student at this school whether or not he will be an efficient, capable worker in his chosen voca tion. You can all improve on yesterday’s work if you will. We believe that any young man or woman at this institution would resent it if we hinted that he or she would never do any better than at present. There is something in every one of us which tells us that we can do better, that we are capable of doing immeasur ably more than we have yet done. We all know that we can improve on our past; we all know that we can do things better than we have ever done them before. We can put more energy, more life, more enthusiasm, (Continued on page 4)
