Men are not really born either hopelessly idle, or preternaturally industrious. They may move in one direction or the other as will or circumstances dictate, but it is open to any man to work. Hogarth's industrious and idle apprentice point a moral, but they do not tell a true tale. The real trouble about industry is to apply it in the right direction--and it is therefore the servant of judgment. The true secret of industry well applied is concentration, and there are many well-known ways of learning that art--the most potent handmaiden of success. Industry can be acquired; it should never be squandered.

But health is the foundation both of judgment and industry--and therefore of success. And without health everything is difficult. Who can exercise a sound judgment if he is feeling irritable in the morning? Who can work hard if he is suffering from a perpetual feeling of malaise?

The future lies with the people who will take exercise and not too much exercise. Athleticism may be hopeless as a career, but as a drug it is invaluable. No ordinary man can hope to succeed who does not work his body in moderation. The danger of the athlete is to believe that in kicking a goal he has won the game of life. His object is no longer to be fit for work, but to be superfit for play. He sees the means and the end through an inverted telescope. The story books always tell us that the Rowing Blue finishes up as a High Court Judge.

The truth is very different. The career of sport leads only to failure, satiety, or impotence.

The hero of the playing fields becomes the dunce of the office. Other men go on playing till middle-age robs them of their physical powers. At the end the whole thing is revealed as vanity. Play tennis or golf once a day and you may be famous; play it three times a day and you will be in danger of being thought a professional--without the reward.

The pursuit of pleasure is equally ephemeral. Time and experience rob even amusement of its charm, and the night before is not worth next morning's headache. Practical success alone makes early middle-age the most pleasurable period of a man's career. What has been worked for in youth then comes to its fruition.

It is true that brains alone are not influence, and that money alone is not influence, but brains and money combined are power. And fame, the other object of ambition, is only another name for either money or power.

Never was there a moment more favourable for turning talent towards opportunity and opportunity into triumph than Great Britain now presents to the man or woman whom ambition stirs to make a success of life. The dominions of the British Empire abolished long ago the privileges which birth confers. No bar has been set there to prevent poverty rising to the heights of wealth and power, if the man were found equal to the task.

The same development has taken place in Great Britain to-day. Men are no longer born into Cabinets; the ladder of education is rapidly reaching a perfection which enables a man born in a cottage or a slum attaining the zenith of success and power.