that an employer has no control over a young man's time away from the office is a dangerous fallacy. An employer has every right to ask that those into whose hands he intrusts responsibilities shall follow social habits which will not endanger his interests upon the morrow. So far as social life is concerned, young men generally run to extremes. Either they do not go out at all, which is stagnating, or they go out too much, which is deadly. Only here and there is found one who knows the happy medium; a certain amount of social diversion is essential to everybody—boy, man, girl, or woman; and particularly so to a young man with a career to make. To come into contact with the social side of people is broadening; it is educative. "To know people," says a writer, "you must see them at play." Social life can be made a study at the same time that it is made a pleasure. To know the wants of people, to learn their softer side, you must come into contact with their social natures. No young man can afford to deny himself certain pleasures, or a reasonable amount of contact with people in the outer world. It is to his advantage that people should know he exists; it is important to the wise shaping of his aims and aspirations. It is well for him to keep himself honorably in the eyes of people. His evening diversions should be as widely different from his occupations during the day as possible. The mind needs a change of thought as well as does the body a change of raiment. "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" contains a vast amount of truth.

At the same time, nothing is more injurious to the chances of a young man in business than an over-indulgence in the pleasures of what, for the want of a better word, we call "society." It is a rough but a true saying that "a man cannot drink whisky and be in business." Perhaps a softer and more refined translation of this is that a man cannot be in society and be in business. This is impossible, and nothing that a young man can bear in mind will stand him to such good account as this fact. No mind can be fresh in the morning that has been kept at a tension the night before by late hours, or been befogged by indulgence in late suppers. We need more sleep at twenty or twenty-five than we do at fifty; and the young man who grants himself less than eight hours' sleep every night just robs himself of so much vitality. So far as the required amount of sleeping is concerned, I hold to this inexorable rule: sleep eight hours every night and an extra hour whenever possible. The most successful men have repeatedly acknowledged that to a regularity in hours of retiring they can trace a large part of their ability to compass the questions which enter into a successful career.

One rule should be positive with every young man: the midnight hours should be passed in sleep; and by these hours I mean eleven and twelve o'clock. If a young man makes it a rule to be asleep by eleven and up by seven, he chooses the course which hundreds of the most successful men of the day have chosen. The loss of vitality brought by less than eight hours' sleep may not be felt or noticed at present, but the process of sleeping is only nature's banking system of principal and interest. A mind capable of the fulfilment of its highest duties should be receptive to ideas, quick to comprehend, instantaneous in its conception of a point. With a fresh mind and a clear brain a young man has two of the greatest levers of success. These cannot be retained under social indulgences. The dissipation of a night has its invariable influence upon the work of the morrow. I do not preach total abstinence of any habits to which human nature is prone. Every man ought to know what is good for him and what is injurious to his best interests. But an excess of anything is injurious, and a young man on the threshold of a business career cannot afford to be excessive in a single direction. He should husband his resources. He will need them all. For no success is easily made in these days. Appearances are tremendously deceptive in this respect. We see men making what we choose to regard and what are known as quick successes, because at a comparatively early age they acquire position or means. But one needs only to study the conditions of the business life of to-day to see how impossible it is to achieve any success except by the severest patience and by the very hardest work. No young man need approach a business career with the idea that its achievement is easy. The histories of successful men tell us all too clearly the lessons of the patience and efforts of years. Some men compass a successful career in less time than others. And if the methods employed are necessarily different, the requirements are precisely the same. It is a story of hard work in every case, of close application, and of a patient mastery of the problem in hand. Advantages of education will come in at times and push one man ahead of another. But a practical business knowledge is apt to be a greater possession.

"But," says some young fellow, "what are the social pleasures and indulgences which injuriously affect a young man's success?" Only one general answer can be given, and it is this: any social pleasure or indulgence which affects a young man's health affects his success. Good health is the foundation of all possible success in life; affect the one and you affect the other.

I presume it is safe to say that no single element in social life has injured so many young men as an indulgence in intoxicating liquors, and I shall treat of this first. And in doing so I shall take the matter entirely away from the moral standpoint, and place it simply on its best and wisest basis, that of principle. Many a writer—too many, alas!—has held forth on this subject of wine-drinking and young men, and pointed out its moral aspects. This is all very well as far as it goes; but I think that if more writers placed their young-men readers on their honor in this matter it would be infinitely better. It is not a question of whether it is right or wrong for a young man to indulge in spirituous drinks, so far as his success is concerned. It simply amounts to one thing: he absolutely cannot do it. And I can say this to every young fellow from my own experience and observation as a young man who, when he started out, did not know exactly what position to take.

I was about sixteen years old, if I remember rightly, when I began attending public dinners and assemblages in the capacity of a newspaper reporter. Wines were then more freely used at dinners than now, and I soon saw that I must make up my mind whether at these gatherings I should partake of wines or decline them. I had been trained to the belief that it was always best to err on the safe side, and as I sat down to my first public dinner—a New England dinner in Brooklyn—I shielded the wine-glasses set before me as the waiters came to my plate, and this practice I have followed ever since.

At first my principle never to touch liquor or spirits of any kind directed to me the chaffings of my friends. I was told it looked "babyish"; that I could not expect to go out much and keep to my principle; that I would often find it considered discourteous to refuse a simple glass of wine tendered by my hostess. But I made up my mind that there was no use of having a principle unless one stuck to it. And I soon saw that people respected me the more for it. And just let me say right here to all young men: I never lost one friend by my refusals, but I made scores of friendships—of men, from one who has occupied the presidential chair down; of women, among whom are the best and most famous in our land to-day.

I honestly believe that a young man who starts out in life with a fixed principle—whether it be that he will not drink, or smoke, or indulge in anything which in his heart he feels is not good for him, or in which he does not conscientiously believe—and adheres to