p. 10 | TWO THINGS WE NEED by Anna Woodward

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Nov 18, 1903

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 29, No. 46.

TWO THINGS WE NEED.

By Anna Woodward

[Anna Woodward, in Chicago News.]

THERE are two points worthy of your consideration.

The first is that thoroughness is the secret of success—is a much more important factor in getting on in the world than either opportunity or cleverness. Do not, as the habit is, carry your skimping into your daily life or business.

To the student of sociology it is one of the amazing facts of life that so few people take the trouble to understand their business.

Women become mothers without the least knowledge of the science which should guide them in the rearing of their young and in the intellectual development of children. They undertake housekeeping without a rudimentary knowledge of sanitation, of the laws of hygiene, of any system of account-keeping or domestic economy, and, nowadays, it is rare to find a woman who understands the art of cooking.

Men engaged in this or that business all their lives you will find content to know “enough to get along.” The habit of skimping sticks to them in all that they turn their hands to. They are thorough neither in knowledge nor in method.

But on your part, wherever you raise your banner, whether above some little home, some dingy office, some throbbing store or roaring factory, see to it that on the silken folds of your ambition is inscribed in letters of gold purpose, this one word, Thoroughness.

You are told that this is an age of specialists, or people who are thorough, and it is true.

Perhaps your work is to stand behind some counter and retail strips of ribbon and lengths of silk. It seems to you that, besides being industrious and honest, there is no more that you can do. Well, if I were in your place I would make a study of silks. When, without giving offense, it is possible, I would ask from those who knew more than myself all the questions I could about those soft and dazzling goods. And I would read all I could on the subject. I would find out the best books to study on the silk-worm industry, on the manufacture of silk, and kindred matters. Such books, if you could not buy, you could borrow or obtain from the library. By degrees you would begin to feel new confidence in yourself and command new confidence from others, and very quickly fresh channels of usefulness and advancement would open before you.

The world wants experts.

And then there is a second point I would like you to consider.

Outside your business, or main occupation of life, there should be at least one other subject on which it shall be your privilege and pleasure to be thorough.

If possible, make the second interest tributary to your first interest, but let it be sufficiently apart to afford you change and recreation. Become an expert on any subject, and this acquisition shall be a backbone of steel to your character.