Hang Your Cap in Its Place.
By Emma Hildreth Adams
ONE of the most necessary, most important, best-paying lessons the millions of actors on the earth to-day can learn is to do things with attention, to rivet the mind for the moment, year, or lifetime upon the action, proposition, or undertaking in hand. The deed may be the threading of a needle, the teaching a mighty truth, the lighting a gasoline stove, the starting a monster steamship across the Pacific, the loosing a fleet of balloons for a contesting trip thru the atmosphere. Think a moment! Grasp the impressive, startling fact that the lack of this single effective element in doing things often causes weighty flaws and purposes to miscarry; dashes to the ground hosts of long-cherished hopes; wipes out expectations on which life, almost, may depend, and to multitudes of hearts brings sorrow, disappointment, pain, and grief. And must this shadow-casting laxity always exist? Is there no remedy? Must heedlessness, inaccuracy, lapse of attention, find place daily over all the earth, taking on in many cases the color of huge crime? Is it the blood-red fruit of sin ripening in human nature or is it due to failure on the part of parents, guardians, and teachers to TRAIN children and young people to be exact; to pin the mind to the work in hand; to glue the thoughts for the day, the hour, the moment, to the task to be done? Let us answer in part these questions by the introduction of a bit of actual history. Some two years ago the writer made a brief call at the home of a friend in the city of Los Angeles. The time was toward the close of a cloudy day in November. A busy mist was hurrying thru the streets. The sharp air made winter wraps welcome. While engaged in conversation with my friend and her husband, there tripped into the room, from the sidewalk whither he had gone for brief exercise, an active, rosy-cheeked boy, four years old, and the only child-member of the family. He was wrapped in warm cap and overcoat, and looked the personification of comfort. Removing his cap quickly, he threw it upon the floor. "Pick up your cap, my son, and hang it in its place," commanded the father, in a firm, kind tone. "No, papa, I'm going out again in a moment," answered the energetic mite. "Little boy," said the father kindly, "your cap must be put in its place every time you remove it to stay indoors at all." Then the child took up the article, opened the door of a closet near, and hung it upon a hook specially provided therefor. Becoming interested in his picture-books and toys, the little fellow soon forgot sidewalk, street-cars, and gleeful boys and girls. Soon his overcoat became burdensome. He removed it, and threw it upon a chair near. The father, vigilant and heedful, was expecting this, and said immediately: "Little man, hang your coat in its place." Obedience was prompt, and then affairs went on smoothly. This is a specimen of numerous like instances which occurred in the rearing of that boy. But now some of the fruit of that wise caretaking, that continued painstaking, that sowing healthy seed: Not two weeks ago circumstances led the writer again to that interesting home for a brief visit. The little lad we have pictured had then just passed his sixth birthday. The two years had made good investment in him. They were now reaping comforting dividends. Almost without failure now, the intelligent little fellow puts cap, coat, books, and scores of other things in place when done using them. Moreover he is rapidly acquiring the habit of holding his mind, thought, attention to whatever duty or occupation claims time and effort from him. He is beginning to see that failure on his part to do his tasks heedfully, exactly, may result disastrously to other persons. Now if the parents of this child could so successfully train him, beginning at so early an age, and in the short space of two years, why may not other parents joy in the same gladdening outcome? True, there are differences in children, in their mental and moral constitution. Some yield more rapidly to training than others. Like apple-trees, some yield appetizing fruit earlier in the season than others. So some children show the sweet products of culture in very early years. Slow development prolongs the task. But love stands by with help in such cases.