Is another of the essentials of success in life which are largely attainable by those who lack their possession. Mental as well as physical accomplishment depends largely upon the condition of the worker's digestion; and the thorough aeration of his blood. This can only be obtained with healthy exercise, which can only be taken by those whose muscles and nerves and wind are in good condition. "Walk twelve miles before speaking and you'll never break down," says Sydney Smith to an English parliamentary debater. A strong intellect cannot well work with a weak body as its case. Energy without talent will accomplish more than talent without energy. The sharp edge of the woodman's axe avails nothing until the sinewy arm throws it, stroke upon stroke, against the monarchs of the forest. Take the great men of the century, and it will be seen that they combined intellectual force with physical vigor. In England, Brougham, Lyndhurst, Peel, Bright, Gladstone, Palmerston; in America, Webster, Clay, Calhoun, Grant, Sherman, Sheridan, Lincoln - all these were men capable of strong muscular exertion and of standing a prolonged physical as well as mental strain.

It is told of Lord Brougham that he once worked six days on a stretch without sleep, slept from Saturday night to Monday morning, and began work again thoroughly refreshed. These men are the conservers as well as the possessors of physical force, and the young man who seeks to retain the " sound mind in a sound body " will remember that it is not so much in the cultivation of additional body strength as in the economy of what he already possesses that the art of physical culture is best applied. The idea used to be that muscularity and rowdyism were natural associates, but people found out that it is possible for a young man to be a good rower, or boxer even, and still be a worthy Christian and admirable member of society, and even that it was difficult for him to be these unless with the employment of manly exercises he brought his physical condition up to the healthy standard. This is merely a recurrence to the old belief of the Greeks, who reverence the muscular body as one of the noble parts of man, and made gymnastics and calisthenics a regular school exercise.

Without good health and a sound body, moderate success in life may be painfully possible; with it a place in the front rank may be attained with far greater ease than otherwise.

* - (Self-Reliance.) - Among all the mental qualifications which help on to success in life, there is none which is of more importance than self-reliance. If you want a thing well done, do it yourself, says the old saw, and hence comes it that those who rely most upon themselves for the accomplishment of any aim are the ones who do the best work. "Heaven helps those who help themselves," is a well tried maxim, embodying in small compass the results of vast business experience. The spirit of self-help is the root of all genuine growth in the individual; and, exhibited in the lives of many, it constitutes the true source of national vigor and strength. Help from without is often enfeebling in its effects, but help from within invariably invigorates. Whatever is done for men or classes, to a certain extent takes away the stimulus and necessity of doing for themselves; and where men are subjected to over-guidance and over-government, the inevitable tendency is to render them comparatively helpless.

It is energetic individualism which produces the most powerful effect upon the life and actions of others, and really constitutes the best practical education. The determination to be one's own helper is the secret of this individual development and strength. No greater misfortune could befall an ambitious and able young man than a legacy. A story is told of a critic who, after reviewing the promising work of a young artist, praised it, but added: "It is a pity that he can never make a great painter." "And why not? " rejoined his companion. "Because he has ten thousand pounds a year," was the sententious response. When John C. Calhoun was ridiculed by his fellow-students at Yale for his intense application to study, he raised a louder laugh against himself by replying, "I am forced to make the most of my time that I may acquit myself creditably when in Congress," and then, when the laugh was over, adding, "I assure you, if I were not satisfied of my ability to reach Congress in three years, I would at once leave college." Here was self-reliance and self-help. Calhoun knew the difficulties that lay between him and the goal of his ambition, and, while the other students were laughing at him, he was helping himself to overcome them. ' 'The man who dares to think for himself and act independently, does a service to his race," says one of the brightest modern thinkers, and daily experience shows that it is energetic individualism which produces the most powerful effects upon the life and action of others, and really constitutes the best practical education.

Schools, academies and colleges give but the merest beginnings of culture in comparison with it. Far more influential is the life-education daily given in our homes, in the streets, behind counters, in workshops, at the loom and the plow, in counting-houses and manufactories, and in the busy haunts of men. This is that finishing instruction as. members of society which Schiller designated "the education of the human race," consisting in action, conduct, self-culture, self-control - all that tends to discipline a man truly, and fit him for the proper performance of the duties and business of life - a kind of education not to be learned from books, or acquired by any amount of mere literary training. With his usual weight of words, Bacon observes that "studies teach not their own use; but that is a wisdom without them and above them won by observation"- a remark that holds true of actual life as well as of the cultivation of the intellect itself. For all experience serves to illustrate and enforce the lesson that a man perfects himself by work more than by reading - that it is life rather than literature, action rather than study, and character rather than biography, which tend perpetually to renovate mankind.

Attention To Detail, Is a matter which constitutes much more than half of the battle in many spheres of usefulness, and, the more intellectual the task, the greater the necessity, very frequently, of careful and constant devotion to the little things which help to form it. Sedulous attention and painstaking industry always mark the true worker. The greatest men are not those who "despise the day of small things," but those who improve them the most carefully. Michael Angelo was one day explaining to a visitor at his studio what he had been doing at a statue since his previous visit. "I have retouched this part - polished that - softened this feature - brought out that muscle - given some expression to this lip, and more energy to that limb." "But these are trifles," remarked the visitor. "It may be so," replied the sculptor, "but recollect that trifles make perfection, and perfection is no trifle." So it was said of Nicholas Poussin, the painter, that the rule of his conduct was, that ' 'whatever was worth doing at all was worth doing well;" and when asked, late in life, by his friend Vig-neul de Marville, by what means he had gained so high a reputation among the painters of Italy, Poussin emphatically answered, "Because I have neglected nothing." On the first publication of Wellington's dispatches, one of his friends said to him, on reading the records of his Indian campaigns: "It seems to me, Duke, that your chief business in India was to procure rice and bullocks." "And so it was," replied Wellington, "for, if I had rice and bullocks, I had men; and if I had men I knew I could beat the enemy." All men who have accomplished success in life have been conspicuous for minute attention to detail as well as for general scope and vigor.

The great Napoleon was a wonderful example of this. His correspondence shows him arranging for supplies of saddles, directing where cattle could be purchased, advising the procurement of shoes for the infantry, and making suggestions as to various minor details, and complaining because of discovered carelessness in the reports upon matters of detail supplied by others. Lord Brougham, alluding to this quality, said: "The captain who conveyed Napoleon to Elba expressed to me his astonishment at his precise and, as it were, familiar knowledge of all the minute details connected with the ship."

In the face of these examples, no one should come to the conclusion that details are beneath one's notice, or that one is less brilliant in the great things of life because he pays attention to the little things. Of General Thomas it is said that he was careful in all the details of a battle, but, once in the fight, was as "furious and impetuous as Jackson." Attention to details makes a business man, or any other kind of man, "sure that he is right," and then, of course, it only remains for him to "go ahead."