Other boys and girls try to cut corners with the truth. They see just
how near a lie they can come, and yet keep within the bounds of truth.
Something inside tells them it is not quite fair. And again, when that
happens, they have rubbed some of the bright, beautiful paint, so to
speak, off their consciences. And before long their consciences get to
be quite shabby, and not at all new, and people begin to say that they
don't quite trust that boy or girl.

And so I say to you, boys and girls, it does not pay to cut corners.
Give yourselves plenty of room. Be open and fair and industrious. For
one who cuts close corners as a boy or girl, usually grows up into a
very small sort of man or woman.




HABITS


I wonder if I can make plain to you what a habit is. Have you ever seen
men laying concrete sidewalks here in the city, and they put boards
across to keep people from walking on the pavements before they were
thoroughly dry? I am sure you have. These men keep people off the walk
while it is soft because, if any one steps on it, then his footprints
harden into the walk as it dries, and will always remain there.

Now, boys' and girls' minds are just like those cement walks when they
are wet and soft; and if you do a thing over and over again as a boy or
girl, you will make such a deep mark in your brains that when you grow