Be temperate in eating your food, drinking cold water, taking exposure, in
your hours and in general. For example, it is not a good plan to have too
much of anything which you like particularly. It immediately dulls the
sense of pleasure in that thing, and, raising the level of your likes to a
degree that makes you dislike some other thing, perhaps, which you liked
before, thus working a loss rather than a gain. Therefore, temperance,
which is synonymous of moderation, in my use of the word, is the wisest
thing you can practise. But be intemperate in the pursuit of your object.
Let no expense be too large to equip yourself physically or mentally for
your life's work, as, for example, to assure regular exercise, to cure any
physical imperfection or disease, or for the furtherance of any desire for
investigation on natural or scientific subjects or points of interest
allied to the thing which you are seeking to attain. There is no need of
moderation in labor, exposure, or discomfort. Thus you will eventually
reach your ends, and may obtain results at which people will stand amazed,
believing them to be beyond the range of possibilities, as they will not
know that for years a systematic preparation has been going on to prepare
yourself for this result.

As a boy, your desires have been limited by your opportunities. You have
had certain kinds of recreation provided for you which you have enjoyed.
Your expenditure of money has been limited by your purse, which will have
been small if your parents were wise; and your expenditure of time will
have been limited by the hours you have been unable to take from study,
which will also have been small.

At college your opportunities will have broadened, and you begin to have
something similar to the elective system. You can choose more freely how
to spend your time. Your development to this point, I have already said,