CHAPTER IV
LOVE OF IMPROVEMENT.

Female capabilities. Doing every thing in the best possible manner.
Unending progress. Every person and every occupation susceptible of
improvement, indefinitely. Doing well what is before us. Anecdote
illustrative of this principle. Personal duties. Two great classes of
persons described. Hopes of reaching the ears of the selfish.


I have already said that you are capable of never-ending progress in
knowledge and excellence, and that it is alike your interest and your
duty to aspire to that perfection for which God has given you
capabilities. The object of the present chapter is to kindle within you
a desire to make progress in every thing you do--to go on, as the
Scripture expresses it, to perfection.

"Whatever is worth doing, is worth doing well," is an old but true
maxim. More than even this might be affirmed. Whatever is worth doing
at all, is worth doing in the best possible manner. No matter how well
you have done the same thing heretofore; no matter how much more
perfectly you already do it than your neighbors. You are not to make
the past of your own experience, or the present of your neighbor's, the
measure of your conduct. The question is--How well can I perform this
particular act now?