Rensselaer Republican, Volume 12, Number 15, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 December 1879 — Wasted Time. [ARTICLE]

Wasted Time.

That which grieves the attentive observer most forcibly in regarding the young is the waste of time, the careless disregard of precious minutes that are so lavishly thrown back into the past, heaping up the store of lost opportunities ana making, later in life, that background of bitter reflection whose sorrowful thought finds expression in the wail, '“it might have been.” Rightly used, time is the most valuable possession of the youug. It is the real Arehimedian lever that pries difficulties out of the path of success. System and application are. the powerful fulcrums used to accomplish its important results. Aimlessness and lack of motive are the chief obstacles to the best and most profitable use of time. With a goal to attain, an end to accomplish, and force of character sufficient to hold the mind steadfastly to its purpose, the sands of time arc easily transmuted into golden rain. Life is made worth the living, and an elation is felt only to .bar compared to that state of feeling which Is described by Mad. do S tael as the gradually successful attainment to the object in view, and which, she says, to .the secret of true happiness. How much wiser,,then, would it bo if our country youth should earnestly resolve to cultivate their opportunities as sedulously as their fathers cultivate their farms. Instead of dawdling about the thresholds of taverns among associates whose influence is too often corrupting, let them resolvo in the future to turn to the best aceouut the wasted moments, and when their opportunity comes to them, as come it docs at least once in a lifetime to all .of us, be prepared to seize it and extract all of advantage it promises. .This can be done only Dy preparing one’s-self in advance. An athlete does not rest supinely until the day he is to make the ono supreme effort. He prepares for it weeks in advance. Ho utilizes the minutes. The men who haye most distinguished themselves, have risen to power and fame against the friction of adverse eircu instances. Elihu JBurritt, “the learned blacksmith,” found time during his work at the forge to master several languages,and surprised cultured Europe by addressing ite chief learned body in Sanskrit. Hugh Miller learned the secrets of the old Red Sandstono in the capacity of a day laborer. While hto follow workmen iuled during their mornings, he was actively at work finding out the why of the specimens and fossils his hammer disclosed. Lord Chesterfield relates of one of his friends that he wrote a book of an abstruse character during the intervals of waiting for his wife to ■appear at breakfast. He utilized moments that we usually waste, and see the result! Wellington attributed hto success to the fact that he knew the value of minutea, Why not, then, profit by Such examples? Consider what might be accomplished in a year if the time now wasted were devoted to acquiring a knowledge of botany, and if farming is to be your vocation, consider how much better equipped you Would be for its intelligent prosecution by thus investing your waste moments. It is in the power of every one to improve, and it may almost be said that the young hold the future in their hands, to make ..of it and themselves what they will, if they but appreciate the power of system and application, and the value of a moment.— Rural New Yorker.

• —The owner of a hotel up on Mount Tamalpais, Cal., has a property catamount rigged up in a tree about half a mile from the house, and employs an old half-breed to sit under a brush near by to growl and work the dummy’s paws by means of a couple of small • cords on pulleys. The young hunters from the city invariably come across the “ panther,” fire one volley, hear a blood-curdling yell and make a throeminute dash back to the cabin again, where they sit and outlie each other for the rest of the day. The hotel-keeper says that by the time the fraud is shot all to pieces he expects to have enough money to run a daily newspaper. - A New Yorker was robbed the other day of twenty-eight thousand dollars m broad daylight, and he didn’t discover the theft until a few hours afterward. We should like to see any one rob us of twenty-eight thousand dollars in broad daylight—or in narrow nightlight either. It can’t be done.- -Norristown Herald. There are to-day more than 242,000 Government pensioners. The amount of the year’s pension to all pensioners is .$25,493,742; but the actual payment is' millions in excess, because the newly-' admitted cases have arrears of peusion due. f ' . ' '' .. ' '■ . —“I’ll meat you later,” was what the butcher said tb a dog just brought to his shop.