power and have the purpose to use it efficiently will some day win to the place

in which that stored-up power will revolve great wheels of influence.

 

Napoleon said that quarter hours decide the destinies of nations. How many

quarter hours do we let drift by aimlessly! Robert Louis Stevenson conserved

_all_ his time; _every_ experience became capital for his work--for capital may

be defined as "the results of labor stored up to assist future production." He

continually tried to put into suitable language the scenes and actions that were

in evidence about him. Emerson says: "Tomorrow will be like today. Life wastes

itself whilst we are preparing to live."

 

Why wait for a more convenient season for this broad, general preparation? The

fifteen minutes that we spend on the car could be profitably turned into

speech-capital.

 

Procure a cheap edition of modern speeches, and by cutting out a few pages each

day, and reading them during the idle minute here and there, note how soon you

can make yourself familiar with the world's best speeches. If you do not wish to

mutilate your book, take it with you--most of the epoch-making books are now

printed in small volumes. The daily waste of natural gas in the Oklahoma fields

is equal to ten thousand tons of coal. Only about three per cent of the power of

the coal that enters the furnace ever diffuses itself from your electric bulb as

light--the other ninety-seven per cent is wasted. Yet these wastes are no

larger, nor more to be lamented than the tremendous waste of time which, if

conserved would increase the speaker's powers to their _nth_ degree. Scientists