HEAVING THE LESSER POWERS to the brief accounts already given, we hurry on to the real climax of applied magnetism, as we take up the study of greater things. When we speak of values we do not refer to money or property, but to qualities and evidences of worth. Money and property are agencies of the blessings they are charged with bringing to people; and are not the final goal of ambition in any true life. We have shown that Values of the physical kind may, if exchanged evenly, serve as imitations or substitutes of those that are magnetic. The latter we have divided into two classes; one plebeian and the other patrician. Plebeian Values are those that are higher and nobler than the physical kind, yet are not engrafted on the life of the individual, but may be put on and laid off at will. Despite this limitation they are magnetic in a moderate degree.

To understand the enormously high worth of Patrician Values, or those that cannot be assumed and cast aside at will, but that are made a part of the individual, we should note the status of the Plebeian Values by way of review, which will be very brief. Thus some embryo book of personal magnetism teaches that politeness develops this power, among many other things. Politeness is something that can be put on and laid off at will. At home you assume no specially kind or attractive tones, but use your commonplace voice. A caller comes to see you whom you wish to impress favorably, and at once you put 00 what is called your "Sunday voice." Everybody does this. When the visitor departs, you lay aside your assumed tones and come back to the common style of talking. The difference is marked to any observer who studies you. So with your manners, your graciousness and your attentiveness.

All these are Plebeian Values; they all lead to a moderate degree of personal magnetism; but they never ascend the heights for anything that can be put on and taken off at will is transient and not deep enough to have become inherent.

The same thing might be said of the Patrician Values. It is true that they can be assumed; but only by an effort great enough to make them permanent. Experience shows that once they are engrafted on the personality of the individual, they remain for life. Employment, marriage and business together with the professions, embrace nearly all the activities of humanity. It is in these departments of existence that the power of personal magnetism finds its opportunities of achieving their victories; and these we must consider as we unfold the present lesson.

The Spirit of Personal Improvement is one of the Patrician Values.

This spirit itself is magnetic. It is not a state or condition but a movement; it goes forward, never backward, and never stands still; for all of which reasons it is bound to exert unusual power over the life of the individual. If it once acquires momentum it does not stop. But it will not operate through the physical mind. A higher faculty is necessary to set it going This is the whole trouble. The physical mind cannot be convinced that every step in the personal improvement of mind and body adds value to every department of life, and by building a better general individual builds a better man or woman in some special line of activity. The instances of the usefulness of this law are numerous. Take the case of Lawrence Barrett that we have mentioned in some former lesson; when a lad he was not only poor but uneducated. When he became an actor, he did not stop with that profession, but became a scholar in all general lines of mental growth; and his scholarship was reflected in his dramatic career.

In law it is well known that the higher a man rises in his general knowledge of history, literature, rhetoric, language and the biographies of great men and women, as well as in many of the college branches, the better lawyer he will become. A one-sided mentality is not attractive. Every great attorney has been highly educated in other lines, or he could not have been great. The value of this all-round knowledge is recognized by the requirements now made in many States when applicants are examined for admission to the bar.

But we know of a young lawyer who, instead of sitting with his feet on the table waiting for clients to call, utilized his time collecting forms, copying written pleadings in other cases on file in clerks' offices, learning how to carry cases up to higher courts on appeal, saving exceptions, making bills in chancery or equity, preparing unusual papers by studying those that had been drawn for past trials, copying contracts and recorded deeds, leases, wills, and countless other documents; all of which he kept at hand in his office so that during his otherwise idle hours he could make himself familiar with them. Clients employ attorneys because of their experience; this line of experience consists in having had contact with such writings. The result was that the young lawyer rose rapidly in his profession and was often called into consultation by older attorneys in important cases where technical knowledge was needed. Evenings he read and studied books that made him a finely educated man.

The young and ambitious artist, if guided by his physical mind, will devote his many idle hours to reading novels, thus weakening the artistic temperament. His theory is that all he needs, after graduating from an art school is to go out and paint when the weather is fit, send his work to shows or dealers, and wonder why the checks never appear. If he would lay aside his novel and absorb the history of mankind instead; and, as companion to such study, master the finer phases of rhetoric, of grammar, of the forgotten matters of his earlier schooling; read the biographies of great men and women; and inform himself about the lives and characteristics of other peoples the world over; he would be adding true values to the little that Nature has bestowed upon him; for artists are not made by art schools. There never was a real artist who was not a poet by inclination; he may never have written a line; but he has caught the sacred fire by absorbing the spirit of the geniuses of the past. If he can arouse this fire in himself by reading and being thrilled by the fancies of such geniuses, he may find himself an artist some day. Novel-reading dries up the fancy, shrivels the imagination, and lowers the mental tone so that all he has left is the inclination to go out on days when the weather is fit and try his hand at painting something.

The poetry that is necessary in the life of the artist is seen working its charms when it leads the painter out where Nature has preceded him in her works of art. The man or woman who goes out for miles to try a hand at painting something, sees nothing worth painting until some attractive scene is reached The true artist sees values everywhere; he passes countless wealth in landscape, the sky, the river, the fields, the forests, the drooping foliage, the flowering roadside; to him there are "sermons in stones, books in the running brooks, and good in everything." He is alert. He sees. He feels. He will succeed.

The Spirit of Personal Improvement is at work in him.

It goes with him through life.

Drop into some retail store, and note the clerks that have nothing to do while waiting for patrons. They read all the news in the daily papers. They discuss all the gossip of the times They idle away many valuable hours every day of their lives. In one group of clerks was a young man who sought the Spirit of Personal Improvement. One day he brought a small pocket speller, and consulted it during the periods when little demand was made on his services. A patron entered the store. Other clerks who were absorbed in some racy news, emerged slowly from behind their papers, but the clerk with the spelling book put it quickly in his pocket, and was the first to greet the customer. This was always the case. The manager from behind his office walls, noticed this fact. One day the head of the firm said to the manager, "Can you find out what kind of a book that clerk is reading when he has nothing to do?"—He did find out. It was a spelling book. On another day the clerk had a different looking book; it was a grammar. On still another day he brought a third book; it was a rhetoric. Later on, when the head of the firm knew these things, he instructed his manager to see that the clerk's wages were raised under an agreement that nothing was to be said to the other employees, and with the impression that no one but the manager was to know of the increase.

In the course of time the head of the firm called the clerk into his private office and said to him,

"Young man, you have been in my employ three years. Is that so?"

The sternness of the inquiry alarmed the youth, who replied timidly, "It is true, sir."

"Well, during that period do you know how much of my time has been used by you reading books that you have concealed in your pockets?"

"I was not reading exactly, but studying. I thought I might improve myself in that way. Besides I did not encroach on any of your time, as I always was ready to wait on customers."

"You had your evenings to yourself. Why use my time at the store doing what you could do at home evenings? Was that right?"

"I have always had work to do at home helping my mother who is not well; and besides when I did have any spare time evenings I read history and literature and other things from books too big to bring to the store."

"Well, as you admit that you have used my time for three years for which you have been paid by the firm, what adjustment do you propose to make?"

"I will leave that to you, sir."

"Well, I do not wish to be hard on you. I am starting a large branch in another part of the city nearer to your mother's home. I will offer you the position of manager at double the salary you are now receiving, in addition to which I will admit you to a limited partnership, so that while your income will be assured, it may be largely increased by the profits from the branch. You know we do not do business without profits."

The clerk was astonished, and remained silent for a time, his employer watching him closely. When he was able to express himself, he inquired,

"Why are you so kind to me, sir?"

"I am kind to myself," said the employer. "Your private life is known to me. It is exemplary. Your habits are clean. My other clerks are time-wasters. You will never be poor. They will never be worth any more than they are now. Mark me, you will never be poor."

You, who are reading these pages, do you know that you and countless thousands of other employees have exactly the same opportunity for advancement, if you are working at a salary?

Your physical mind will say, "Naw, what's the use?" If you proceed far enough to awaken your Magnetic Mind, its Truth-Teller will convey to you the information that there hangs above you in your employment a magnet which is there to draw you up, up, up !

The process is easy.

Just let the Spirit of Personal Improvement enter your life and begin to do its work.

The Unseen Magnet is hanging over the head of each and every man and woman who adopts this Spirit of Personal Improvement; and it affects every phase of human life everywhere. It appears not only in the results of each line of business, but in all employment, and also in the larger work of those who conduct the great affairs of the world, no matter what they may be.

We are greatly pleased to have learned that our efforts in he-half of employees and employers in this one line alone have been wonderfully rewarded, and we have been informed that wherever there has been a sincere attempt to put into practice this Spirit of Personal Improvement, the most remarkable success has resulted. We have inspired thousands of young men and women to add values to themselves in this way, and we know of no case where they have not risen rapidly and to great heights compared with the prospects that confronted them before they undertook this method of betterment.

A fertile mind is necessarily magnetic; and such a mind is able to find ways and means of self-improvement. It may be in one direction, or in another; but the great fact must be met that, on the one hand, there is the inclination to waste minutes and hours, to get through the day with the least effort possible, to even be on time and to remain until the last minute attending to the absolutely necessary duties, yet doing so in a perfunctory manner; while on the other hand there are countless little ways in which human values may be acquired and added to every person who seeks the higher and better things of life. We have cited a few examples only; but a book might be written on those that remain.

We are proud of the fact that great corporations and other employers are making use of these lessons in order to encourage their employees to improve themselves.