Evening Round Up | Page 3

the time for sizing up
things, by inventory, analysis, speculation, comparison and hypothesis.
I have received many comments about that particular suggestion.
I find that many of the great captains of industry who are
accomplishing things worth while, have learned the value of this daily
habit.
Mr. E. C. Simmons, the president of the Simmons Hardware Company,
has for about fifty years followed this daily sizing up plan. He takes
fifteen to twenty minutes each evening in seclusion, with closed eyes,
and finds the weaknesses of his plans, formulates new plans, and
generates new ideas for the morrow. He says this habit is one of the
greatest contributing factors to his success and to the building up of the
largest hardware business the world has ever known.
I want to help YOU to form the habit of rounding up each day's
activities in the quiet, relaxed, uncolored, unprejudiced secluded
environment of your home. Each evening we will together size up
things--a sort of daily round-up.
I have chosen the evening as the time for our little talks. In the evening
we can be cozy, comfy and communicative. The bank is closed. We
met the note and got through the day. We are alive and well; we can
open our hearts. There is no office boy to disturb us, and the life

insurance agent is away at his club.
Yes, we can be alone and tranquilly let down the tension, lower the
speed and with normal heartbeats play the low tones, the soft strains,
the quieting music, and soothe our nerves.
All day we've heard the band with its drums and trombones and shrieky
music. The day with its busy whirl kept our analyzing mental
think-tank occupied with thoughts of gain and game and fame.
In the evening we have time to study logic and to reason, to analyze
and inventory, to thresh out problems.
So let us relax and reflect in these evening round-ups.

NATURAL LAW
Obedience Is Rewarded, Violation Is Punished
Man's nature makes it imperative for him to be interested in something.
That interest is to his help or hurt, according as he directs it.
There is much worry and misery in the world because so many are
astatic, like a compass that has lost its loadstone.
Man is definitely the result of the materials the body and the mind feed
upon.
Character is the result of a determined purpose to be and to do right, to
one's self and to his fellows.
The man of character focuses his attention on truth, and on fact.
He uses theories with fact, to aid his progress, but he recognizes that
theories, without fact as a safety ballast, is a useless expenditure.
Theories without fact leaves man in a rudderless boat; he gets nowhere,

he only drifts.
Theories often help to get at facts, but the better way is to get at fact by
proven experience, of which there is an inexhaustible abundance in the
world.
Facts are based on natural laws. The study of natural laws is beneficial.
We shall strive in our studies to keep close to fact with just enough
speculation to enliven the interest in facts.
Living the artificial life makes for worry, illness and failure.
Living in harmony with the great natural laws is the helpful way to live.
To abide by the law is safety, to violate the law brings punishment.
Every man is better if he follows scientific methods and habits of
thought and living.
The loafing or astatic mind will fall into morbid tendencies.
The employed, truth-seeking, idealistic, hopeful mind is never
dependent on people or things for its pleasure.
The acquiring of helpful knowledge, the seeking of worth-while truth,
are ever profitable employments, paying present and future dividends,
and meanwhile those acts positively divert the thought from morbid
tendencies.
The Evening Round-Up is intended to be a companionable, helpful text
book, a counselor and a friend.
We shall strive to bring helpful knowledge, good cheer and interesting
facts, for your present occupation and benefit.
If I succeed in accomplishing my purpose even in part my time has
been well spent.

We have an unchallenged fact to rest our feet on, a fact that shall follow
us through all the pages of this book; and that is: our thoughts NEVER
stop, our brains never sleep.
While we live we shall never get away from our thought; so then, we
must consider that thought current, and reckon with it.
The motive power is turned on and we must grasp the helm if we sail
the sea of life successfully, baffling storms and avoiding rocks.
Scientific books are usually dry, uninviting reading; they lack the
human interest. They are generally bloodless skeletons.
We shall try to weave science into new patterns and paint interesting
pictures so that