SELF-IMPROVEMENT.
SELF-IMPROVEMENT is not much talked of among the cultivated. We seldom hear of an improving book. If we spoke of one, we should mean a book the author of which had a wearisome tendency to improve the occasion. There are certain shynesses which we regard as becoming, and rather foster in ourselves. After a time they become affectations, and in the end shibboleths. But among simpler people nowadays self-improvement is the fashion. They read, and reason, and make rules, and form societies with this object. They talk of it, and write of it, and are not ashamed.
What is it exactly that they want to improve into ? if one may ask so ungrammatical a question. What is the standard to which they are striving to attain ? A little book has just come out called "Success Secrets" (by 0. S. Marsden ; T. Fisher Unwin, 2s. net)—it ought to have been called "The Art of Self-Improvement—which we believe supplies a very clear answer to these questions. It is written primarily, we should imagine, for these in com- mercial employ,—for men and women who have not had every advantage which money can give during their earliest years, but who desire ardently to become prosperous, honest, educated, and well-mannered members of a pleasant society. The attainment of these ends is, in the author's belief, a matter of equipment, and equipment can be gained by will- power and determination directed by constant obedience to the spur and curb of "Do" and "Don't." First of all, the student of " self-improvement " should believe in God and in himself. Indeed, he must go further than that. He must feel himself "a co-worker with the Creator of the universe"; he must be certain of the worth and dignity of his task, however dull or trivial it may seem ; and he must allow himself no nervous vacillation,—he must not "ruin his own judgment by not trusting it" After such counsel as this, the reader can hardly help smiling when his teacher descends to details, and he is told to keep "the man at the other end of the bargain" in his mental eye, and instructed how to comport himself in "a customer's office" or "as the representative of a dignified, reliable house." All the same, how to "take a rebuff good-naturedly" is a thing very well worth learning, and one the importance of which may easily be depreciated.
But money-making is only a side-aim to the self-improver ; that is, it is but one means, and not the chief means, to the happiness which is his end. He is to get out of his work a more refined pleasure than that of gain. He is to "go to the bottom of it" and "do it in the spirit of an artist, not an artis.an." Is to "luck," our instructor has no belief in it. Men "lose their luck," he says, by "making a business of pleasure," or "in dawdling," or "at the race track," or "at cheap, demoralising shows." Sometimes it "goes down in drink and up in smoke." More often they pitch it away by "refusing positions they could get because they did not know whether they would like the work or not." It is seldom chance, we are told, that loses a man "promotion." He remains at the bottom of his ladder because "he watched the clock," or "was always grumbling," or " chose his friends among his inferiors," or "did not think it worth While to learn how."
An enthusiasm for education is almost a necessity to any real self-improvement. The man who asks "Is it worth while ? " has mit the root of the matter' in him. "Does it pay," the writer scornfully "asks, " to push one's horizon farther out?" "to taste the exhilaration of feeling one's powers unfold?" "to acquire a character-wealth, a soul-property ?" But our author is never long in the clouds. "Does it pay." he asks in more practical mood, "to fit oneself for a superi,,,- position ? " Want of education is to be regarded not as a misfortune but as a disgrace. "It is a disgrace," we read, to live in the midst of museums, picture-galleries, lectures, and "improvement clubs," and "not avail oneself of their advantages." The same thing is true of men and women. A man is a fool if he marries a woman who "does not think it worth while to read for self-improvement." Any one should be ashamed "not to be able to carry on intelligently conversation upon current topics," and even "not to ha ve intelligent knowledge of the general affairs of the world. and the interrelations of nations."
The rules of manners here suggested are many of them put under the heading of popularity. Indeed, bar eertaia fundamental suggestions about being clean and smart in person, not apologising for one's parents, correcting their mispronunciations, or appearing in cull-papers, they are excellent suggestions for making oneself liked. For
instance, the student is advised to take a genuine interest in his interlocutor ; to " force " his own "moods," so as not to let it be seen when he is anxious or in the "blues " ; to be ready with praise ; to cease fidgeting and fretting and fault-finding and looking for slights; finally—and this last is rather an odd piece of advice— to treat all men on an equality : " Believe in the brotherhood of man, and recognise no class distinctions." We have left out, however, one valuable, if somewhat primly expressed, recommendation to those familiar with foreign parts. "Let a refined manner and superior intelligence alicsr that you have travelled, instead of constantly tatting of the distant countries you have visited." The end of the whole course of study is happiness. Given a successful marriage, it is to be found in friendships," " in friendly letters," "in social intercourse," "in a clean conscience," "in the work we love," "in the companionship of books," and "in doing one's best." This is certainly a very admirable, if not a very original, ideal, and one as far from the decadence we are apt to deplore as the north is from the south.
Why is it that the attitude of sophisticated or highly placed persons towards all open endeavour after self-improve. ment is almost invariably one of a good-natured or ill-natured satire ? We believe that at the bottom of their hearts not a few of them feel that those who are born without what are called advantages had better die without them. They wish all the necessities of existence to all the world ; they would put themselves out to a small extent to give them to them ; but secretly they think that good manners, delicate feelings, the refinements of life, and all the delights of the mind should remain monopolies. It comforts them to observe little errors of taste, a little lack of perception, a little conceit, a little show of effort better meant than directed, in those who stretch forward to share these goods. They smile and feel secure. But, setting aside these ill-conditioned gentry, why do so many good people take a supercilious view of the desire for self-improvement,—we mean of the hearty, self- conscious, open effort to better oneself in the best sen..e which this book represents ? Why do they, to put the matter very plainly, look down upon it and fcel amused by it P As they are good people, there must be something which is not vulgar at the bottom of their satire and suspicion. We suppose that they are actuated by a firm belief that aspiration is so delicate a substance that exposure will destroy it, while they forget that aspira- tions are as often fatally smothered as fatally exposed, Clinging firmly to the first dogma, many people, especially among those who set fashions, have taken it Into their heads that aspiration is best preserved under an opaque covering of humour, or of that form of intellectualism which avoids all display of moral conviction. It is a fashion calculated entirely to puzzle the social observer. How much aspiration after a good, wholesome, and full life is yet alive under all
the attractive draperies wherewith persons of infallible taste
think that it should be hidden? Is there very much? Life in a society of ardent self-improvers might at times sccm
slow, but oie has to qualify that statement by remem- bering that aspiration is a very strong motive-force. A society_ which. loses it will not only be slow but stagnant',
and no admixture of noisy mirth will avail to freshen it. The class which laughs most heartily at the self-improvers is the class which is least likely to laugh last.
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