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THE WILL TO WIN 
 
THE WILL TO WIN 
 
 A CALL TO AMERICAN 
 BOYS AND GIRLS 
 
 BY 
 
 E. BOYD BARRETT, SJ. 
 
 M.A. (N.U.I.), D.Ph. (Louvain) 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 P. J. KENEDY & SONS 
 1917 
 

 "3 
 
 ^^i/^ 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1917 
 Y P. J. KENEDY & SONS 
 
 JUL 31 (9i8 
 
 ©GU499970 
 
 r 
 
\ 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 THIS booklet was written with the object of 
 putting in a simple and brief form the sub- 
 stance of the author^ s larger book " Strength of 
 Will." 1 The author addresses himself directly 
 to the Catholic Boys of America, but he trusts 
 Catholic Girls will understand that, as they bear 
 equal responsibility for the future of their Faith 
 and Fatherland, the booklet is meant equally 
 for them. The author feels that he cannot do 
 justice to his subject in so short a booklet, and 
 recommends those Boys or Girls who become 
 interested in it, to read his larger book. 
 
 1 Published by P. J. Kenedy & Sons, H Barclay St. New York 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 SECTION PAGE 
 
 Introduction ix 
 
 I. The Will 1 
 
 II. The Importance of Strength of 
 
 Will 12 
 
 III. The Need of Will-Training .... 21 
 
 IV. Resolutions 28 
 
 V. A Method of Will -Training ... 39 
 
 VI. Practical Reflections 51 
 
 VII. The Will and Habit . 56 
 
 VIII. The Will to Win 62 
 
 Appendix 70 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 HAVE written this booklet for you — 
 and by you I mean American Catholic 
 Boys — in order to tell you what Will- 
 power means, and to show you how im- 
 portant and necessary it' is, and how it may 
 be acquired. I have tried to show you also, 
 that you cannot become good and strong 
 men, that is, men of character, unless you 
 have Will-power, and further that you will 
 be of little or no use to your country if you 
 are weak-willed e It has been well said that 
 "the only way to be a patriotic American 
 is to do your best to become a perfect man," 
 and a perfect man you will not be unless 
 your Will is strong. 
 
 In these days you are familiar with the 
 cry "Your country needs you" — and no 
 doubt you have reflected on what the needs 
 of your country are, and on what the fu- 
 ture may have in store for her. The years 
 hastening toward you, in which you will 
 have to play your part, will be critical years 
 in your country's history. Is America to 
 
X INTRODUCTION 
 
 fulfil her high destiny? Is she to become 
 the great Christian, the great Catholic na- 
 tion of the future? The home of true liberty, 
 true progress, true civilization? Is she to 
 avail herself of her splendid power and in- 
 fluence and spread the light of truth? Is 
 she to win her way by Justice and Virtue 
 till "the nations gather round her?" All 
 that depends upon you! If you Catholic 
 Boys prefer to be weaklings and pleasure- 
 seekers, if you put mammon before God, if 
 you allow your love of Truth and Honor 
 to die within you, then America has a black 
 and shameful future before her. It is for 
 you then to "choose the America that you 
 think is best, and to fashion yourselves in 
 her likeness. If you wish to see America 
 become a perfect country, a Kingdom of 
 God, do you yourself become a perfect in- 
 dividual, a Kingdom of God. The perfect 
 country can only be established by individ- 
 ual men and women who are striving after 
 perfection." But you purpose, I know, to 
 play your part well and bravely in the years 
 to come. Then you must now set about 
 preparing for your part. You must learn 
 to live up to a high ideal. You must per- 
 fect your character and furnish your mind. 
 
INTRODUCTION xi 
 
 You will perfect your character only if you 
 strengthen your Will. And you will fur- 
 nish your mind only if you avail yourself 
 of every opportunity of education. 
 
 I said just now "You must learn to live 
 up to a high ideal." But what exactly does 
 that mean.f^ What is an "ideal" in this sense. ^^ 
 As you know, a sculptor does not set about 
 carving his marble block without having a 
 very clear and definite image in his mind of 
 the figure he purposes to create. He means 
 to reproduce in marble, as perfectly as he 
 can, the image he has formed in his mind. 
 He intends, so to speak, to translate his idea 
 into marble. Now, a man with an *' ideal" 
 sets himself a task similar to that of the 
 sculptor. He has an image in his mind of 
 the kind of man he means to be. And he 
 tries to conform his acts and conduct to 
 that image, so that he may make himself 
 like to it. He translates that image into 
 his own life, so that he comes to represent 
 it as perfectly as possible. 
 
 Now, we should all have ideals and try 
 to conform our lives to them. But, of course, 
 they should be noble ideals. They should 
 be in harmony with thoroughly good prin- 
 ciples. They should be clear and definite 
 
xii INTRODUCTION 
 
 and practical — that is, common-sense, and 
 quite realizable. A day-dream in which you 
 picture yourself merely as famous and illus- 
 trious is not an ideal — it is a foolish yearn- 
 ing after notoriety. 
 
 In your ideal, picture yourself as a sincere 
 and earnest Catholic, devoted to your coun- 
 try's welfare, kindly and chivalrous towards 
 all, "one who does not mind whose bundle 
 he carries providing he relieves some ach- 
 ing arm." Picture yourself as the kind of 
 man you would be justly proud to be — 
 the kind of man those who truly love you 
 would like you to be. If, as may well hap- 
 pen, you are to be a carpenter, a shop-keeper, 
 or a doctor, remember you must set your- 
 self to be a stanch Catholic and a true 
 American in your career as carpenter, shop- 
 keeper, or doctor. Aim at being a faithful 
 member of the parish Sodality, of the Tem- 
 perance Society, and of the St. Vincent de 
 Paul or other charitable society. Aim too, 
 at knowing the literature and history of 
 America. Study well your country and 
 your fellow-countrymen, not critically nor 
 captiously, but affectionately. Learn to love 
 all that is best in them. God has lavished 
 his gifts, his most splendid works of nature 
 
INTRODUCTION xiii 
 
 on America. Your rivers, forests, hills, and 
 plains surpass those of other countries. Be 
 proud of America as of your mother. Study 
 her social and economic problems, and play 
 a manly part in the nation's fight for the 
 amelioration of the poor. In your profes- 
 sion or business be honest, painstaking, pro- 
 gressive, and energetic. Take advantage of 
 the best and most scientific methods for 
 developing your enterprises. In fine, let your 
 ideal be practical as well as noble; definite 
 as well as beautiful. 
 
 You see now what is meant by an ideal 
 in life. It is the concrete embodiment of 
 high principles — it is an image which ex- 
 presses for us what our conduct should be. 
 Or, to put it more plainly, our ideal should 
 be such that, were we to describe it to one 
 who questioned us on our views of life and 
 duty, such a one would clearly see we held 
 high principles. 
 
 However, let us now recall to mind that it 
 is one thing to have a high ideal, and quite 
 another thing to live up to it. We often 
 see quite plainly what we should do, what 
 our ideal calls for from us, but alas! we neg- 
 lect to act as we ought. It is not enough 
 then to have an ideal — it is also necessary 
 
xiv INTRODUCTION 
 
 to have the power of conforming our lives 
 to that ideal. That power is possessed by 
 men of character — men whose lives are 
 dominated by high principles, by ideals. This 
 power of dominating our lives, which is 
 the basis of character, is nothing else than 
 Strength of Will, Without Will-power our 
 Ideals are vain and futile dreams. With- 
 out Will-power we cannot be true to our 
 Ideals, we cannot rule our conduct in con- 
 formity with them, we cannot become the 
 men we purpose to be. The Will alone, 
 assisted and inspired by God's grace, enables 
 us to direct the course of our lives, to shape 
 our destiny, to fashion and mold our con- 
 duct according to principles we cherish, so 
 that our lives may be bright lights to shine 
 before fellow-men. 
 
 For a moment I suppose that you have 
 fashioned for yourself your ideal, the clear 
 and definite image of what you would be 
 proud to be, of what Faith and Fatherland 
 call for from you. But now, turn your 
 eyes upon yourself as you are at the present 
 moment! How does your character stand .^ 
 Is your Will strong? Have you self-con- 
 trol .^^ Have you the power to make efforts, 
 energetic efforts, at the call of duty.'^ Can 
 
INTRODUCTION xv 
 
 you persevere in making such efforts? Are 
 you master of yourself? Can you control 
 your impulses and inclinations? Do you 
 yield easily to the attractions of pleasure? 
 Have you habits of which you are ashamed, 
 which you know are wrong? Are you weak 
 and cowardly at times, and afraid of what 
 others may say? Do you shrink from a 
 little physical pain? Ask yourself these 
 questions frankly, and you will know the 
 answer to the question, "Is your Will 
 strong?" 
 
 And, if you feel forced to confess that 
 your Will is weak, how are you going to live 
 up to your Ideal? How are you going to 
 dominate your life and conduct and make 
 yourself a living representation of your Ideal? 
 Is it not necessary for you to acquire more 
 Will-power so as to face the long and trying 
 struggle of life that lies before you? 
 
 Yes! you need more Strength of Will than 
 you possess at present. You need to per- 
 fect your Will, and to make it a powerful 
 instrument. You need to learn how to use 
 your Will aright, how to keep it in good trim, 
 and in a high state of efficiency. It is your 
 best and greatest possession, the most won- 
 derful thing you have. It is worth know- 
 
xvi INTRODUCTION 
 
 ing well, using well, and perfecting. It is 
 worth studying and training. It will repay 
 you better than you will be repaid by train- 
 ing your mind, or training your memory, 
 or training your hand to paint or to carve 
 or to strike music from a key -board. 
 
 And so to sum up what I have hitherto 
 said : Christ, your King, needs you — to be 
 a stanch Catholic; America, your country, 
 needs you — to be a true patriot; you can- 
 not obey these calls unless you perfect and 
 develop your Will. Without a strong Will 
 you lack that bold and confident manliness 
 which inspires men to answer, as I have 
 known a young Irish soldier to answer, such 
 questions as these: "Are you Irish?" "Yes! 
 thank God." "Are you a Catholic?" 
 "Rather!" Strength of Will, like a faithful 
 friend, will come to your help in every diffi- 
 culty. It will be with you through life's 
 long battle until the end. And when the 
 end comes, you will be able to say truly, in 
 every sense, 
 
 "Gladly I lived, and gladly I die. 
 And I lay me down with a WilW 
 
ne Will to TVin 
 
 A CALL TO CATHOLIC BOYS AND GIRLS 
 
The Will to Win 
 
 A CALL TO CATHOLIC BOYS AND GIRLS 
 
 SECTION I 
 THE WILL 
 
 N order to carry out some external task 
 we require, as you know, light to see 
 what we are doing, and strength to ac- 
 complish the work. Similarly for our inner, 
 spiritual tasks we require light and strength. 
 Now light is supplied to us by our Intellect, 
 for it sees, knows, understands, and strength 
 is given us by our Will, for it puts forth 
 effort, strives, and achieves. Without Will, 
 the Intellect would be a vain and useless 
 power of seeing visions and dreams; with- 
 out Intellect, the Will would be a blind force 
 struggling in darkness, beating the air. Both 
 Intellect and Will are therefore necessary, 
 but of the two powers the Will is supreme, 
 at least in practical matters, for while it can 
 refuse to follow the guidance of the Intel- 
 lect, the Intellect cannot refuse to show the 
 way when th^ Will commands. 
 
 3 
 
4 THE WILL TO WIN 
 
 The Will then is the source of our activ- 
 ity, the source of energy and effort. It com- 
 mands, controls, and calls into operation 
 all our faculties. It directs the intellect 
 to think, the memory to store up knowledge, 
 and the arms to labor. It is by natural 
 right the king and ruler of our soul and body. 
 It can tyrannize over our other faculties, 
 and force the hands to toil on, though they 
 are tired, and the mind to study on in spite 
 of weariness. It can make us dash to the 
 ground a cup of water even though we be 
 dying of thirst, and it can, if it be as strong 
 as it should be, reject the most alluring pleas- 
 ures, or the most well-deserved repose. 
 
 When the Intellect points out some course 
 of duty, however hard, the Will can brace 
 itself to the task of fulfilling it. And so 
 it is we hear wonderful stories of long and 
 painful labors undertaken and carried out 
 in spite of diflSculty and danger — voyages 
 to unknown lands or to Arctic regions — or 
 tales of scrupulous and heroic honesty. Such 
 a tale is that of a poor farmer who lost all 
 he had and incurred a debt of two thousand 
 dollars. This debt he set himself to pay 
 ofiF. He had a large family to support, and, 
 as he could earn only fifteen dollars a week. 
 
THE WILL 5 
 
 his savings were very small. Still he was 
 not discouraged, but for thirty years he con- 
 tinued to save up, and at last paid off his 
 debt in full. 
 
 The work that the Will has to do is harder 
 and more varied than that of any other 
 faculty. It is called on to work at every 
 minute of the day. In the morning, it is 
 the Will which forces us to rise from bed, in 
 spite of our inclination to sleep on. At 
 night it is the Will which makes us kneel 
 down, in spite of fatigue, to say our prayers. 
 All day long the Will is at work forcing us 
 to extend energy, to make efforts, to refuse 
 pleasures, to resist temptations, to suppress 
 our feelings. It is our supremely necessary 
 power, for without it we should be mere 
 animals, mere creatures of impulse and pas- 
 sion. With it we can reach great heights 
 of nobility, and accomplish deeds of won- 
 drous sublimity. We need but turn over 
 pages that tell of Christian martyrs to find 
 many examples — such, for instance, as that 
 of Magdalen, the Japanese martyr, who, 
 as she was being burned to death, gathered 
 up in her hands the red-hot coals and crowned 
 her brow with them, as though they were 
 roses. And this act, beyond question, was 
 
6 THE WILL TO WIN 
 
 a human act, an act of her Will, inspired and 
 aided by God's grace. 
 
 So far I have described the Will as a great 
 and wonderful power, but you will ask of 
 course, "Has every one such a Will as you 
 describe, and, if so, why is not every one able 
 to do great things?" Well, every one has 
 a Will, and every one has a certain amount 
 of Will-power, hut every one has not a strong 
 Will, and great deeds remain comparatively 
 rare ^precisely because men's Wills remain 
 weak. We possess, all of us, quite suffi- 
 cient Will-power to set ourselves with suc- 
 cess to the training and perfecting of our 
 Wills. Just as we possess sufficient Will- 
 power to train our bodies, and train our 
 minds, so we possess sufficient Will-power 
 to train our Wills. And when we do set 
 ourselves to train our Wills, they soon be- 
 come, as I hope to show later on, strong and 
 powerful. 
 
 It is well, even here, to remember that 
 the tasks of ordinary life, and in particular 
 religious duties, tend to train and develop 
 the Will. The constant discipline of school- 
 life, the laws and rules to be observed at 
 games, the unwritten code of gentlemanly 
 conduct towards friends and strangers — all 
 
THE WILL 7 
 
 this helps the Will to acquire power of 
 control. Then the duties, sacrifices, pen- 
 ances that our religion imposes on us, assist 
 us to self-mastery. We are taught to re- 
 strain our evil inclinations, and to make 
 efforts to imitate those who are good. We 
 are taught, too, to persevere in doing good 
 in spite of difficulties and we are shown 
 how to make and keep resolutions. God's 
 grace above all, won by prayer and the 
 Sacraments, inspires and strengthens the Will 
 and aids it to do its work well. Hence it is 
 that Will-training, so to say, should be some- 
 thing natural to Catholics. They have al- 
 ready learned the essentials of the method 
 — and their religion tends to make them 
 Will-heroes. Take, as an example, the story 
 of a little lad, dying in great pain, but not 
 allowing himself to utter a sob or a moan. 
 The kindly doctor who was seated by his 
 bedside asked him why he wasn't crying, 
 and told him to cry as it would do him good 
 and give him a little relief. But the brave 
 little fellow had other ideas. "Ah, no!" he 
 said, "I won't cry. Our Lord didn't cry on 
 the Cross." 
 
 While, however. Religion and the discipline 
 of ordinary life tend to train the Will, it is 
 
8 THE WILL TO WIN 
 
 our duty to use other and more direct means. 
 The Will is a natural faculty, and as such, 
 like the intellect or memory, it is to be de- 
 veloped and perfected by direct natural 
 means. The fact that prayer and medita- 
 tion tend to improve and train the intellect 
 does not justify men in neglecting other 
 means of training it. So too, the fact that a 
 virtuous life tends to train the Will is not a 
 justification for omitting direct Will-training. 
 We must then devote ourselves to devel- 
 oping and perfecting our wills by natural 
 methods, while at the same time we should 
 pray for Strength of Will, and use super- 
 natural means, as though all depended on 
 them. 
 
 It is a certain and consoling fact that the 
 Will can always be strengthened and im- 
 proved. This has been held and taught by 
 saints, ascetics, and by all sane psycholo- 
 gists. No matter how weak the Will may be, 
 no matter how inert and lifeless it may have 
 become through want of exercise, it can al- 
 ways be improved. Indeed, in this respect, 
 the Will is the most wonderful of our facul- 
 ties. With due training it grows strong, 
 and becomes very powerful. Its growth in 
 power is swifter than that of other faculties. 
 
THE WILL 9 
 
 and more certain. There is then no reason 
 for despair or discouragement even if the 
 Will be extremely weak. Of course im- 
 provement can only be secured at the price 
 of effort, but if the price is paid the improve- 
 ment will be obtained. 
 
 There are various maladies and faults of 
 Will which impair its efficiency. The two 
 chief maladies are hesitation and impetuos- 
 ity. In each case the symptoms are evi- 
 dent. They are contrary in character. If, 
 before a decision or choice, the Will is drawn 
 this way and that in painful oscillation, if 
 a feeling of helplessness, worry, inability to 
 choose is experienced, while opposing mo- 
 tives rapidly and interminably influence the 
 Will now to take one side, and now to take 
 the other, and if a sense of uncertainty and 
 depression takes possession of you, you 
 will recognize the presence of the first of these 
 maladies, hesitation. This hesitancy or in- 
 decision becomes habitual and destroys your 
 power of choosing or deciding on reasonable 
 grounds. Almost invariably it forces you 
 to make a haphazard, blind choice in order 
 to escape from your state of perplexity. 
 The symptoms of impetuosity are briefly 
 these — you find you make your choices. 
 
10 THE WILL TO WIN 
 
 even in important matters, almost before 
 you are conscious of it. You are swept 
 away at once by the first motive that pres- 
 ents itself vividly before your mind. You 
 are carried away by a restless impulse to act 
 at once. You do not deliberate calmly as you 
 should. You do not weigh and compare 
 motives in a reasonable, tranquil man- 
 ner. You choose or decide in a "devil- 
 may-care" way. You place no check on 
 your impulse to act, but allow your feelings 
 and sentiments to provoke your Will to 
 move, before the light of intellect is thrown 
 on the road. 
 
 Opposed alike to hesitation and impetuos- 
 ity, we have the good quality of decisiveness. 
 A decisive Will, unlike a hesitating Will, 
 chooses or resolves without undue and futile 
 deliberations or oscillations. Unlike an im- 
 petuous Will it refuses to act unless on clear 
 grounds, and for solid reasons. A decisive 
 Will can of course choose or resolve in a 
 very short time where there is question of 
 a principle, for it has already deliberated 
 upon this matter, and determined to hold 
 firmly to the principle at all costs and at all 
 times. It acts then with iron strength and 
 without a moment's delay. A resolute boy 
 
THE WILL 11 
 
 snaps out a "NoT' to temptation like the 
 crash of a hammer on an anvil. 
 
 Before concluding this section on the Will 
 there is a point to which it may be well to 
 call your attention. A strong-willed man is 
 not necessarily a good man. Many men, whose 
 lives were ill-spent, and who sought to do evil, 
 had strong Wills. The principles which domi- 
 nated their lives were false and bad principles. 
 But in this booklet written for you, American 
 boys, I take it for granted that you are pro- 
 tected from that possibility, because I am 
 sure that the principles which guide your lives, 
 which you have learned at school and from 
 your parents, are sound and good principles. 
 You know what justice and truth mean, 
 you know that at all times, and in all places, 
 "what is right is right, and what is wrong 
 is wrong," and that there the matter ends. 
 And so, assuming that your ideal is good and 
 true, it follows that for you Strength of 
 Will means virtue. The stronger your Will 
 is, the better you will be. The stronger 
 your Will is, the more good you will achieve, 
 and the truer you will be to Faith and 
 Country. 
 
SECTION II 
 
 TEE IMPORTANCE OF STRENGTH 
 OF WILL 
 
 N this Section, in order to bring more 
 concretely before your mind the Impor- 
 tance of Strength of Will, I make two 
 assumptions. First, I assume, as I have a 
 right to do, for it is admitted by all, that 
 "man's life on earth is a warfare." Secondly 
 I assume that you have, in accordance with 
 your ideal, chosen your side in that warfare, 
 the side of duty and of justice. 
 
 Life then is a war, a long and bitter strug- 
 gle, already begun for you. It is a battle 
 against clever, bitter, and unrelenting ene- 
 mies, enemies without and enemies within. 
 The fighting never ceases — at no place or 
 time in life is there a moment's truce. On 
 occasion it may seem that truce has been 
 declared, and that you are left unmolested, 
 but this appearance of peace is deceptive. 
 It is only a wile of your enemy. The strug- 
 gle all through is a life or death struggle 
 — it is not a matter about which you 
 
 12 
 
IMPORTANCE OF STRENGTH 13 
 
 may trifle — it is too real, too serious, too 
 momentous. 
 
 Since life is a warfare, since it is a battle 
 that must be won, a battle of terrible inten- 
 sity, it behooves you to prepare for it. You 
 must be ready, trained, fully armed, and 
 well prepared. You must be foreseeing. 
 You must be efficient in every respect. Un- 
 readiness, unpreparedness means defeat. You 
 must arm yourself with the best possible 
 instrument, you must learn its use thor- 
 oughly, and keep it in the best fighting trim. 
 If you do not avail yourself of the best 
 weapon, you will be unable to conquer. 
 If you do not know how to use this weapon, 
 or if you suffer it to get out of order, or if 
 you put it aside in disdain, you will likewise 
 be overcome. Now, as you will guess, the 
 best instrument for winning life's battle is 
 the Will, and no doubt you will agree that 
 you must perfect it, and perfect yourself in 
 its use. Surely then a Strong Will is of the 
 greatest importance. 
 
 It may seem strange to you that life should 
 be described as a long battle — and a fierce 
 battle. But when you reflect on it, you will 
 see that there is no exaggeration in all this. 
 Between right and wrong there is eternal 
 
14 THE WILL TO WIN 
 
 enmity; between the angels of light and the 
 angels of darkness, between duty and treach- 
 ery, between justice and injustice, between 
 truth and falsehood, the fight will rage to 
 the end of the world — "the kingdom of 
 heaven suffereth violence and the violent 
 only will bear it away." But even if life 
 be regarded from other points of view than 
 that of good and evil, you will also see what 
 a warfare it is. Can knowledge and wis- 
 dom be won without a long struggle .^^ Can 
 progress in art be won without much effort? 
 Can success in business or in the learned 
 professions be achieved without years of 
 thought and labor .^ Must not man's brow 
 be bathed many times in sweat before he 
 gains even the natural fruits of natural 
 toil? 
 
 In every walk of life we find that we must 
 fight a bitter fight in order to win — in things 
 spiritual as well as in things temporal. Even 
 for material success Strength of Will is nec- 
 essary. Our portion here below is work 
 and effort — and work and effort demand 
 Strength of Will. Above all, if life is to 
 be bright and happy, if we are to face diffi- 
 culties and failure with courage and light- 
 heartedness, if we are to lend a hand to help 
 
IMPORTANCE OF STRENGTH 15 
 
 others and to do so generously, we need to 
 have Strong Wills. 
 
 In earlier sections I pointed out that we 
 cannot fulfil our two supreme duties to God 
 and to our country unless we perfect our 
 characters, and I quoted the saying, well 
 worth remembering, "The only way to be a 
 patriotic American is to do your best to 
 become a perfect man." It may now be 
 well to consider more in detail the need of 
 perfecting our characters for our own sakes. 
 This need will perhaps best be seen by means 
 of a three-fold classification — showing three 
 different ways in which duties are faced, or 
 faults corrected. 
 
 The first class then is that of boys who 
 realize that they have some serious faults 
 and bad habits, and who see that there are 
 certain things which they ought to do, but 
 which they don't do. They are anxious 
 to get rid of their failings. They promise 
 themselves to correct them, but as it hap- 
 pens they never make any serious effort to 
 do so, and their faults and evil habits remain 
 and grow stronger. 
 
 The second class of boys have likewise 
 faults to correct and neglected duties to 
 fulfil. They desire very much to improve. 
 
16 THE WILL TO WIN 
 
 They make some efforts — but their efforts 
 are insufficient and their faults remain. 
 They are only half-hearted and half-serious 
 in their endeavors and of course they 
 fail. They fail as completely as the first 
 class. They too are weak-willed. 
 
 The third class of boys have also faults 
 and bad habits. They see clearly, as in- 
 deed the others see, that if they are to im- 
 prove they must make strong efforts. They 
 make really strong efforts and they succeed. 
 They mend their ways effectively. These 
 boys are strong-willed. 
 
 Now this classification, though it seems 
 dry and formal, is very true to nature. If 
 you think a little of your own manners of 
 facing duties or of getting rid of faults, you 
 will, I think, be able to find to which class 
 you belong. If you belong to the second class, 
 while you show signs of good will in mak- 
 ing some efforts, still you are likely, very 
 likely, to slip back into the first class and 
 give up making any efforts at all. 
 
 It may be well now to consider a little 
 what will happen later on — what kind of 
 man you are likely to become or rather are 
 certain to become if you remain in the first 
 or in the third class. And I think we may 
 
IMPORTANCE OF STRENGTH 17 
 
 assume that when you are a man you will 
 be in one of the two extreme classes — that 
 of the weak-willed, or that of the strong- 
 willed. Let us consider, first of all, the future 
 that lies before weak-willed men. 
 
 Are weak-willed men likely to be happy .^^ 
 Are they likely to succeed in life, or to do 
 good.^ Have they much hope of coming 
 out victors in life's long war.^^ Is it possi- 
 ble for them to lead honorable useful lives? 
 I think we must answer "No!" to each of 
 these questions. A weak-willed man shirks 
 most of his duties. He descends very soon 
 to falsehood and deceit. He indulges him- 
 self on almost every occasion, and gives 
 way to temptation. He does not try to 
 restrain his passions — he becomes intem- 
 perate and sensual. He cares little for the 
 interests of his Faith or of his country. And 
 he often betrays his friends. He is so sel- 
 fish that he is ready to betray any cause, 
 however noble, for personal ends. There is 
 no sense of honor in him. His example is 
 evil — or at least he is an object of contempt. 
 He enjoys no peace of soul, for he carries a 
 heavy burden on his conscience. He is a 
 coward at heart, and fears the opinions of 
 his fellow-men. He knows he is a failure 
 
18 THE WILL TO WIN 
 
 — and he is pointed at as such. He knows 
 that he is utterly defeated in Hfe's battle, 
 and that he has lived the life of a fool. 
 
 I have of course painted this picture in 
 strong colors, and it is perhaps somewhat 
 overdone. Still we have not to search far 
 in our own experience of life before we find 
 examples of men who have given way to 
 passion and quickly gone under, even though 
 perhaps they retained to the end some re- 
 deeming qualities. 
 
 Let us consider now the life of a good man 
 of Strong Will. Is his life likely to be happy .'^ 
 Is he likely to win true success and to do 
 good.f^ Will he conquer in the battle of life? 
 Will his life be useful and honorable .^^ Now 
 I think we must answer "Yes" to each of 
 these questions! A strong-willed man faces 
 his duties without shirking. He performs 
 them well and fully. He is not afraid to be 
 honest and truthful. He does not give way 
 to his passions. He checks and controls 
 them. He is not a pleasure-seeker, he avoids 
 self-indulgence. He is temperate, chaste, 
 and self -con trolled. He is faithful to his 
 friends, and keeps his promises. He sacri- 
 fices himself for his Faith and his country. 
 He is tenacious and persevering in carrying 
 
IMPORTANCE OF STRENGTH 19 
 
 out his resolutions. If he has some hard 
 or painful duty to perform, he faces it calmly 
 
 — he does not square his jaws, clench his 
 teeth and hands, and furrow his brow with 
 a diabolical frown like moving picture heroes. 
 He knows the Will is not helped by grimaces. 
 But he goes straight towards his object, 
 even though the road be rough, quietly, res- 
 olutely, and cheerfully. He knows his own 
 power. He is confident and self-reliant. He 
 is conscious of his influence over other men 
 
 — for Strength of Will gives a certain master- 
 fulness. But for all that, he does not bully 
 or override others, he respects others' rights 
 and feelings, and a quiet reasonableness char- 
 acterizes his conduct. His mind is at peace 
 for he is conscious that he does his duty. 
 He plays his part fearlessly and fights on to 
 the end, iron-willed in his determination to 
 win the battle of life and gain the victor's 
 crown. 
 
 Men of this strong-willed type are by no 
 means rare. They are to be found in every 
 town and village. Such are those men who 
 do their duty to the end, in the face of su- 
 preme sacrifice. "Tell my parents," said 
 a young French soldier dying before Ver- 
 dun, "that I die happy. I have never failed 
 
9,0 THE WILL TO WIN 
 
 to do my duty." "I have," wrote a young 
 Irish patriot to a friend, on the eve of his 
 execution, "I have, thank God, no vain 
 regrets. Whatever I have done, I have done 
 as a soldier of Ireland in what I believed to 
 be my country's best interests." To such 
 men, of resolute Will, death presents no 
 great terror. They freely choose to live up 
 to their ideals and they have the strength 
 to do so. 
 
 To sum up this section. We have seen 
 that life means warfare, and that it is a 
 matter of supreme importance for us to arm 
 ourselves with the best possible weapon, 
 namely an efficient and strong Will. We 
 have considered the pitiful results that fol- 
 low from weakness of Will in the life of the 
 individual, and the happy results that fol- 
 low from Strength of Will. Granted these 
 facts, it is for us to decide whether or not 
 it is important for us to have Strong Wills. 
 
SECTION III 
 TEE NEED OF WILL-TRAINING 
 
 N the last section we considered the im- 
 portance of having a Strong Will. Now 
 we must decide whether or not it is 
 necessary for us to undergo specific Will- 
 training in order to acquire Strength of Will. 
 
 As you know your faculty of Willing is a 
 natural faculty — just as natural as your 
 faculty of running, jumping, playing football, 
 playing the piano, painting, remembering, 
 imagining, or thinking out mathematical 
 problems. All these natural powers or 
 faculties require to be exercised and trained 
 before they become efficient. So also your 
 power of willing must be exercised and 
 trained before it becomes efficient. You 
 would regard it as very foolish to compete 
 in a running race or in a jumping competi- 
 tion without practise and training. You 
 regard it as quite reasonable to practise 
 kicking and passing, day after day, week 
 after week, in order to become good and 
 efficient at football. In like manner music, 
 
 21 
 
22 THE WILL TO WIN 
 
 painting, memorizing, solving problems re- 
 quire long periods of exercise and training 
 before much progress is made and before 
 efficiency is attained. So also in the matter 
 of Willing. The Will too needs much exer- 
 cise and training, and unless it gets this 
 exercise and training it remains weak and 
 inefficient. 
 
 You will observe that faculties are trained 
 in very different ways. You train for jump- 
 ing in one way and you train for music in 
 another. The way to train for football is 
 not the way to train for mathematics. So 
 also the way to train for Willing is not the 
 way to train for painting. The Will needs 
 its own specific training. 
 
 It is true of course that some men need 
 Will-training less than others — just as some 
 can compete successfully in a running race 
 after less training than others. But this 
 only means that in some the faculty of will- 
 ing or of running is stronger and naturally 
 more perfect than in others. Normally all 
 require Will-training and all can be improved 
 by it. 
 
 In these comparisons of other faculties 
 with the Will, there is one important dif- 
 ference to be noted and remembered. For 
 
NEED OF WILL-TRAINING 23 
 
 no man is it absolutely necessary to train 
 his faculty of running or painting or play- 
 ing music or solving mathematical prob- 
 lems. Men can go through life without ever 
 having to run a race or play a piece of music 
 or paint or solve a mathematical problem. 
 But as regards the faculty of Willing this 
 is not so. All men must face Will-contests 
 in life. All men are tried, and tempted, 
 and confronted with difficult duties. For 
 all men a strong Will is necessary, and on 
 all men it is incumbent in some way or other 
 to train their Wills. 
 
 There can be little doubt too that mod- 
 ern life, such especially as exists in America, 
 presents so many dangers and difficulties, 
 that a strong Will is an urgent necessity. 
 From your earliest days at School you have 
 been subjected to tests and trials and temp- 
 tations of various kinds — I do not mean 
 in moral matters merely, but in matters of 
 honor, courage, and endurance. Your games 
 test you, your studies test you, your loyalty 
 to your school is tested. You, American 
 Boys, enjoy liberty and independence which, 
 while it gives you a splendid opportunity 
 of showing grit and virtue, affords you also 
 opportunities of doing dishonorable things 
 
24 THE WILL TO WIN 
 
 without the danger of being punished. For 
 you, perhaps more than for boys of other 
 nations. Strength of Will is all-important 
 in early youth. It is of course supremely 
 important for all boys, but for you in partic- 
 ular it is important because you begin life 
 younger. 
 
 While still very young — those at least 
 of you who live in cities — you find your- 
 selves in the midst of intense activity, in a 
 rapidly moving, hustling stream of life in 
 which there seems little opportunity for quiet 
 reflection. The importance of "cZoingr" 
 things obscures the importance of 'thinking" 
 and ''praying.'' The urgency of the present 
 dulls the sound of the future's insistent call. 
 You feel it hard to prepare for the future, 
 since the present is so full, so attractive, so 
 engaging. You feel it hard to draw away 
 from the swift current of events, and quietly 
 make ready for the far-off, dim future. 
 And yet that is precisely what you must do. 
 You must train your character by strengthen- 
 ing your Will so that you may play a big part 
 and play it well later on. 
 
 You may ask, or rather perhaps it may be 
 necessary to point out clearly once again, 
 the part the Will plays in ordinary actions 
 
NEED OF WILL-TRAINING 25 
 
 of life, so that you may see the need of Will- 
 training more concretely. Let us take, for 
 instance, an experience that I am sure you 
 have often had, that of getting yourself to 
 plunge into the water from the end of a 
 spring-board on a cold day. An analysis 
 or introspection of what passes in the mind 
 on such occasions may interest you. 
 
 Let us suppose that we find ourselves 
 standing, on a rather cold evening, at the 
 end of a spring-board, prepared for a plunge. 
 We have come down to bathe, thinking it 
 would be nice and warm, and now it has 
 turned rather chilly. Something has to be 
 done, we cannot return without bathing, and 
 yet the water looks cold and uninviting. 
 We cross our arms, rub our shins together, 
 shiver a little, wish we were anywhere else, 
 and hesitate. 
 
 The task of plunging seems harder and 
 harder, the longer we hesitate. We know 
 that, and resolve to go in before very long 
 — but that very long is indefinite. The 
 thought of the coldness of the water, and 
 of the shock of the first contact, holds 
 us back. A certain inertia takes possession 
 of us and we find it hard to take action. 
 We feel the board under our feet, and the 
 
26 THE WILL TO WIN 
 
 wind which tosses our hair. We see and 
 hear things very distinctly and yet we take 
 little interest in what we see or hear. At 
 the focus of consciousness is the thought 
 — "I must after all go in." We know that 
 if we brace up our Wills to the task — if we 
 will to will — that we shall be able to plunge 
 in; but we refuse to will to will — we don't 
 want to put that constraint on ourselves. It 
 seems too cruel. 
 
 Meanwhile things are getting worse and 
 coming to a climax. We feel colder. The 
 task seems harder. But the necessity of 
 action is more and more stringent. We are 
 gradually, although unconsciously, and seem- 
 ingly against our Will, being moved for- 
 ward. We are tending closer and closer 
 towards the climax. Little now separates 
 us from our fate. The Will is no longer af- 
 fected very much by motives for or against. 
 Force of habit now decides all. For a mo- 
 ment our eyes rest on the water, the image 
 of ourselves swimming about grows more 
 and more realistic. A momentary "blank- 
 ness" seems to pass across the surface of 
 consciousness. We become aware that an 
 effort has just been made — and that our 
 toes are kicking away from the board — we 
 
NEED OF WILL-TRAINING 27 
 
 are now plunging into the water and the 
 Will-act is over. 
 
 You will see from this analysis or intro- 
 spection how little things sway and move the 
 Will, and how helpless and dependent on 
 little circumstances we are if we have not a 
 resolute Will, and a clear purpose before us. 
 
 It is well for you to bear in mind that 
 you are not merely an individual, you are 
 also a child of the nation. If the nation 
 as a whole is to be decisive, earnest, thor- 
 ough, the individuals must first of all be such. 
 If the nation is to have a high "morale," to 
 have a strong national "Will to Win," to 
 have a lofty moral tone, the individuals, 
 the children of the nation, must first of all 
 be strong and healthy-willed. The spirit 
 of the nation is the spirit of the nations^ sons. 
 The spirit of the Catholic Church in America 
 is the spirit of her children. If, as I trust, 
 you mean to be good citizens and thorough 
 Catholics, and if, as a consequence, you mean 
 to be useful to your Faith and Fatherland, 
 your first and chief need is to have a Strong 
 Will, improved by God's grace, and this 
 Strong Will is to be won by paying the price, 
 by training your Will! 
 
SECTION IV 
 RESOLUTIONS 
 
 "RESOLUTION" as you know is 
 an act of the Will whereby you set 
 yourself to achieve something. You 
 resolve, for instance, to go to early Mass 
 every day for a week. You propose, prom- 
 ise yourself, and make up your mind to do 
 so. You mean to do it, and you commit 
 yourself to this course of action. You make 
 a contract with yourself to do it, and you 
 feel in consequence under an obligation to 
 do it. That course of action has now a 
 certain claim upon you. If you neglect to 
 fulfil your promise you are conscious of a 
 certain unworthiness, or even of dishonor. 
 The course of action resolved on calls for 
 fulfilment — you have promised, and you 
 feel that you should make good your under- 
 taking. The promise, or contract you make 
 with yourself, about achieving something, is 
 the first part of the Resolution — the mak- 
 ing. The actual fulfilling of the promise 
 is the second part of the Resolution — the 
 
 28 
 
RESOLUTIONS 29 
 
 keeping. This too is an act or series of acts 
 of the Will, wherein the Will, as master of 
 mind and body, calls upon and commands 
 the other faculties to perform the work 
 stipulated. This power of making and keep- 
 ing Resolutions is one of the most important 
 powers we have. Here the Will performs 
 a great function; it directs and controls 
 our conduct; it decides our future. It 
 is responsible for that conduct which it 
 decides on and brings into being, and so 
 it is, in a sense, a creator. If it produces 
 what is good, we are virtuous. If it pro- 
 duces what is evil, we are bad. If it faith- 
 fully carries out the Resolutions it makes, 
 it is strong. If it fails to carry out such res- 
 olutions, it is weak. Its ability to keep 
 Resolutions is its supreme test, and hence 
 the man who "keeps his word," and is "faith- 
 ful to" or "sticks to" his principles is the 
 most honorable of men. 
 
 From these remarks you will see that a 
 Resolution is a very serious matter. It con- 
 cerns us vitally. It tests and tries us. It 
 is of deep significance. It is the most "sa- 
 cred" of our natural acts, in so far as natu- 
 ral acts can be "sacred." It is not a thing 
 to trifle with. If we make and break Res- 
 
30 THE WILL TO WIN 
 
 olutions carelessly and lightly we injure 
 our Will — we undermine its strength, we 
 lessen, so. to say, its dignity, and we degrade 
 it. A Resolution should be made well, or not 
 at all. It should only be made after care- 
 ful thought, and with deep earnestness. It 
 should be kept with rigorous exactitude. 
 We should not make Resolutions that may 
 be perhaps beyond our strength. If we do 
 we run the risk of failure, and failure is in- 
 jurious to the Will. We must secure a victory 
 every time in every Resolution, 
 
 Let us now suppose, in order to study a 
 little the art of making and keeping Resolu- 
 tions, that we set ourselves to overcome a 
 habit of unpunctuality. That is what the 
 Will sets itself to achieve. Now, how are 
 we to go about the work.^ How are we to 
 make the necessary Resolution well, and to 
 secure success.^ First of all we must for- 
 mulate the Resolution. 
 
 To formulate the Resolution thus, "I will 
 never be late for a duty," would be to court 
 failure. Such a resolution would be too 
 vague, too great, and too difficult. We must 
 render it definite, small, and well within 
 our powers. Perhaps this would do. "I 
 will never be late for important duties." 
 
RESOLUTIONS 31 
 
 Even that is too vague and too great. Divide 
 et impera! Take the matter in parts and 
 conquer the parts one by one. So let us 
 resolve about punctuality in one impor- 
 tant duty. "I will get up at once when 
 called in the morning." That is now suffi- 
 ciently precise and it will strike hard at 
 one of our faults of unpunctuality. Still 
 we can render it more definite by means of 
 a time limit. And so we resolve thus, ''Each 
 day, for the next ten days, I will get up at 
 once when called in the morning.'^ 
 
 So far we have merely formulated or drawn 
 up the Resolution. It must now be made 
 by the Will as earnestly as possible. It will 
 not suffice merely to say it over a few times 
 and to memorize it. The whole Will with 
 all its force and energy must, so to speak, 
 be hurled into the Resolution. I must make 
 it as firmly and seriously as if my life de- 
 pended on it. Again and again, every day, 
 I must make it in this manner. I must 
 strive to secure that success will be abso- 
 lutely certain, almost inevitable. I must 
 make my Resolution part of myself, and 
 identify myself wholly with it. I must be 
 able to say, "Yes, before God, I really mean 
 to get up every morning, at once, when I 
 
32 THE WILL TO WIN 
 
 am called for the next ten mornings. I 
 will keep this Resolution. I know I can 
 keep it and I will keep it. I will take every 
 precaution to keep it, and I will make any 
 sacrifice that reason demands in order to 
 render its fulfilment certain." 
 
 So far we have described the part of the 
 Will in the Resolution, but the intellect too 
 at the command of the Will plays its part. 
 The intellect is the light that illuminates. 
 It ponders over the uses and advantages of 
 punctuality and proposes new motives to 
 elicit a stronger determination in the Will. 
 It throws new light on the object resolved 
 on by the Will and renders it more attractive. 
 It exposes the fallacies of hostile motives 
 and maintains by its reasoning the sense 
 of conviction. 
 
 Next, in the making as in the keeping of a 
 Resolution, we must solicit help from heaven. 
 Above all we need God's grace. We must 
 pray then for the grace to be faithful to the 
 Resolution, remembering that the attain- 
 ment of punctuality and the mastery over 
 ourselves in this matter will count for God's 
 glory and our own salvation. We even go 
 so far as to offer little acts of self-denial, 
 or undergo some trifling self-inflicted pain. 
 
RESOLUTIONS 33 
 
 in order to win the desired grace, and to in- 
 tensify the seriousness of our Resolution. 
 
 Resolutions made in this thorough way 
 are certain of success — provided always 
 they be well within our strength and that 
 we keep up our efforts to the end. The 
 making of a Resolution thus passes imper- 
 ceptibly into the keeping of a Resolution, 
 for we go on making and reiterating it until 
 it is fulfilled. When at last it is fulfilled to 
 the letter we experience a splendid sense of 
 satisfaction, of duty well done, and of self- 
 confidence. We realize, at such a moment, 
 the meaning and the value of Will-power. 
 We realize fully that we have within us a 
 great power, and that there are things, even 
 hard things, that we can do, if only we set 
 ourselves to do them. 
 
 I suppose then that you have acquired 
 the power of getting up at once when called 
 in the morning. This is a first and impor- 
 tant step towards acquiring the virtue of 
 punctuality. Other similar steps should now 
 be taken in due order — resolution should 
 follow resolution, each directed towards a 
 different part of the virtue, each well made 
 and duly fulfilled — until at length the vir- 
 tue as a whole is acquired. This, of course, 
 
34 THE WILL TO WIN 
 
 will take time, and demand perseverance, 
 but it will involve nothing beyond your 
 strength. 
 
 These are now a few points, which I shall 
 summarize briefly, and which it is well to 
 bear in mind. Some of them are repetitions 
 of points already noted. 
 
 (1) The Resolution should always be def- 
 
 inite, limited in scope, and well within 
 our power. 
 
 (2) Careful consideration should precede each 
 
 Resolution. It must not be hastily 
 formulated. It should be carefully 
 chosen, and well directed towards an 
 important point of the object to be 
 achieved. 
 
 (3) The malcing and keeping of the Resolu- 
 
 tion depends wholly on yourself. In 
 this matter the burden falls on your 
 own shoulders, and no one can bear 
 it for you. Some help may however 
 be obtained from advice in the mat- 
 ter of formulating your Resolution. 
 
 (4) Resolutions demand a great output of 
 
 effort. Effort is the price you must 
 be prepared to pay for success. If 
 the price is not paid, success will not 
 be secured. 
 
RESOLUTIONS 35 
 
 (5) If through weakness or passing care- 
 
 lessness or misadventure we fail in a 
 Resolution, let us suppose on the third 
 or fourth day, the Resolution must 
 not be abandoned. It is still there 
 and it calls still for fulfilment. We 
 must at once remake and reiterate 
 it with redoubled energy, and we must 
 persevere in it until the stipulated 
 time is up. If the first lapse or fail- 
 ure meant that ipso facto the Resolu- 
 tion ceased to exist, we should be 
 working on the absurd assumption that 
 our Resolution was only to be kept 
 until it was broken ! 
 
 (6) Some Resolutions, those for instance 
 
 which aim at avoiding a moral fault, 
 something bad in itself, must of course 
 be kept absolutely. They are abso- 
 lute and do not admit of exceptions or 
 conditions. We must keep them even 
 at the expense of displeasing those 
 we love. Other Resolutions however 
 are not absolute, and so, without harm, 
 they may be conditioned. They ad- 
 mit of exceptions. An example will 
 make this clear. Suppose, for in- 
 stance, a boy resolves to go to early 
 
36 THE WILL TO WIN 
 
 Mass every day during vacation. Now 
 it may happen that during vacation 
 he catches a bad cold. However he 
 resolves all the same to get up and 
 go to Mass. When he is getting up, 
 his mother comes in and says, "No! 
 you must stay in bed to-day." What 
 is he to do? If his mother really in- 
 sists, and he sees there is question of 
 obedience, then evidently his duty is 
 to obey. But does this break his 
 Resolution .f^ Surely not! His Resolu- 
 tion, if it was properly formulated, 
 carried with it at least the implicit 
 condition, "I will go to early Mass, 
 etc., unless it is my duty not to do so. 
 In all such matters we must obey 
 right reason. 
 (7) Resolutions I said should be definite, 
 limited, and well within our power. 
 What then of big, heroic Resolutions? 
 Are they never to be made? Well, 
 some Resolutions though apparently 
 very big are well within our power. 
 They are shown to be quite possible 
 by the example of other men who 
 make them. Take, for instance, the 
 Resolution to abstain from all intoxi- 
 
RESOLUTIONS 37 
 
 eating liquors during our whole lives. 
 This Resolution we call the "Heroic 
 Offering" or the "Pledge for Life." 
 It is of course a gigantic Resolution, 
 and it seems contrary to all our rules 
 to attempt such a Resolution. Still 
 strangely enough it is not so. It is 
 well within our powers. It is defi- 
 nite, precise, and limited in many ways. 
 Besides, it is shown to be quite possi- 
 ble by the example of others who make 
 and keep it. Also it carries with it 
 great graces, and a great inspiration 
 — it means so much good for our 
 Faith and our Fatherland — and so 
 we need not be at all afraid to make 
 it. 
 (8) The good results achieved by Resolu- 
 tions are very wonderful. Whole lives 
 have been changed for the better by 
 well-made and well-kept Resolutions. 
 Often the good results seem to come 
 very slowly, but they come very surely. 
 In the morning the mountain-top in 
 the distance that you mean to reach, 
 seems very far away, and each step 
 that you take as you walk towards it 
 is a very tiny advance. Yet by mid- 
 
38 THE WILL TO WIN 
 
 day, or a little later, you find yourself 
 on the summit and you are astonished 
 when you think of the distance that 
 stretched before you that morning. 
 So too, by fidelity to your Resolutions, 
 you will achieve very remarkable re- 
 sults, results as remarkable, for in- 
 stance, as that of learning thoroughly 
 a difficult language by devoting to it 
 five or ten minutes a day. 
 
SECTION V 
 A METHOD OF WILL-TRAINING 
 
 E have seen that the Will needs 
 to be trained like other natural 
 faculties, such as the faculties 
 of running, jumping, painting, remember- 
 ing, and reasoning. Now as the one and 
 only way to train a natural faculty is by 
 judiciously and methodically exercising it, 
 we may conclude that the Will is to be trained 
 by judicious and methodical exercise. The 
 Will then must submit to the methodical 
 repetition of some Will-act, in order to gain 
 strength and efficiency — just as a champion 
 runner must again and again cover his course 
 before he is in perfect training. Now the 
 Will-act that is most suitable for repeti- 
 tion, and which best exercises the Will, is a 
 Resolution, well made and kept. In Res- 
 olutions the Will has to will strongly, to 
 make efforts, to exert self-control, and to 
 persevere. Indeed, a Resolution embraces 
 every activity of the Will, and though in 
 
40 THE WILL TO WIN 
 
 theory it might be better to choose some less 
 complex Will-act, still in practise it will be 
 found that a Resolution is the best exer- 
 cise for Will-training. A Resolution well 
 made and well kept braces up the Will, and 
 gives it a healthy tone. If another Resolu- 
 tion follows, the good condition of the Will 
 is maintained and improved, and so on. 
 Meanwhile the Will grows in strength and 
 so to say works more freely and more easily. 
 It makes efforts with greater readiness, and 
 puts more strength into them. It controls 
 impulses with greater ease and decisiveness. 
 According as the Will improves a sense of 
 power is experienced which makes us more 
 confident, and more masterful in our self- 
 control. 
 
 Now, what we aim at in this section is 
 the suggesting of a method for carrying out 
 well-ordered Will-exercises. Isolated Will- 
 acts though good in themselves are wholly 
 insufficient for Will-training. Occasional acts 
 of self-denial will not train the Will al- 
 though they have a good effect. Will- 
 training must be thoroughly methodical. It 
 must also be thoroughly serious. Exer- 
 cises done in a half-hearted or careless way 
 will do no good. The exercises must be 
 
METHOD OF WILL-TRAINING 41 
 
 done seriously, they must evoke effort, and 
 they must be undergone with regularity. 
 These three notes (1) efort, (2) regularity, 
 and (3) seriousness must characterize the 
 exercises. No fear need be entertained as 
 to ultimate success. If the Will is exercised 
 it must improve. That is the law of all 
 natural faculties. About success there need 
 be no misgiving, and so the exercises should 
 be undertaken hopefully and confidently. 
 
 There are two Will-qualities in particular 
 which we must at first aim at winning — 
 
 (1) Power to resist impulse. 
 
 (2) Power to make efforts. 
 
 We have, of course, already in some small 
 degree these qualities; unless we had them 
 we could not train our Wills, for Will-power 
 is needed to train Will. But we have them 
 in small quantity and in poor condition. We 
 must aim then (1) at having power to resist 
 calmly and decisively, even the strongest 
 impulses, and (2) we must aim at being 
 able to make at all times and places really 
 powerful Will-efforts. 
 
 The exercises then will aim firstly at train- 
 ing the Will to resist impulses, arising from 
 natural tendencies or aroused by outside 
 
42 THE WILL TO WIN 
 
 attractions. If, for example, when very 
 hungry and thirsty you sit down to dinner 
 and you set yourself to eat and drink very 
 slowly and quietly, suppressing all quick 
 movements, or if you decide to drink only 
 half as much as usual in spite of your thirst, 
 and to eat less than usual in spite of your 
 hunger, you will be performing an exercise 
 of the kind required. In the second place 
 the exercises will aim at training the Will to 
 make efforts in spite of disinclination and 
 even pain. If, for example, when very tired 
 and weary you go to your room, but instead 
 of sitting or lying down to rest you deliber- 
 ately set yourself to arrange very carefully 
 your books and furniture, picking up pieces 
 of paper from the floor, and dusting your 
 table and chairs, and perhaps taking your 
 clothes from drawers and carefully brush- 
 ing and folding them, all in spite of your 
 fatigue and weariness, you would be per- 
 forming an exercise of the kind required in 
 the second case. 
 
 These examples of exercises will suggest 
 to you many others, and indeed there is no 
 limit to the number of such exercises. In 
 connection with your meals, your prayers, 
 your studies, your work, your school-rules. 
 
METHOD OF WILL-TRAINING 43 
 
 your habits of dress or conversation, many- 
 such exercises can be devised. There are 
 other exercises too of a different type, and 
 technically better suited for Will-training, of 
 which I will speak later. For the moment 
 it may be best to describe the necesssary 
 preliminaries of Will-training. 
 
 In order to do exercises methodically it 
 will be necessary to have a note-book and 
 to record day by day the fulfilment of the 
 daily task. Also it is well to be able to re- 
 cord the time spent each day at the exercise, 
 and so a watch is useful. The task will 
 consist in the keeping of a Resolution, made 
 in the way we have described in the last 
 section. It should run for, say, ten days. 
 At the end of ten days another Resolu- 
 tion is made and another series of tasks 
 begins. 
 
 Now as regards the noting down of the 
 Resolution and of the fulfilment of the daily 
 task, the following system may perhaps be 
 found useful and a page of your note-book 
 recording a task might run thus. 
 
44 
 
 THE WILL TO WIN 
 
 Task No. 10 
 Exercise in Controlling Impulsiveness 
 
 ^ n 
 
 Each day for the next ten days I will, slowly and 
 
 ^■S 
 
 deliberatelyt drop into this box, one by one, a hun- 
 
 cS^ 
 
 dred bits of paper. 
 
 No. 1 
 
 10/6/1916 
 
 Task lasted from 
 
 2 p.m. to 2. 8 p.m. 
 
 2 
 
 11 " 
 
 
 
 9 a.m. to 9. 7| a.m. 
 
 3 
 
 12 " 
 
 
 
 10 a.m. to 10. 8| a.m. 
 
 4 
 
 13 *• 
 
 
 
 4 p.m. to 4. 9 p.m. 
 
 5 
 
 14 " 
 
 
 
 7 p.m. to 7. 8| p.m. 
 
 6 
 
 15 " 
 
 
 
 2.30 p.m. to 2.38 p.m. 
 
 7 
 
 16 " 
 
 
 
 9.15 a.m. to 9.22^ a.m. 
 
 8 
 
 17 " 
 
 
 
 11.15 a.m. to 11.22 a.m. 
 
 9 
 
 18 * 
 
 
 
 11 a.m. to 11. Sam. 
 
 10 
 
 19 " 
 
 
 
 10.30 a.m. to 10.37| a.m. 
 
 Notes on the Task. — Task faithfully ac- 
 complished. Found it a good exercise for 
 controlling the impulse I felt to go quickly. 
 I had to overcome impatience and feeling 
 of weariness. I felt my Will was really 
 exercised and "braced up." I came to real- 
 ize a bit that the Will is a power which 
 gets things done according to a predeter- 
 mined way. 
 
 Notes should be written at the end of the 
 task referring to the way the task was done 
 and to the feelings, etc., experienced, and as 
 to whether or not the task was a good one 
 
METHOD OF WILL-TRAINING 45 
 
 for the end in view. A useful exercise may 
 perhaps be repeated later on. 
 
 Now briefly the system of Will-training 
 which I suggest to you is this. First of all 
 choose some task, not a hard one, but still 
 one which requires some little effort and some 
 little sacrifice. Next formulate your Reso- 
 lution in the manner described. Make it 
 very firmly and very earnestly. Put as 
 much will-force as you can into it, and write 
 it out in your note-book as above. Then 
 fulfil the Resolution faithfully, noting the 
 time of fulfilment in your note-book each 
 day. When your first task is finished go 
 on to another. Choose one if possible just 
 a little bit harder — at least not less hard 
 than the previous one, and make and fulfil 
 your Resolution as before. Make this sys- 
 tem a part of your day's work and it will 
 secure for you at least one true Will-exer- 
 cise every day. By this means your Will 
 must increase in strength and efficiency. 
 And when in due time your tasks are fairly 
 difficult and demand a fairly serious Will- 
 effort, you will see very clearly what prog- 
 ress you have made. Meanwhile your 
 perseverance in continuing your daily Will- 
 exercise will be itself of inestimable value 
 
46 THE WILL TO WIN 
 
 in winning for you that all-important Will- 
 quality of doggedness and tenacity of pur- 
 pose. Great patience is required and it 
 would be very foolish to choose difficult 
 tasks at first. What you need above all, 
 and what will do your Will most good, 
 is quiet perseverance in undertaking some 
 little but real Will-exercise every day. 
 
 I will now suggest to you various little 
 acts which you may find suitable for the 
 subject of your exercises — they are con- 
 nected in turn with Spiritual Duties, Disci- 
 pline and Work, Meals, etc. 
 (a) Some additional morning or evening 
 prayers; Stations of the Cross daily; 
 a chapter of a Kempis to be read 
 slowly daily; kneeling without cush- 
 ions; praying with arms outstretched; 
 using Holy Water with great rever- 
 ence; kneeling all through Mass, etc. 
 (h) Getting up at once when called in 
 the morning; punctuality in going to 
 lessons; accuracy in memory lessons; 
 silence in class; observance of school 
 bounds or library rules, etc. 
 (c) Drink half usual amount of tea or milk, 
 or eat half usual amount of butter or 
 meat; eat the first few mouthfuls 
 
METHOD OF TRAINING- WILL 47 
 
 at meals very slowly; take less of 
 some dish that you like; do without 
 sweets, etc. 
 (d) Dress, etc. with utmost tidiness; cor- 
 rect faults of manner; don't put your 
 hands in your pockets; don't jeer or 
 laugh at others; play up well at 
 games you don't like; don't try to 
 get your favorite place at recreation; 
 great neatness in doing your work; 
 salute superiors politely, etc. 
 These points may suggest tasks. The 
 task chosen should be very definite and con- 
 tinued for ten days. It should not be too 
 hard nor so easy as not to cost any effort. 
 There is now another type of exercise 
 which is in reality better adapted to Will- 
 training. These exercises resemble exercises 
 undergone to develop for instance the fac- 
 ulty of playing music. To become good 
 at music you exercise your fingers according 
 to, say, the Virgil Clavier system. You 
 concentrate your mind on one thing at a 
 time, namely, free rhythmic movements of 
 the fingers. Or to take an example from 
 football training, you run up and down a 
 field passing a ball from one to another. 
 Here you devote yourself to a simple ele- 
 
48 THE WILL TO WIN 
 
 ment of football, namely^ catching neatly 
 and passing accurately. You eliminate all 
 the ordinary features of the game in order 
 to exercise yourself and to become profi- 
 cient in one element of the game. The use 
 of head-line copy-books for learning the art 
 of writing is another example of specialized 
 training. Here all the ordinary elements of 
 writing, forming sentences, etc. are eliminated 
 save only one, that of the exact forma- 
 tion of letters and words. Now in Will- 
 exercises a similar method can be adopted.^ 
 We can set ourselves Will-tasks where only 
 one feature of the Will-tasks of ordinary 
 life remains. All the other elements are 
 eliminated, and we devote ourselves to one 
 thing alone. Take, for instance, the follow- 
 ing task — to turn over one by one slowly 
 and deliberately one hundred pages of a 
 book. This task exercises the Will in con- 
 trolling impatient and impulsive movements. 
 It is in itself a very trivial, and, at least ex- 
 ternally, a silly occupation. But the point 
 to notice is that by it you get exactly what 
 you want, namely an exercise in self-control. 
 Everything else is eliminated, and the Will, 
 
 ^ As far as possible to eliminate distracting elements. 
 
METHOD OF WILL-TRAINING 49 
 
 undistracted and unfettered, sets itself to 
 repress impulsiveness. 
 
 Exercises of this kind can easily be found. 
 I suggest a few obvious ones, and recom- 
 mend you to make them the matter of your 
 Resolutions and Will-tasks.^ 
 (a) Exercises in Self-control. — To drop, 
 one by one, slowly and deliberately 
 into a box a hundred bits of paper. 
 To stand on a chair contentedly with 
 arms outstretched for five minutes. 
 To write out, with great care, twenty 
 times, "I will train my Will." To 
 swing your arms very slowly and de- 
 liberately for five minutes. To count 
 aloud very slowly up to one hundred, etc. 
 (6) Exercises in Making Efforts. — To 
 take out and replace your boot laces 
 quietly but resolutely five times. Sim- 
 ilarly, to get up and down off a 
 chair twenty times. To copy out ten 
 items from a dictionary accurately, 
 quietly, and energetically. To watch 
 a clock for ^yq minutes, making some 
 sharp energetic movement every quar- 
 ter minute, etc. 
 
 * These exercises should also be continued for ten days, like 
 those given above, and should be carried out in the same manner. 
 
50 THE WILL TO WIN 
 
 These exercises are of course useless un- 
 less the Will is called into play, that is, un- 
 less it is employed energetically in Willing 
 during the task. The mere external act 
 that the task calls for is itself of no use what- 
 ever. What is important is that the Will 
 should be exercised. Other similar tasks can 
 be devised, by means of common objects 
 such as pencils, buttons, pins, matches, etc. 
 
SECTION VI 
 PRACTICAL REFLECTIONS 
 
 SUPPOSE for a moment that you have 
 read this booklet thus far with some in- 
 terest, and that you are ready to admit 
 that "it would be a good thing to train the 
 Will." But I also seem to hear you saying 
 "All the same, this is not the sort of thing 
 for a fellow like me. I couldn't keep it up. 
 I'm not made that way and I hate that kind 
 of thing." And further I picture to my- 
 self that you are looking forward to exams., 
 and games, and holidays — that perhaps you 
 are "fed up" with school-life and school- 
 regulations, and that you have a lot of things 
 and prospects of your own in your head. 
 In fine I'm sure you are not "on" for Will- 
 training just now. 
 
 Well, even in our busiest or most thought- 
 less and gayest moods there is somewhere, 
 some small corner of our hearts, where the 
 voice of good-sense gets a tearing. And 
 
 61 
 
52 THE WILL TO WIN 
 
 so I appeal in that direction and I do so 
 frankly. 
 
 "Because this business of Will-training is 
 wearisome and uninteresting you are not 
 going in for it. That is what you mean, 
 is it not? You prefer to take your chances 
 in life 'with your Will as it is/ and you don't 
 want to start tinkering at yourself! You 
 prefer to follow the beaten track, may I 
 say the broad way, and to leave such special 
 enterprises to saints and idealists. Other 
 men, you would say, have got on well enough 
 without Will-training, and there seems no 
 special reason why you should not get on 
 as well as they. You want to have a good 
 time, while of course doing your duty pretty 
 well, and not to be bothered by cranks." 
 
 Have I put your case fairly.^ If so, will 
 you hear my reply .^^ 
 
 You seem to be forgetting, just now, in 
 your present mood, thoughts that come to 
 you at other times, in your best moods; 
 thoughts that come to you when you read or 
 hear about good and brave deeds done, and 
 heroic sacrifices made. At such times you 
 feel you would like to do something big for 
 your country and for your Faith. You even 
 
PRACTICAL REFLECTIONS 53 
 
 resolve to imitate the patriotism or the 
 virtue of the hero you heard about. Some- 
 times too when you read the history of your 
 country — that long story of splendid effort 
 and sacrifice — you feel yourself deeply 
 stirred and you would be ready, if asked at 
 that moment, to give your life for America. 
 Is it not so.^ Have you not felt it.^^ Often, 
 too, after a good confession when your heart 
 feels light and full of hope and gladness, 
 and when, perhaps with a blush of shame, 
 you think of what you have been, you resolve 
 very earnestly to be better and to give up 
 evil habits or evil companions. Or perhaps 
 you have been touched more than once by 
 some words of your father or mother, when 
 you had grieved them by something you did. 
 Then you promised to do better and to work 
 hard in future. Perhaps too you have felt 
 your ambition stirred by the example of 
 some one whom you know, and who by 
 great industry and skill has made his way 
 in life, and is now wealthy and influential. 
 Thinking of him, you perhaps made up your 
 mind to strive hard to improve yourself and 
 to win for your father and mother comfort 
 in their old age. 
 
 Certainly, at various times of your life 
 
54 THE WILL TO WIN 
 
 you have set before yourself noble purposes 
 and big projects. The difficulties before you 
 were made little of. You would do some- 
 thing great, so you resolved. And thus, 
 consciously or unconsciously, you have al- 
 ways carried in your heart an ideal — and 
 you carry it still — and always in your best 
 moods, and at your best moments you re- 
 turn to it and cherish it again. But alas! 
 you have not as yet set yourself to work to 
 prepare yourself for the winning of your ideal. 
 You know that if you look into your heart 
 you will find there weaknesses and failings 
 which block your way. You know you have 
 not as yet the Strength of Will necessary 
 to be a great Catholic or a great American. 
 And now — do you remember.^ — just a 
 few moments ago you were saying that you 
 wouldn't and couldn't take the steps that 
 are surely needed. The steps that will make 
 you strong of Will and noble in character! 
 "It would be too uninteresting — too weari- 
 some" you said. But what if it is wearisome.f^ 
 if it does cost.^* — is it not still worth the labor 
 and worth the pain? 
 
 Well, think it over again. Remember this 
 may be a turning point in your life. Re- 
 
PRACTICAL REFLECTIONS 55 
 
 member that nothing very hard is asked of 
 you — only a little methodical self-sacrifice 
 — a resolution of small compass, well made 
 and well kept, and then another and another, 
 and so on till your Will is strong and stanch. 
 It is not much in itself, and yet it will mean 
 so much for Faith and Country. Not much 
 in itself and yet if left undone it may mean 
 one more tragedy, "for this," as a recent 
 writer has said, "for this I call a tragedy, 
 that a man should die who might have been 
 wise and was not." 
 
SECTION VII 
 TEE WILL AND HABIT 
 
 T is true that in general we are crea- 
 tures of habit. We walk, talk, work, eat, 
 write according to habits we have formed, 
 when or how we no longer remember. We 
 derive great advantage from habits because 
 in virtue of them we can do things easily 
 and quickly. We are indeed a mass of 
 habits, "imitators and copiers of our past 
 selves." Some of the habits we have ac- 
 quired are very complex and wonderful. 
 Some habits we acquired with difficulty and 
 others with great ease. Some habits we 
 gained unconsciously or almost involun- 
 tarily, some with full deliberation. It is 
 of the latter that I wish now to speak, and 
 especially of those which are both voluntary 
 and evil. 
 
 It is, we know, easy to acquire an evil 
 habit and very hard to get rid of one. The 
 first time we performed the evil act that 
 eventually became a habit we brought about 
 a physical change in ourselves. It may have 
 
 56 
 
THE WILL AND HABIT 57 
 
 been a bitter word of sarcasm, or a blow 
 struck in anger, or a deliberate lie, or an 
 act of stealing or of immodesty. What- 
 ever it was it left a physical trace behind. 
 We may have repented of it bitterly, and 
 made atonement for it, but nevertheless the 
 trace of that sin remained in our nature and 
 it was easier to do it a second time. We 
 were no longer the same as before. Then 
 perhaps a second time we deliberately com- 
 mitted the same fault. The trace grew 
 deeper. Again we committed it and this 
 time it was much easier to do it, and we felt 
 much less repugnance. The habit was formed. 
 And now, perhaps after very many falls 
 we find that the evil habit is very strong. 
 We have tried from time to time to rid our- 
 selves of it, but we have failed. It is there 
 still, and now once more we want to rid our- 
 selves of it. What are we to do.? If we do 
 not overcome it, it will ruin our lives and 
 bear us irresistibly toward a destiny so 
 terrible that we dread to think of it. What 
 are we to do.^^ Can an evil habit be over- 
 comes^ And if so, how is it to be overcome .f^ 
 Yes! an evil habit, no matter how strong 
 and how deeply imbedded in our nature, 
 can be overcome, but naturally it costs 
 
58 THE WILL TO WIN 
 
 much to overcome it. There is a sure means, 
 and only one means, and that is the forma- 
 tion of a new habit, a good habit which runs 
 counter to the evil one. "Habit is over- 
 come by habit." If you are habitually de- 
 ceitful and false, you must little by little 
 build up a good habit of sincerity and truth. 
 If you are habitually idle and lazy, you must 
 build up the virtue of industry and of work- 
 ing energetically. If you are habitually sen- 
 sual and immodest, you must build up the 
 good habit of self-denial and delicate modesty. 
 But how are such new habits to be formed. ^^ 
 How am I to become sincere and truthful, 
 seeing that I am constantly telling lies and 
 deceiving people .^^ Is it sufficient on several 
 occasions to tell the truth and to be open 
 and frank .f^ No! the mere repetition of such 
 acts would not be sufficient to form a strong 
 counter-habit. You must very deliber- 
 ately, very methodically, very resolutely, 
 and with all the strength of your Will set 
 yourself to will truth and frankness. And 
 here we return to the principles we laid 
 down in the section on Resolutions. We 
 form new habits by means of Resolutions 
 strongly made and faithfully kept, and tena- 
 ciously persisted in and repeated. We must 
 
THE WILL AND HABIT 59 
 
 build up the virtue of frankness and truth- 
 fulness, part by part, bit by bit, just as we 
 pointed out the way to acquire the good 
 habit or virtue of punctuality. There is 
 no need here to go through the form we 
 prescribed in the section on Resolutions, 
 but it must be faithfully adhered to if a 
 strong new counter-habit is to be formed 
 that will eliminate or render nugatory an 
 existing evil habit. 
 
 Hence the secret of overcoming evil habits 
 lies in the art of forming good habits by 
 means of Resolutions. In this matter, of 
 course, we must, more than in any other, 
 seek aid and grace by prayer and the Sacra- 
 ments. Some evil habits are so strong that 
 no mere natural force of Will could over- 
 come them. But force of Will aided by 
 God's grace succeeds and can always suc- 
 ceed, and force of Will, as the best natural 
 means, must be called up and used to the 
 fullest extent. 
 
 I need not, I think, dwell upon the im- 
 portance of overcoming evil habits at the 
 very earliest date. The longer we indulge 
 such habits, the harder it becomes to con- 
 quer them. We must get rid of them at 
 once. After-remedies come too late. There 
 
60 THE WILL TO WIN 
 
 must be no delay in this matter; we must 
 lay the axe to the root while the root is not 
 too strong. From your own experience of 
 life, from the examples of others, you know 
 how terrible a thing it is to be a slave to an 
 evil habit, for instance to be "a slave to 
 drink." Such a one is wretched beyond 
 words. He brings misery and shame on 
 himself and on those with whom he lives. 
 His weakness of Will makes his life on earth 
 a hell. He hates his vice. He hates his 
 slavery. He longs to be free — but again 
 and again he falls helplessly, as often indeed 
 as occasion presents itself. 
 
 For you, there may be many minor evil 
 habits that you should rid yourself of — 
 habits that will tell against you in after life, 
 and habits that are unbecoming. Perhaps 
 you have a bitter way of criticizing others, 
 perhaps you have a habit of betting, or of 
 swearing, or of working in a slipshod way, 
 or of roughness and untidiness or of selfish- 
 ness and self-indulgence — whatever faulty 
 or improper habits you may have, the sooner 
 you get rid of them the better, for later on 
 you will find it very hard to do so. 
 
 When fighting against an evil habit we 
 are up against an insidious and unrelenting 
 
THE WILL AND HABIT 61 
 
 foe. This of course applies more particu- 
 larly to evil habits in the strict sense, which 
 are founded in passions. We have to fight 
 with all the courage, constancy, and wis- 
 dom we command. Half-hearted efforts are 
 of no avail. We must fight with all our 
 Will-power and keep up the fight to the end, 
 in spite of defeats and failures. We must 
 never lose heart even though we seem to have 
 lost. We must still fight on and regard our 
 failures as additional and powerful motives 
 for fresh efforts. 
 
 "If you want to abolish a habit and its 
 accumulated circumstances as well," writes 
 Dr. Oppenheim, "you must grapple with 
 the matter as earnestly as you would with 
 a physical enemy. You must go into the 
 encounter with all the tenacity of deter- 
 mination, with all the fierceness of resolve 
 — yea, even with a passion for success that 
 may be called vindictive. No human enemy 
 can be as insidious, as persevering, as unre- 
 lenting as an unfavorable habit. It never 
 sleeps, it needs no rest. ... It is like a par- 
 asite that grows with the growth of the 
 supporting body, and like a parasite it can 
 best be killed by violent separation and by 
 crushing." 
 
SECTION VIII 
 TEE WILL TO WIN 
 
 ''HE best spirit in which to enter a 
 fight is the spirit of confidence and 
 
 -1 self-reliance. "I'm going to win this 
 fight. I'm sure of that, for I know I've 
 got it in me, and I'm going to do my best." 
 That spirit redoubles our strength and en- 
 ergy. It evokes all that is pluckiest and 
 most enterprising in us. It fires us. It 
 electrifies us. It gives us the dogged tenac- 
 ity to hold out in spite of many a heavy 
 blow. It awakens the "no surrender" spirit. 
 It spells victory. It means the Will to Win, 
 
 Confidence and self-reliance, combined 
 with Strength of Will, insure success, in 
 so far as it can be insured. Great-hearted, 
 courageous, and intense resoluteness can- 
 not be baulked of victory. To those who 
 have this spirit nothing seems impossible; 
 "impossible" in their eyes is a word made 
 for fools alone. The Will as a mighty spirit- 
 ual force, an inexhaustible reserve of power 
 and energy, is there at hand helping, sup- 
 
THE WILL TO WIN 63 
 
 porting, and seconding their efforts. They 
 know its value, they feel its inspiration, and 
 they trust in its strength. 
 
 The spirit of confidence and self-reliance 
 can be acquired, and it is well worth acquir- 
 ing. It can be acquired by the Will-exer- 
 cises suggested in this booklet. Each task, 
 well and faithfully performed, will increase 
 our sense of power to achieve, it will in- 
 crease our self-reliance. Each task well ful- 
 filled will give us good reason to know that 
 we have a Will capable of facing a project 
 and of carrying it through, and this feeling 
 and conviction is the basis of confidence. 
 The recollection of past tasks well done will 
 help us to face new tasks confidently. The 
 meaning of confidence and self-reliance, and 
 the importance of that attitude of mind will 
 gradually come home to us. Then we shall 
 strive to cultivate it and to make it an habit- 
 ual state of mind. This brave, cheery spirit 
 is of inestimable value. It is good for our- 
 selves, for soul and body, and it is good 
 for others. The man who can face suffer- 
 ing and difficulty gaily and gladly, without 
 trouble of mind and without being depressed, 
 is a source of inspiration to others. His 
 buoyancy and cheeriness not only makes 
 
64 THE WILL TO WIN 
 
 his own burden lighter, but it shows others 
 how to bear their burdens. To be bright, 
 to "keep smiling," to "carry on" joyfully; 
 that admirable spirit is the natural out- 
 come of confidence and self-reliance — the 
 outcome of the Will to Win, 
 
 The chief enemy and the antithesis of the 
 Will to Win is discouragement. It is a feel- 
 ing of depression, hopelessness, and to some 
 extent, of indifference. We fret, worry, brood 
 over our troubles and the difficulties be- 
 fore us, and we become down-cast. Things 
 look black and gloomy. The trouble seems 
 to grow larger and larger. Our spirit be- 
 comes oppressed. Our energy and enterprise 
 fail us. We feel ourselves heavy and inert 
 masses. All inspiration disappears. Our 
 Strength of Will seems to have left us. 
 We begin first to fear that we shall be 
 defeated, then we anticipate and count on 
 defeat, and finally set ourselves to await 
 it. We feel we can't struggle on any more, 
 that we must give up, that failure is inevi- 
 table — and then, giving way to discourage- 
 ment, we throw up the sponge. 
 
 What a contrast there is between the 
 two spirits! The Will to Win, and Dis- 
 couragement. The first spells success, the 
 
THE WILL TO WIN 65 
 
 second failure. And yet neither spirit can 
 prevail unless we deliberately cultivate it. 
 Discouragement only becomes fatal when we 
 wilfully cherish it and submit to it. The 
 Will to Win only triumphs if we resolutely 
 and deliberately cultivate and develop it. 
 Each of the two spirits is intimately con- 
 nected with the Will. The spirit of con- 
 fidence and self-reliance, which I call the 
 Will to Win is the Will active, full of life, 
 emphatically asserting itself. Discourage- 
 ment on the other hand is the negation of 
 Will; it is, so to say, the Will effacing it- 
 self and giving place to animal feeling and 
 impulse. 
 
 Whether we like to admit it or not there 
 is for us, in our private lives, great danger 
 at times of giving way to discouragement. 
 Falls and failures, disappointments, suffer- 
 ing, ill-health, unkindnesses, and betrayals 
 will cross our path in life. Things that we 
 feared, and that we hated to think of, will 
 happen. Harsh and cruel things will be 
 done to us. Sufferings long and bitter will 
 be ours. All that we must expect and face, 
 but we must face all in the right spirit. We 
 must not give way to discouragement. It 
 is no remedy for ill. It does no good. It 
 
66 THE WILL TO WIN 
 
 makes things worse. We must face our 
 trials with deep Christian resignation, we 
 must take them from God's loving hands as 
 gifts, and we must bear up under them with 
 a splendid spirit of confidence, and a Will 
 to Win through. 
 
 I now offer a few suggestions, which you 
 may find useful and helpful in dealing with 
 this fatal, perhaps for us most fatal of evils, 
 discouragement. 
 
 (1) In doing Will-tasks deliberately culti- 
 
 vate the feeling and spirit of confi- 
 dence and self-reliance. 
 
 (2) Prepare yourself beforehand for suffer- 
 
 ing. Think well on what it means, 
 its uses, how to make it help you 
 onward and upward, and how to 
 offer it cheerfully to God. Convince 
 yourself that suffering and failure 
 must come, and make up your mind 
 how you are to bear them when they 
 do come. Make failure play itself 
 false. Make it a "stepping stone to 
 higher things." 
 
 (3) When suffering and failure have come 
 
 upon you, hold on tenaciously to your 
 good resolutions. If the first shock 
 has caused you temporary discour- 
 
THE WILL TO WIN 67 
 
 agement, try to shake it off as soon 
 as possible. Remove its cause if you 
 can. If it is a sin, get rid of it with- 
 out delay. Regain as soon as you 
 can your normal state of trust in 
 God and joyful confidence. If it is 
 physical pain and suffering, some ill- 
 ness for instance, make yourself thank 
 God for it and rejoice for it. I once 
 asked an old Irishman, who was limp- 
 ing along the road, how he got his 
 rheumatism. He looked at me with 
 some surprise and then answered 
 rather sternly — "How does any- 
 body get it.^ Didn't the good God 
 give it to me — praise be to His Holy 
 name." In that old man, I need not 
 say, there was no discontent or dis- 
 couragement. 
 (4) Keep alive within your heart a love for 
 what is fair and good and great. Look 
 round at the works of Nature; ob- 
 serve and study a little the beauty 
 of flowers, of mountains, and of the 
 sea. Read good books and the stories 
 of great men. Furnish your mind 
 with the marvels of science. Open 
 your heart to the call of great causes 
 
68 THE WILL TO WIN 
 
 — the cause of the poor and oppressed 
 above all. Take an interest in big 
 problems and keep yourself aloof from 
 the sordid and petty pursuits of evil 
 doers. You will find, I think, that 
 love of truth and beauty and great 
 causes, will form a good and solid 
 background for the spirit of Confi- 
 dence and Self-reliance. 
 
 And now, to conclude this booklet, let 
 me remind you once again that the work of 
 training and strengthening your Will is well 
 within your power. You can make your 
 Will very strong if you are prepared to sacri- 
 fice yourself a little, and to perform patiently 
 and perseveringly and in the proper spirit 
 tasks such as I have suggested. It rests 
 with you, and you alone, to decide whether 
 or not you will do so. In this choice no 
 power on earth can hamper your liberty. 
 Choose then, and if you resolve to perfect 
 your Will, and are faithful to your resolu- 
 tion, your life will be truly great, and you 
 will deserve well of your Church and of 
 your country. "Choose the America that 
 you think is best and fashion yourself in its 
 likeness. If you wish to see America be- 
 
THE WILL TO WIN 69 
 
 come a perfect country, a Kingdom of God, 
 do yourself become a perfect individual, a 
 Kingdom of God. The perfect country can 
 only be established by individual men and 
 women who are striving after perfection — 
 perfection not only in an imaginary nation 
 which is outside themselves but in the ac- 
 tual nation which is within themselves, in 
 their own brains and hearts and sinews, 
 to mar or to make beautiful as they will." 
 
APPENDIX 
 
 The following Sections A, B, C, are writ- 
 ten with a view to helping those who have 
 made up their minds to devote themselves 
 lo Will-training. 
 
 - (A) 
 
 If the theory of Will-training is new to 
 you, it will be well for you to think over and 
 master the matter contained in this booklet. 
 Try to understand it fully, so as to be able 
 to explain it to others. Try in a small way 
 to become a "specialist" in this matter and 
 read over other books about the Will. For 
 the present, get a good note-book, and at 
 your leisure write out in order answers to 
 the following questions: 
 
 (1) What is the special work of the Will.? 
 How does it differ from the work of the 
 Intellect .f^ 
 
 (2) What do you mean by ''Strong Will?'' 
 What are the advantages of having a Strong 
 Will.? 
 
 (3) Does the Will need special training.? 
 
 (4) What is a Resolution? What is the 
 best way to ensure its fulfilment.? 
 
 70 
 
APPENDIX 71 
 
 (5) What is a Habit? How is an evil habit 
 best overcome? 
 
 (6) Explain the methods of Will-training 
 suggested in this booklet. 
 
 (7) What is the best type of exercise for 
 the training of the Will? Give examples. 
 
 (8) Explain the words, ''Effort;' '' Self- 
 control ;' ''Perseverance " 
 
 (9) What are the causes of and remedies 
 for Discouragement? 
 
 (10) What is "the Will to Win?" 
 
 (B) 
 It would be well next to write in your 
 note-book your own reflections, or short es- 
 says if you like, on such topics as the following: 
 
 (1) The Influence of Men of Character. 
 
 (2) My Ideal American. 
 
 (3) The Secret of Success. 
 
 (4) The Uses and Triumphs of Failure. 
 
 (5) Temperance and National Prosperity. 
 
 (6) "The Need of Training." 
 
 (7) National Characteristics. 
 
 (8) "Haec est victoria quae vincit mun- 
 dum Fides Nostra." ("This is the victory 
 which overcometh the world. Our Faith.") 
 
 (9) "Strength of Will is better than 
 Wealth or Learning." 
 
72 APPENDIX 
 
 (10) Enterprise, Effort, and Self-control. 
 
 (11) "Gladly I lived and gladly I die, 
 
 And I lay me down with a Will." 
 
 (12) "The only way to be a patriotic 
 American is to do your best to become a 
 perfect man." 
 
 (C) 
 Early in this booklet I spoke of your 
 Ideal — as being that of a thorough Catholic 
 and American — and I spoke of the necessity 
 of "furnishing your mind." This work you 
 can do for yourself in private, by reading 
 and studying good books, better even than 
 it can be done at school. You should set 
 yourself then to build up your own little library 
 of good books — many of them you can 
 buy very cheaply — there are hundreds of 
 excellent booklets published by the Catholic 
 Truth Society of Ireland and England, by 
 the "Action Populaire" of Rheims, by the 
 " Volksverein " of Munchen-Gladbach, and 
 by the Catholic publishers of America. 
 Books on Social Action, Political Economy, 
 Science, Art, History, and Religious Con- 
 troversy by Catholic authors, together with 
 Lives of great and good men should form 
 an important part of your library. Study 
 well the great problems of modern life, the 
 
APPENDIX 73 
 
 various aspects of amending the struggle 
 between the forces of good and evil, and 
 strive to understand the sufferings of the 
 poor and oppressed. Study well the glori- 
 ous story of America and learn from it the 
 splendid wisdom of putting Faith before Pros- 
 perity, Virtue before Riches. If you love good 
 hooks, and draw fruit from them, your mind 
 will he hroadened, your Faith strengthened, your 
 sense of right and justice rendered delicate and 
 true, your mind will he admirahly furnished 
 for life's work, and your Ideal will not he a 
 false Ideal. 
 
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