The habit at first may seem to have no more strength
than a spider's web; but, once formed, it binds as with a chain of
iron. The small events of life, taken singly, may seem exceedingly
unimportant, like snow that falls silently, flake by flake; yet
accumulated, these snow-flakes form the avalanche.
Self-respect, self-help, application, industry, integrity--all are
of the nature of habits, not beliefs. Principles, in fact, are but
the names which we assign to habits; for the principles are words,
but the habits are the things themselves: benefactors or tyrants,
according as they are good or evil. It thus happens that as we
grow older, a portion of our free activity and individuality
becomes suspended in habit; our actions become of the nature of
fate; and we are bound by the chains which we have woven around
ourselves.
It is indeed scarcely possible to over-estimate the importance of
training the young to virtuous habits. In them they are the
easiest formed, and when formed they last for life; like letters
cut on the bark of a tree they grow and widen with age. "Train up
a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not
depart from it." The beginning holds within it the end; the first
start on the road of life determines the direction and the
destination of the journey; ce n'est que le premier pas qui coute.
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