For the man who has no poise there is no snatching victory from defeat.  His feeble will-power is completely routed, and the effort involved in stemming the tide of adverse opinion is to him an impossibility.

From dread of being carried away by the current, and feeling himself incapable of struggling against it, he prefers to hide himself in the caves along the shore, rather than to make one desperate effort to cross the stream.

But the very isolation he seeks, in depriving him of moral support, increases his embarrassment.

“It is not good for man to be alone,” says Holy Writ.  It is certainly deplorable, for one who desires to make his way, to find himself without a prop, without a counselor, and without a guide.

This is the case of those timid persons who do not understand how to make friends for themselves.

Poise, on the other hand, invites sympathy.  It aids men to expand.  It creates friends when needed, and weaves the bonds of comradeship and of protection without which our social fabric could not hold together.

Educators should seek for inspiration in the lessons that the exigencies of modern life offer to the view of the observer.  Excessive modesty, sworn enemy of poise, is, socially speaking, a fault from which young minds should be carefully guarded.

It is the open door to all the feeblenesses which interfere with the development of poise.

It is a mistake that it has so long been considered as a virtue.

In any case, the day of extreme humility is past.  This detachment from oneself is contrary to all the laws of progress.

It is opposed to all the principles of evolution and of growth which should be the study of all our contemporaries, whatever their station or the class to which they may happen to belong.

No man has the right to withdraw himself from the battle and to shirk his duties, while watching other people fighting to maintain the social equilibrium and seeking to achieve the position to which their talents and their attainments render them worthy to aspire.

That which is too easily honored with the title of modesty is generally nothing more than a screen behind which conscious ineptitude conceals itself.

It is a very easy thing to strike a disdainful attitude and to exclaim:  “I didn’t care to compete!”

Do not forget that a defeat after a sanguinary combat is infinitely more honorable than a retreat in which not a blow is struck.

Moreover, the combats of the mind temper the soul, just as those of the body fortify the flesh, by making both fit for the victory that is to be.

It is then against the enemies of poise that we must go forth to war.

Cowardice must be hunted down, wherever we encounter it, because its victims are thrown into the struggle of life burdened with an undeniable inferiority.

Even if they are worth while no one will be found to observe it, since their lack of poise always turns them back upon themselves, and very few people have the wit to discover what is so sedulously concealed.