Nervous breakdowns are increasing as a result of the American worry phobia.

This high tension Americanitis presumes too much upon nature, by persistently forcing the nerves to carry loads far beyond their capacity.

So many people are pleasure mad, they become so deadened by excess of enjoyment and indulgence that ordinary pleasure is uninteresting. They seek unnatural excitement, original methods and unusual activities to appease the appetite. Then they become blasé and constitutional pessimists.

It's a maddening, nerve racking pace they go. To keep up the gait there is an incessant battle for wealth, and the struggle wears and weakens the nervous systems.

Both men and women go the terrific gait. Men and women having this health-destroying worry, mate and marry and they lay foundations for deficient progeny that suffers from the sins of the parents.

The phobia is almost universal; it has permeated all classes of society from highest to lowest.

Excitement, that's the keynote; for the rich there is society and polo and useless functions and conventions.

Society is a game of cards, not only playing cards for money, but the card convention of paying calls by leaving pasteboards in lieu of the old-fashioned visit.

Society is the builder of fourflushers, the generator of insincerity—falsehood and rottenness.

For the poor, the aping of the rich, in dress the wearers can ill afford, the picture shows, the cheap theatres, the automobile, bought with a mortgage on the home.

It's rush, push, excitement at any cost. The great cost which they don't seem to consider is the cost of the nerves.

We all enter the world with an abundance of nerve energy, and by conserving that energy we can adapt and adjust our nerve equipment to keep pace with the progress and evolution of our times.

The way to preserve and conserve nerve equilibrium and power is to rest and relax the nerves each day.

You may rest them by a change of the thought habit each day, by relaxation, by sleep, and by suggestions made in this book.

There are few advance danger signals shown by the nervous systems, and in this there is a marked difference between the nerves and the organic system.

If you abuse your stomach, head, heart, lungs, liver, kidneys or eyes, you have distress and pain.

The nervous energy is like a barrel of water; you can draw water from the faucet at the bottom until you have almost exhausted the contents.

Nature mends ordinary nerve waste each day, like the rains replenish the cistern.

A reasonable use of your nerve force, like a reasonable use of the rainwater, means you can maintain a permanent supply.

But you must be reasonable; you must give the cistern a chance to refill and replace that which you have drawn out.

You, who have shattered and tattered your nerves, are not hopeless. You can come back, but it must be done by complete change of the acts that brought on the condition.

Get more sleep. Eliminate the useless, harmful fads, fancies and functions, which disturbed and prevented you from living a sane, rational life.

Avoid extremes, cultivate rhythm and regularity in your business and your home life. Keep away from excitement. Read really good books. Walk more, talk less.

Eat less heat-making foods and more apples. Follow the diet, exercise and thought rules suggested in "Pep."

Maybe these lines are being read by a discouraged one who is "all nerves," which means lost nerve force. To you I say there is hope and cheer and strength and courage if right here, now, you resolve to cut the action, habits and stunts that knocked you out and follow our suggestions.

I know, my friend, for I've trotted the heat, danced the measure, and been through the mill.

Now I am fearless, calm and prepared. I can stand any calamity, meet any issue, endure any sorrow.

I can do prodigious work in an emergency, go without rest or eating when required, because I have Pep, which means poise, efficiency—peace.

I realize nothing bad is as bad as it is painted. Nothing is as good as its boosters claim.

I go in the middle of the road, avoiding extremes. I have confidence in my heart, courage, hope, happiness, and content.

I've buried envy in a deep pit and covered it with quick lime.

I am keeping worry out by keeping faith, hope and cheer thoughts in my brain room, and these are antiseptics against the worry microbe.

I have my petty troubles and little make-believe worries, just enough of them to make me realize I have them licked, and to remind me I must not let up on my mastery of them.

Worry growls once in a while just to make me grab tighter the handle of my whip.

And you may enjoy this serene state, too. There is no secret about it. I will gladly give you the rules of the game in this book. Just prepare to receive some practical, helpful suggestions.

You are a busy person, so am I. Busy persons are the ones who do things. The architect is a busy man, but he has learned that the time spent in preparing his plans is the most valuable employment of his time. The plans enable him to do his work systematically and lay down rules and methods to get the highest efficiency and accomplishment from those who do the work of erecting the building.

If the architect would order lumber, stone and hardware, without system, and start to erect the building without carefully prepared plans, the building would lack symmetry and strength, and it would be most expensive.

The planning time therefor was time well spent.

Few persons have the ability to plan and conserve their talents so as to produce the highest efficiency. Men rush along thinking their busyness means business. Really it means double energy and extra moves to produce a given effect.

The elimination of unnecessary moves means operating along lines of least resistance, and any plan or method that will help to do away with unnecessary moves and make the necessary moves more potential will be received with welcome, I am sure.

With the object of conserving energy and strengthening your force, this book is written.

It shall not be a book of ultimate definiteness or a book of exact science. There is no definite or exact rule that will apply, without exceptions, to any science except mathematics.

But we shall learn many helpful truths, nevertheless, and if I err or disagree with your conclusions, just eliminate those lines and take the helps you find.

In my previous book, "Pep," I particularly emphasized the importance of taking a few minutes each evening and using the time for sizing up things, by inventory, analysis, speculation, comparison and hypothesis.

I have received many comments about that particular suggestion.

I find that many of the great captains of industry who are accomplishing things worth while, have learned the value of this daily habit.

Mr. E. C. Simmons, the president of the Simmons Hardware Company, has for about fifty years followed this daily sizing up plan. He takes fifteen to twenty minutes each evening in seclusion, with closed eyes, and finds the weaknesses of his plans, formulates new plans, and generates new ideas for the morrow. He says this habit is one of the greatest contributing factors to his success and to the building up of the largest hardware business the world has ever known.

I want to help YOU to form the habit of rounding up each day's activities in the quiet, relaxed, uncolored, unprejudiced secluded environment of your home. Each evening we will together size up things—a sort of daily round-up.

I have chosen the evening as the time for our little talks. In the evening we can be cozy, comfy and communicative. The bank is closed. We met the note and got through the day. We are alive and well; we can open our hearts. There is no office boy to disturb us, and the life insurance agent is away at his club.

Yes, we can be alone and tranquilly let down the tension, lower the speed and with normal heartbeats play the low tones, the soft strains, the quieting music, and soothe our nerves.

All day we've heard the band with its drums and trombones and shrieky music. The day with its busy whirl kept our analyzing mental think-tank occupied with thoughts of gain and game and fame.

In the evening we have time to study logic and to reason, to analyze and inventory, to thresh out problems.

So let us relax and reflect in these evening round-ups.

Man's nature makes it imperative for him to be interested in something.

That interest is to his help or hurt, according as he directs it.

There is much worry and misery in the world because so many are astatic, like a compass that has lost its loadstone.

Man is definitely the result of the materials the body and the mind feed upon.

Character is the result of a determined purpose to be and to do right, to one's self and to his fellows.

The man of character focuses his attention on truth, and on fact.

He uses theories with fact, to aid his progress, but he recognizes that theories, without fact as a safety ballast, is a useless expenditure.

Theories without fact leaves man in a rudderless boat; he gets nowhere, he only drifts.

Theories often help to get at facts, but the better way is to get at fact by proven experience, of which there is an inexhaustible abundance in the world.

Facts are based on natural laws. The study of natural laws is beneficial.

We shall strive in our studies to keep close to fact with just enough speculation to enliven the interest in facts.

Living the artificial life makes for worry, illness and failure.

Living in harmony with the great natural laws is the helpful way to live.

To abide by the law is safety, to violate the law brings punishment.

Every man is better if he follows scientific methods and habits of thought and living.

The loafing or astatic mind will fall into morbid tendencies.

The employed, truth-seeking, idealistic, hopeful mind is never dependent on people or things for its pleasure.

The acquiring of helpful knowledge, the seeking of worth-while truth, are ever profitable employments, paying present and future dividends, and meanwhile those acts positively divert the thought from morbid tendencies.

The Evening Round-Up is intended to be a companionable, helpful text book, a counselor and a friend.

We shall strive to bring helpful knowledge, good cheer and interesting facts, for your present occupation and benefit.

If I succeed in accomplishing my purpose even in part my time has been well spent.

We have an unchallenged fact to rest our feet on, a fact that shall follow us through all the pages of this book; and that is: our thoughts NEVER stop, our brains never sleep.

While we live we shall never get away from our thought; so then, we must consider that thought current, and reckon with it.

The motive power is turned on and we must grasp the helm if we sail the sea of life successfully, baffling storms and avoiding rocks.

Scientific books are usually dry, uninviting reading; they lack the human interest. They are generally bloodless skeletons.

We shall try to weave science into new patterns and paint interesting pictures so that science will attract and not repel.

This book is different in its suggestions, in its prescriptions, in its language, but it is universal with all scientific books, in that its aim is helpful truth.

We go by different routes, but our objective point is the same.

We will avoid technical names and symbols and speak the common language that the multitude understands.

We shall deal with problems and aspirations that come to us all in this busy workaday world.

We shall try to cut the underbrush in the swamp and blaze a plain trail out on to the big high road.

We shall keep in step to the drum-beats of truth, we will rest and recreate in cool shady places, and then up and on to our purpose with smiles on our faces, courage in our hearts, and song on our lips.

Every moment of our journey shall be worth while and positively helpful if we take the trip with conscientious applications, and continuity of purpose.

Our path is strewn with roses and thorns; we must enjoy the roses and escape the thorns.

We welcome you, the neophyte, who has joined us in our pilgrimage.

Let's be personal; that's a good way to establish a good idea in place of a bad one.

Are YOU pleasant to live with? Keep this personal question before you, even if you are cocksure that you can answer, yes.

Maybe there are some little jars, rattles, gratings, you are not aware of. Few of us are honest when looking for our own faults. There may be some sand in your gear box. It won't hurt you to keep the personal question alive for a few days,—"Am I pleasant to live with?"

I love the pleasant people whether they are fat, lean, tall, short, red heads, brown heads, homely, handsome, republicans or democrats.

The complaining, unpleasant grouch is like a bear with a toothache, miserable himself and spreading misery all around.

A freckle-faced, red-headed, cross-eyed man with a healthy funny bone will spread more cheerfulness and sunshine than a bench full of sad and solemn justices of the supreme court, or a religious conference.

What a different story would be written of Job, if he had only possessed a servant who could dance a double shuffle and whistle "Dixie" while cooking breakfast.

David was a man after my own heart; he brought gladsome songs into the world. He, said "Live the ways of pleasantness."

You can pray, sing, play, work, think, rest, hope, you can be well or ill, rich or poor and still be pleasant to live with.

Being pleasant helps you to be strong in body and mind, and it keeps you young a long time. It's good medicine, I know it. My little motto, "Be pleasant every morning until ten o'clock, the rest of the day will take care of itself," has brought sunshine into many homes.

If you frown it will soon get to be a habit—and give you a heavy heart. If you smile your face will be attractive, no matter how unlucky you were in the lottery of beauty.

Be pleasant and you will never feel old.

Every girl wants to catch a husband. Remember this, girls: A pleasant disposition is more benefit than seven barrels of beauty cream.

The pleasant disposition is a sure route to happy land and happy homes.

Old Ponce de Leon lost out in searching for the fountain of youth. If he had been pleasant he would have kept the smiles on his wife's face and there would have been no excuse to leave her to find the mythical fountain.

Hoe cake, bacon and smiles beat lobster, champagne and frowns.

Our land is thrice blessed with its peaceful, happy homes—for "happy homes are the strength of a nation."

Be pleasant in your home, make the children feel home is the pleasantest place in the world.

Every act and example is written in the child's memory tablet. Let your hours with the children be loving, laughing, living hours.

Pat them on the head, joke with them, whisper affection, express love to them. Those acts will be remembered in all their years to come, for you are planting everlasting plants that may pass onto a hundred generations and make children happy a thousand years from now.

Be pleasant to live with and the people will turn to you as you pass and shine your cheerfulness like the sunflowers turn to face the sun.

Be pleasant to live with and you will have more pleasant things to live for, and there will be kindnesses, kisses, beauty, health, peace, fun, happiness and content coming your way all along the great big road of life you are traveling.

Be pleasant, don't be cross and crabbed because someone else in the household is not pleasant. Do your part; you will likely thereby cure the frown habit on the face of the unfortunate disturber of your peace.

Make yourself right before you criticize your life partner. Answer this question, "Am I pleasant to live with?"

Don't fool yourself in the matter. Get right down to brass tacks with yourself, watch your moves and acts and attitude for ten days carefully before answering the question.

If your answer is no, then now is your time to change your attitude and try the pleasant plan, and here is my blessing and good wishes in such an event.

I have been fortunate in having splendid eye-sight and hearing, and with these, a good memory.

I've traveled much and my education has been getting experience directly or learning experience directly from those who had experience.

All the while I've had to do with, and about business and social problems, and with and about the things which worry and perplex the man or woman in the business as well as the home world.

I am trying to stage this book, and our relationship, upon practical things we are to talk about. I want you to know and feel I have hoped and feared even as you have.

I am in the midst of these things even now as I write this book. I am not in a reflective mood, living in the past or glorying in deeds of other days. I am writing this today and of today, even as you are reading it today.

By day I face reality and problems, and temptations and tricks and frauds and deceits, and after the day is over I write these lines and try to inoculate myself with a serum or toxin that will serve as a safeguard on the morrow to ward off the things which try to annoy and distract me from my purpose: to do, and to be, as nearly right and fair as I can, in act and thought and word.

Continuity on a singleness of purpose is a valuable thing. Fabre spent his life studying insect life. His books on the spider and others on the life of insects are the result of a whole life spent on the one hobby or study of insects.

My occupation has been full of abrupt changes. Each day is a kaleidoscope, and so, as I write between times, these chapters may be like the boy who said of the dictionary, "a mighty powerful book but the subject changes so often."

I write these chapters as the spirit moves and opportunity allows, and you may read the same way. But be sure you make opportunity happen often.