The thought of slighting his work was painful to him, but his mental processes have so deteriorated, and he has become so demoralized by the habit which, after a while, grew upon him, of accepting his second-best, that he now slights his work without a protest, seemingly without being conscious of it.

He is to-day doing quite ordinary things, without apparent mortification or sense of humiliation, and the tragedy of it all is, _he does not know why he has failed_! One's ambition and ideals need constant watching and cultivation in order to keep up to the standards.

Many people are so constituted that their ambition wanes and their ideals drop when they are alone, or with careless, indifferent people.

They require the constant assistance, suggestion, prodding, or example of others to keep them up to standard.
How quickly a youth of high ideals, who has been well trained in thoroughness, often deteriorates when he leaves home and goes to work for an employer with inferior ideals and slipshod methods! The introduction of inferiority into our work is like introducing subtle poison into the system.

It paralyzes the normal functions.
Inferiority is an infection which, like leaven, affects the entire system.