With many people to do a thing once is to form the Habit. It is well known that the taste for wine and spirits is often inherited by a boy from his parents. For that boy, or young man, to drink once is to form a Habit, though he may be quite unconscious of it. We always do form habits unconsciously, and we often know nothing of them until they are fully formed and have nearly mastered us. If some kind friend warn the youth, he may drop the habit at once; but, if not, drinking will soon be a positive pleasure, and, before he knows it, he will be on the primrose way. Let a young man give way a few times to impure imaginations and thoughts, and he will soon be in danger of a habit that will destroy him, body and soul. The curse of the human race is the tendency to form bad habits.
The surest way to avoid bad habits is to form good ones before the former become established. And the first good Habit that will help us to avoid or conquer bad ones is _never to be idle_. "An idle man is like the housekeeper who keeps the door open for any burglar." I do not mean by not being idle that we should never cease from work. But I do mean that as soon as work ceases play should begin. Idleness is loafing; and nothing so surely produces other bad habits as the habit of loafing. The boy who has a game in view the moment his work ceases is not in very great danger of forming bad habits. The boy who is in danger is he who, having done the least possible amount of work in school hours, is tired by the effort to do nothing, and so would rather lie upon his bed than take exercise.
The Habit of exercise is a sacred duty. All feel the effects of systematic neglect of fresh air and muscular training, and most young men and boys do take exercise spasmodically--one day a great deal, and the next, perhaps, none at all. The bodily system can no more flourish under that sort of treatment than it could if one were to over-eat on one day, and go absolutely without on the next. The only way to bring the body to a high state of cultivation and to keep it there is to form the habit of exercise, and let nothing interfere with it. It need not be always the same; it should be varied; but it should always be active. If a boy does not care for very violent exercise, he can substitute for it light gymnasium work, or club and dumb-bell exercise. The great Sandow says that he keeps his strength up to the point of efficiency by clubs and dumb-bells, and open-air exercise. The great thing about it is regularity; that is to say, Habit.