Experience, As everybody knows, is the best teacher. Its main aim is to teach how to live. It is a Stern schoolmistress. It sets us herd lessons, punished severely who are unattentive and stupid, and charges very high fees. But what it teaches, in a way as thorough as possible. We never forget it's lessons. The worst of it is that we sometimes learn it's lessons too late. The man who breaks all the rules of health in his youth by self-indulgence and vice learns at last when his health is wrecked for life, the right way of living.
It may be that we should be glad to learn how to live well from the experience of our forefathers, as recorded in books or as taught by the advice of our elders. But somehow many young people don't. They scoff at warning and advice and go their own way. You may warm a child against playing with matches, but he does not believe you until he scorches hi hands. After that "the burnt child dreads the fire". You may tell a boy not to meddle with stray dogs, but he turns deaf ear till he gets a nasty bite from one. After that "once bitten, twice shy." He has to learn from experience, it's a lesson he is not apt to forget.
In the same any other people have to learn for themselves, often by bitter experience, such old truth as, honesty is the best policy, " All is not gold that glitters", waste not, want not, "look before you leap", " No pains, no gains", "Cut your coat according to your cloth" and "A fool and his money are soon parted." In such old proverbs, much wisdom gained by experience has been stored. It is by suffering we learn patience; by facing dangers we learn courage; by sorrow, we learn sympathy; by mistakes, we learn wisdom.
But all its lesson is not unpleasant. Whether they are pleasant or unpleasant depends on ourselves. For we can just easily learn from experience that honesty pays in the long run, as that dishonesty does not, that kindness to others brings is joy, as that selfishness breeds unhappiness and hard work brings success, as that idleness means failure.
In short, experience shapes us what we are. It is on what our success in life depends.
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