The youthful master was to be remunerated from the month of January, 1841. A student in the class of special mathematics, he was his comrades’ mentor during preparation time. They obeyed him without difficulty; simple and yet serious-minded, his sense of individual dignity made authority easy to him. Ever thoughtful of his distant home, he strengthened the influence of the father and mother in the education of his sisters, who had not so great a love of industry as he had. On November 1, 1840--he was not eighteen yet--pleased to hear that they were making some progress, he wrote the following, which, though slightly pedantic, reveals the warmth of his feelings--“My dear parents, my sisters, when I received at the same time the two letters that you sent me I thought that something extraordinary had happened, but such was not the case. The second letter you wrote me gave me much pleasure; it tells me that--perhaps for the first time--my sisters have _willed_. To _will_ is a great thing, dear sisters, for Action and Work usually follow Will, and almost always Work is accompanied by success. These three things, Will, Work, Success, fill human existence. Will opens the door to success both brilliant and happy; Work passes these doors, and at the end of the journey Success comes to crown one’s efforts. And so, my dear sisters, if your resolution is firm, your task, be it what it may, is already begun; you have but to walk forward, it will achieve itself. If perchance you should falter during the journey, a hand would be there to support you. If that should be wanting, God, who alone could take that hand from you, would Himself accomplish its work.... May my words be felt and understood by you, dearest sisters. I impress them on your hearts. May they be your guide. Farewell. Your brother.” The letters he wrote, the books he loved, the friends he chose, bear witness to the character of Pasteur in those days of early youth. As he now felt, after the discouraging trial he had gone through in Paris, that the development of the will should hold the first place in education, he applied all his efforts to the bringing out of this leading force. He was already grave and exceptionally matured; he saw in the perfecting of self the great law of man, and nothing that could assist in that improvement seemed to him without importance. Books read in early life appeared to him to have an almost decisive influence. In his eyes a good book was a good action constantly renewed, a bad one an incessant and irreparable fault.