Stepping Stones to Manhood

STEPPING STONES TO MANHOOD

A BOOK of INSPIRATION

for BOYS and YOUNG MEN

By WILLIAM P. PEARCE

AUTHOR OF “THE MASTER’S GREATEST MONOSYLLABLES,” “THE TABERNACLE,” “THE MASTER’S LOVE,” ETC., ETC.

PHILADELPHIA:

HARPER & BROTHER COMPANY

1903

CONTENTS.

LIST OF THOSE WHO HAVE WRITTEN INTRODUCTIONS TO CHAPTERS.

PREFACE. — Success Maxims

Boyhood is one of the happiest periods of life. “Ye little know,” said Robert Burns, “the ill ye court when manhood is your wish.” Taking a look backward Lord Byron cried, “Ah, happy years once more, who would not be a boy?” Thomas Moore says, in his beautiful poem: “Oft in the Stilly Night:”

“There is no boy so poor,” said Phillips Brooks, “so ignorant, so outcast, that I do not stand in awe before him.” “I feel a profounder reverence for a boy than a man,” said President Garfield. “I never meet a ragged boy on the street without feeling that I owe him a salute, for I know not what possibilities may be buttoned up under his coat.” “Why, bless me! Is that the boy who did so gallantly in those two battles?” asked President Lincoln as a lad from the gunboat Ottawa was introduced to him. “Why, I feel as though I should take off my hat to him, and not he to me.”

“Get out of my way! What are you good for anyhow?” 8asked a cross man to a lad who happened to be standing in his way. The boy replied, “They make men out of such things as I am.” How true. That dirty boy taken by a philanthropist in New Orleans, only for the reason that he was an orphan, became Sir Henry M. Stanley, who found Livingstone and opened Africa. About fifty years ago, when New York City sought to aid her homeless children, an agent called on Judge John Green, of Tixston, Indiana, to inquire if he would take a boy. Mr. Green said, “I will, if you will bring me the raggedest, dirtiest and ugliest one of the lot.” A boy by the name of John Brady more than filled the bill. He was accepted, educated and became a missionary to Alaska. So suitable a man was he for commissioner of that unexplored land of wealth, that President Harrison appointed him governor.

Who can value the worth of a boy? Like Moses, Luther, or Lincoln, he might rise to bless a nation. Boyhood is the blossom that ripens into manhood. It is the formative period of one’s character. Said Lord Collingwood to a young friend, “You must establish a character before you are twenty-five that will serve you all life.” The building of such is the greatest earthly task, and he is the greatest man “who chooses right with the most invincible resolution, who resists the sorest temptation from within and without, who is most fearless under menaces and frowns, whose reliance on truth, on virtue, and on God, is most unfaltering.”

To aid in the growth of such is this work written. It is hoped that it will be transformed into an epitome, a registry of the reader’s own life—a compilation and condensation of the best things he shall finally leave to those who survive him. For it should

9Incorporated herein are the best things of many books; the thoughts of noble men which by the power of a just appreciation and of a retentive memory may be made one’s own. Of those who have written introductions to this work, some have since retired from their official positions, and some are dead. The stories gathered from many sources illustrate great principles, which, if carefully heeded will conduce to a happy and manly life; for

PART I Relation to Self — CHAPTER I Be Neat — INTRODUCTION TO CHAPTER I — CHAPTER I Be Neat — AMERICAN BOYS. — ASPIRING BOYS. — NEATNESS SHOWS ITSELF BY CLEANLINESS. — NEATNESS IN DRESS. — THE BOY’S RECOMMENDATION. — CHAPTER II Be Polite — INTRODUCTION TO CHAPTER II — CHAPTER II Be Polite. — DEFINITION OF POLITENESS. — POLITENESS A BADGE OF TRUE GENTILITY. — POLITENESS SHOULD BE FIRST PRACTISED AT HOME. — POLITENESS SHOULD BE ACCORDED ALL. — WHAT POLITENESS DID. — CHAPTER III Be Truthful — INTRODUCTION TO CHAPTER III — CHAPTER III Be Truthful — WHAT IS A LIE? — TELL THE TRUTH. — WHITE AND BLACK LIES. — WHAT LYING DOES. — WHAT LYING BRINGS. — TRUTHFULNESS IS THE MOST HONORABLE AND SAFE COURSE. — TRUTHFULNESS IS THE WINNING SIDE. — CHAPTER IV Be Choice of Language — INTRODUCTION TO CHAPTER IV — CHAPTER IV Be Choice of Language — IMPROPER WORDS. — AVOID PROFANITY. — AVOID BLASPHEMY. — CHAPTER V Be Ambitious — INTRODUCTION TO CHAPTER V — CHAPTER V Be Ambitious — ASPIRE HIGH. — INSTANCES OF SUCCESSFUL AMBITION. — THE SPIRIT OF DISCONTENT. — MASTER OF HIS CRAFT. — HINTS TO SUCCESSFUL AMBITION. — CHAPTER VI Be Industrious — INTRODUCTION TO CHAPTER VI — CHAPTER VI Be Industrious — INDOLENT BOYS. — MISCHIEF FOR IDLE HANDS. — “I SEE IT!” — PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE. — CHAPTER VII Be Studious — INTRODUCTION TO CHAPTER VII — CHAPTER VII Be Studious — WHAT IT IS. — A GOOD AIM. — THE DUNCE. — HOW TO STUDY. — EYES OPEN. — USING THE MOMENTS. — PLEASURE AND PROFIT. — CHAPTER VIII Be Temperate — INTRODUCTION TO CHAPTER VIII — CHAPTER VIII Be Temperate — A GREAT STATESMAN’S DOWNFALL. — A GREAT DELUSION. — WHAT TEMPERANCE DID FOR A MAN. — BE A TOTAL ABSTAINER. — TWO SAD CASES. — CHAPTER IX Be Free of the Weed — INTRODUCTION TO CHAPTER IX — CHAPTER IX Be Free of the Weed — ORIGIN AND POISON OF TOBACCO. — HOW TOBACCO INJURES. — HOW TOBACCO IS USED. — PIPE, CIGAR AND CIGARETTE. — THE CIGARETTE. — WHY HE FAILED. — CHAPTER X Be Persevering — INTRODUCTION TO CHAPTER X — CHAPTER X Be Persevering — THE CHIEF FOREMAN. — WHAT IT MEANS. — PERSEVERANCE A NECESSITY. — PERSEVERANCE IS REWARDED IF PATIENTLY PURSUED. — BEGIN NOW.

You can make yourself look an inch taller by neat, well-fitting dress. You can actually make yourself taller by an erect, manly carriage. Slovenliness is contagious. It communicates itself from the dress to the character. The boy who slouches and slumps in figure and gait, is dangerously apt to slump morally. The dust and grime on your clothes is liable to get into your brain. The dirt under your finger-nails is likely to work into your thoughts. Grease spots down the front of your coat will destroy self-respect almost as quickly as a habit of lying. Tidiness is one of the cheapest luxuries in the world. It is also one of the most comfortable. When you know, when you are “dead sure” that you are just right—“perfectly correct”—from hat to shoe-tie, the King of England couldn’t stare you out of countenance; he couldn’t embarrass you, and, he wouldn’t if he could.

A high column was to be built. The workmen were engaged, and all went to work with a will. In laying a corner, one brick was set a trifle out of line. This was unnoticed, and as each course of bricks was kept in line with those already laid, the tower was not built exactly erect. After being carried up about fifty feet, there was a tremendous crash. The building had fallen, burying the men in the ruins. All the previous work was now lost, the material wasted, and several valuable lives sacrificed, all through the misplacement of one brick at the start. The workman at fault little thought what mischief he was making for the future. It is so with the boy, building character. He must be careful in laying the foundation. Just so far as he governs, guards and trains himself, just so far will he succeed or fail in the estimation of others. Tennyson wisely wrote:

Never in the history of any people did boys have so much in their favor to assist them in reaching the pinnacle of success as American boys. Back of them is an ancestry of the best blood of the leading nations of the world, an ancestry noted for persistence, reverence, piety and patriotism.

16The educational institutions of the land have “turned out” thousands of young men who have beaten their pathway upward in spite of adverse circumstances, all of which seems to say to the boy to-day, “There’s room at the top in whatever profession you may follow.” A good beginning is the most necessary thing, for “it is half the battle.” In any race a man can well afford to miss applause at the starting-line, if he gets it at the goal. A slow but determined start is not incompatible with a swift conclusion. Experienced mountain-climbers seem almost lazy, so calmly do they put one foot in front of the other; but they stand well-breathed on the summit, while their comrades are panting at the halfway station. One must not swerve to the right or left, but, setting his face toward duty, like Marcus Curtius who rode to death in the Roman Forum, he must push forward, with an honest ambition to reach the goal of success. It is not always the boy of aristocratic birth, wealthy parentage or social standing that wins the world’s laurels, but usually those boys who are unfortunately situated, who hew their way in the world instead of having it laid out and smoothed for them.

One of our Presidents, when asked what was his coat-of-arms, remembering that he had been a chopper of wood in his youth, replied, “A pair of shirt-sleeves.” Lord Tenterden was proud to point out to his son the shop in which his father had shaved for a penny. A French doctor once taunted Flechier, bishop of Nimes, who had been a tallow-chandler in his youth, with the meanness of his origin, to which Flechier replied, “If you had been born in the same condition that I was, you would still have been a maker of candles.”

Where is the boy with nobility of soul and purpose, who, though poor, is not tidy; who, being of humble origin, is not industrious; who, ridiculed by others, is not kind; and who, cramped by circumstances, is not 17heroic? That boy will rise to honor and fill an important place in life. He, like other boys of this country, may be a star rather than a flashing meteor in the realm of society.

From a farm to the Presidential chair seems a long distance, but Abraham Lincoln traveled it, and left behind him a name and reputation never to die. Andrew Johnson began life as a tailor and subsequently rose to be the chief officer of the nation. George Peabody was an apprentice in a country store, and ended as a millionaire philanthropist. Cyrus W. Field was in early life a clerk, but the world is indebted to him for the successful completion of the Atlantic cable. Samuel F. B. Morse, from an artist, became the inventor of the electric telegraph. Charles Dickens, the great novelist, began life as a newspaper reporter. Levi P. Morton was a clerk, John Wanamaker a messenger-boy, Lyman J. Gage a night-watchman and James Whitcomb Riley a wandering sign-painter. The record, instead of being in the tens, could be increased to thousands of statesmen, governors, generals, business and professional men who have risen from the farm, the shop, the store, to important offices within the nation’s gift. There is no reason why a boy cannot make his way in the world. He may not be President, or banker, or lawyer, but he can fill an honorable position. He may be a master mechanic, a model business man, a useful educator, if he is willing to begin at the lowest round in the ladder, namely, neatness.

Boys are men of a smaller growth, and if they fail to cultivate self-respect, it means the blighting of manhood, the ostracism of society, and the closing of the gate of opportunities to success. Self-respect is a robe with which every boy should clothe himself. It lies at 18the root of all virtues. It begets a stability of character, is the sentinel of the soul as the eyelid of the eye, and the corner-stone of all virtues.

There is no need in this day and country for a boy to go around with dirty face and hands. It is injurious to health, unbecoming and repulsive to any self-respecting person. On the other hand from

When Isaac Hopper, the Quaker, met a boy with dirty face or hands, he would stop him, and inquire if he ever studied chemistry. The boy, with a wondering stare, would answer, “No.” “Well then, I will teach thee how to perform a curious chemical experiment. Go home, take a piece of soap, put it in water, and rub briskly on thy hands and face. Thou hast no idea what a beautiful froth it will make, and how much whiter thy skin will be. That’s a chemical experiment; I advise thee to try it.” There is great virtue in soap and water vigorously applied, which doubtless gave rise to the old adage, “Cleanliness is next to godliness,” for virtue never dwells long with filth. An eminent man said, “I believe there never was a person scrupulously attentive to cleanliness who was a consummate villain.”

The singing birds are remarkable for the neatness and cleanliness of their plumage. The gay and cheerful animals of the fields avoid filth, and are usually of a clean appearance. The beauty and fragrance of the flowers owe all to this characteristic, and so also does the boy who is bright, intelligent, moral and ambitious. You will not find his finger nails long, but carefully trimmed and devoid of dirt, his ears and neck will be 19spotless, and his teeth clean and white like “drops of snow in banks of pretty pink roses.”

Self-respect will also show itself in neatness of dress. “It has,” says Barrington, “a moral effect upon the conduct of mankind. Let any gentleman find himself with dirty boots, soiled neck-cloth, and a general negligence of dress, he will, in all probability, find a corresponding disposition by negligence of address.” To be tidy does not mean to have costly attire. It is no mark of neatness for a boy to deck his fingers with rings, to sport a gold-headed cane, to wear flashy neck-wear, to have a bouquet of flowers on the lapel of his coat, for while these are not unbecoming in themselves, they give the impression of that sin which overthrew the angels, pride.

Dean Swift was an enemy of extravagance in dress, and particularly of that destructive ostentation in the middle classes, which led them to make an appearance above their condition in life. Of his mode of reproving this folly in those persons for whom he had an esteem, the following instance has been recorded:

When George Faulkner, the printer, returned from London, where he had been soliciting subscriptions for his edition of the Dean’s works, he went to pay his respects to him, dressed in a lace waistcoat, a big wig and other fopperies. Swift received him with the same ceremonies as if he had been a stranger. “And pray, sir,” said he, “what can be your commands with me?” “I thought it was my duty, sir,” replied George, “to wait on you immediately on my arrival from London.” “Pray, sir, who are you?” “George Faulkner, the printer, sir.” “You, George the printer! why, you are the most impudent barefaced scoundrel of an impostor I have ever met! George Faulkner is a plain sober citizen, and would never trick himself out in lace and 20other fopperies. Get you gone, you rascal, I will immediately send you to the house of correction.” Away went George as fast as he could, and having changed his dress he returned to the deanery, where he was received with the greatest cordiality. “My friend George,” said the Dean, “I am glad to see you returned safe from London. Why, there has been an impudent fellow just with me dressed in lace waistcoat, and he would fain pass himself off for you, but I soon sent him away with a flea in his ear.”

Dress is certainly an index to the mind. It shows the spirit and internal quality of the soul, and “there cannot be a more evident gross manifestation of a poor, degenerate breeding, than a rude, unpolished, disordered and slovenly outside.” The boy that does not polish his shoes, comb his hair, brush his clothes, is in all probability morally affected. To consider such things matters of small importance is a grave mistake, for they often prove to be hinges on which the doors of opportunity swing.

Said a friend to a business man on coming into the office, “I should like to know on what ground you selected that boy, who had not a single recommendation.” “You are mistaken,” said the gentleman, “he had a great many. He wiped his feet when he came in and closed the door after him, showing that he was careful; he gave his seat instantly to that lame old man, showing that he was thoughtful; he took off his cap when he came in, and answered my questions promptly, showing that he was gentlemanly; he waited quietly for his turn, instead of pushing and crowding, showing that he was honorable and orderly. When I talked to him I noticed that his clothes were brushed, his hair in order, and when he wrote his name, I noticed that his finger-nails were 21clean. Don’t you call those things letters of recommendation? I do, and I would give more for what I can tell about a boy by using my eyes ten minutes than all the letters he can bring me.”

Be neat and clean in appearance, and not less so in habit. At home never throw your hat in one chair and your coat in another. Have a place for everything and put everything in its place. In school or at work let the same principle govern you, for “what is worth doing is worth doing well.” The boys now wanted are

Character makes the man; character and politeness mark the perfect man. The first is the diamond in the rough; the second the cut stone. The former may attract the attention of a few, the latter discloses hidden beauties and compels the admiration of all.

The “grand old name of gentleman” can only belong to him who unites the qualities of gentleness and manliness, and politeness is essentially gentleness.

The exercise of politeness benefits all, chiefly him who practises it, and this is a sure road to success.

William of Wickham, Bishop of Winchester, and founder of Winchester and of New College, Oxford, was so convinced of the value of manners that he had the phrase “Manners Make a Man,” inscribed in several places upon the walls of those structures. “Good manners,” said Emerson, “are made up of petty sacrifices.” Pleasant expression and action, pleasing exterior and true kindness are gentle delights which win the esteem of others and often contribute to one’s advancement more than real merit. Coarseness and gruffness, loose habits and “don’t-care” manners, never fail to lock doors and close hearts. “You had better,” wrote Chesterfield to his son, “return a dropped fan genteelly, than give a thousand pounds awkwardly; better refuse a favor gracefully than grant it clumsily. All your Greek can never advance you from secretary to envoy, or from envoy to ambassador; but your address, your air, your manners, if good, may.” These will give, as Emerson says, “The mastery of palaces and fortunes wherever one goes without the trouble of earning or owning them.”

Cultivation of politeness is like putting the finishing touch upon the picture, it sets one off to the best advantage. Like a flower bed encircling the lawn, it beautifies character. Like a lamp in a dark room, it makes one’s presence cheerful. Nothing has greater influence, 26and as Matthew Arnold said, “It is three-fourths of life.” As honey on the skin is a protection from the sting of the bee, so politeness will be a safeguard from the stings of the world. Doors will open at its knock. Sunbeams will sparkle in its presence, and everywhere, with everyone, it will act as a magic passport.

Politeness has been defined in various ways, but all meet at the same point, like the spokes of a wheel which center in the hub. “It is the art of showing, by external signs, the internal regard we have for others.” “It is,” said Lord Chatham, “benevolence in little things,” as the giving others the preference in every enjoyment at the table, walking, sitting or standing. “It is a willingness to please and to be pleased.” “It consists in treating others just as you love to be treated yourself.” Henry IV, King of France, was once taken to task for returning the salute of a poor man as he was passing through a village. He replied, “Would you have your king exceeded in politeness by one of his meanest subjects?” Because Nicholas I, Czar of Russia, saw an officer of his household treat an old beggar woman discourteously, he summoned him to his imperial presence. The official was quite pleased. Nicholas soon undeceived him, and in the presence of a dozen courtiers cut him to the quick with his indignant reproof. “Enough!” he said, finally, “you will walk up and down that corridor all night, and every time you turn you will say, in a loud voice, ‘I am a puppy! I am a puppy!’”

“I treat him as well as he treats me,” said a boy to his mother. She had just reproved him because he did not attempt to amuse or entertain a boy friend who had gone home. “I often go in there and he doesn’t notice me,” said the boy. “Do you enjoy that?” asked the 27mother. “O! I don’t mind, I don’t stay long,” was the reply. “I should call myself a very selfish person,” remarked the mother, “if friends came to see me and I should pay no more attention to them.” “Well, that’s different, you’re grown up,” answered the son. “Indeed!” replied the mother, “then you really think that politeness and courtesy are not needed among boys?” The boy thus pressed, said he didn’t mean exactly that. His father, having overheard the conversation, turned to him and said: “A boy or a man who measures his treatment of others by their treatment of him, has no character of his own. He will never be kind or generous. If he is ever to be a gentleman, he will be so in spite of the boorishness of others. If he is to be noble, no other boy’s meanness will change his nature. Remember this, my son, you lower yourself every time you are guilty of an unworthy action because someone else is. Be true to your best self, and no boy can drag you down, nor will he want to.”

Years ago, when Queen Victoria began her reign, the famous Lord John Russell was the minister in attendance upon her majesty at her Scottish home. There came late one evening a messenger—a little old man buried in a greatcoat—to the Aboyne telegraph office, and delivered to the clerk a message from Lord John Russell to one of the officials of the government in London. The message did not bear a signature. On seeing this, the ill-mannered clerk flung it back to the old man, and said, “Put your name to it; it’s a pity your master doesn’t know how to send a telegram.” The name was added and the message handed back. “Why, you can’t write either,” cried the enraged clerk, after vainly trying to make out the signature; “here, let me do it for you. What’s your name?” “My name,” said the little old man, very deliberately, “is John Russell.” Through his impoliteness that clerk lost his position.

In some European countries the word gentleman stands for a titled or wealthy man. When Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema was knighted a lady expressed herself to his lordship thus: “O, dear Sir Lawrence, I am awfully glad to hear of the honor you have received; I suppose now that you have been knighted you’ll give up painting pictures and live like a gentleman.” Many are they who have this idea of gentlemanship. But in our land the real gentleman stands for such personal qualities as honesty, truthfulness, gentleness and gracefulness which characterize a boy or man. Such a gentleman subjects his appetite, refines his taste, subdues his feelings and controls his speech. When accidentally running against or passing before another, it will be, “I beg your pardon.” “Please excuse me.” When receiving a gift or extending a favor, it will be, “I thank you.”

Some boys are not careful in their expressions. “Sir,” said Doctor Johnson, “A man has no more right to say a rude thing to another than to knock him down.” A young man once accosted Zachariah Fox, a Quaker, a rich merchant of Liverpool, with “Old chap, how do you make all your money?” The Quaker replied, “By dealing in an article that thou may’st deal in if thou wilt—civility.”

Monroe was so polite that he was called “A Gentleman of the Old School.” Henry Clay was said to make the most engaging bow of any gentleman of his day. Madison made it a point to touch his hat to everyone who bowed to him, and the front part of it was always worn threadbare in consequence of his lifting it. William Penn’s formal but kindly politeness impressed even the Indians with whom he dealt, so that they named him: “The Good-Big Chief.” James Russell Lowell 29was as courteous to a beggar as to a lord, and was once observed holding a long conversation in Italian with an organ-grinder whom he questioned about scenes in Italy with which both were familiar. “You should not have returned their salute,” said the master of ceremonies, when Clement XIV bowed to the ambassadors who had bowed in congratulating him on his election. “Oh, I beg your pardon,” replied Clement, “I have not been pope long enough to forget good manners.”

A number of years ago a company of workmen was standing before a store in Oxford street, London, looking at some pictures. The Honorable William E. Gladstone, who was then at the height of his popularity, halted a moment to look at the artist’s work. One of the workmen recognized him and stepping up, said, “Excuse me, Mr. Gladstone, but I should like to shake hands with you.” “Why, of course, I shall be glad to do so,” the Premier of England responded, as he extended his hand not only to the man who had accosted him but also to the little group of men who stood near, taking no notice of soiled hands or garments. Then he directed their attention to a fine engraving in the window, quietly pointing out not only its beauty, but some special feature in its execution that constituted its charm. Then raising his hat with a smile he bade the men “Good morning,” and passed on his way up the street. No wonder that in later years his fellow-countrymen called him “The Grand Old Man,” “The People’s William.” He was a gentleman, exhibiting a lovely spirit of true friendship and absolute equality.

What one is in the home is a fair criterion as to what he will be away from home. The manner in which a person conducts himself in the home determines largely his course and conduct in life. He who is polite and 30kind to his parents, considering their wishes, and heeding their advice and counsel, paves the way to future happiness and success. But he who spurns paternal suggestions, speaks and acts disrespectfully, is seldom respected and is always at a disadvantage. When Prince Bismarck was a boy, he was rebuked by his father for speaking of the King as Fritz. “Learn to speak reverently of his Majesty,” said the old squire of Varzin, “and you will grow accustomed to think of him with veneration.” Bismarck laid the advice to heart and from that day profited by it.

The truly polite boy is not only respectful to his parents but also to his sisters and brothers, always returning a pleasant “Thank you” for any kindness received at their hands, and showing as much courtesy to all at home as to those in the home of a neighbor. “A beautiful form,” says an American essayist, “is better than a beautiful face, and a beautiful behavior is better than a beautiful form; it gives a higher pleasure than statues or pictures; it is the finest of the fine arts,” it gives grace to one’s bearing and enables one to look on the bright and beautiful side of things.

Politeness is a universal debt that each boy owes to every person. The matter of caste, sex, position and intelligence have nothing whatever to do with it. It should be the rule of conduct wherever and in whatever society one may be, to practise politeness.

Charles V was renowned for his courtesy. When he passed John Frederick, Elector of Saxony, he took off his hat and bowed to him, though his prisoner, who had been taken by him in battle. The poet Burns was one day walking in the street of Edinburgh when an honest farmer saluted him, which salute he returned, when some one rebuked him. Mr. Burns replied that it was 31not the greatcoat, the scone bonnet or the saunders boot-hose that he spoke to, but the man that was in them. Daniel Webster was once walking with a friend in Washington when a colored man passing by bowed very low to him. Mr. Webster promptly returned as deep an obeisance. “Do you bow in that way to a darky?” asked his friend. “Would you have me outdone in politeness by a negro?” replied the great statesman.

Mr. Winans, of Philadelphia, became independently rich through his courteous manner. One day two strangers called on him. One was a foreigner who had visited some larger establishments in the city, but on their coming to Mr. Winans’, a third or fourth rate factory, he took so much pains to show all its parts and workings, and was so patient in his explanations and answers to their inquiries, that within a year he was surprised by an invitation to transfer his labors to St. Petersburg and manufacture locomotives for the Czar of Russia, He went, accumulated a large fortune, and ultimately received from his Russian workshops a hundred thousand dollars a year. Investing his money in real estate he laid the foundation of one of the largest private fortunes in Philadelphia; and all this was the result of civility.

It pays to cultivate politeness. To this day the Japanese people revere the memory of General Grant. While visiting the emperor, he was invited to cross the imperial foot bridge near the palace at Tokyo, across which none but the blood royal had ever trod. General Grant accepted the invitation and walked beside the Mikado until they reached the center of the bridge. Then he stopped, profoundly saluted the emperor, and said: “Your majesty, I have come so far to show you 32that I was not insensible to the honor you would do me, but I cannot violate your traditions. Let us return the way we came.”

Politeness serves one well. It is keener than sharpened steel. It is more magnetic than loadstone and worth more than jewels. At home or abroad, among young and aged, employers or teachers, inferiors or superiors, this glorious characteristic is a diadem from which sparkles a jewel, which is, as Chesterfield said: “The treatment of others just as you love to be treated yourself.” In the words of One greater than he, it is, “Do unto others as ye would they should do unto you.” All other things being equal, the boy who adheres to these mottoes is the one who succeeds. It makes him an acceptable companion, wins friendship and creates popularity. “Give a poor boy fine manners and accomplishments,” said Voltaire, “and he will become the master of fortunes and palaces, while princes stand upon their threshold to solicit his friendship.” Charles II. is described by Macaulay as being “the grandest rascal and most popular man in England.” Hume in giving the reason of this says, “He was the best bred man alive.”

It is related of Cyrus, that when asked what was the first thing he learned, he replied, “To tell the truth.” Truthfulness is the foundation stone of character. Without it, a life, as it is developed, becomes more and more marred and falls short of its highest opportunity and calling. All qualifications that go to make up noble manhood count for naught, where there is not a persistent adherence to truthfulness. Therefore be true to yourself and the nobler impulses and yearnings of your heart by always speaking the truth, acting the truth, and living the truth.

While a vessel was crossing the English Channel, a gentleman stood near the helmsman. It was a calm pleasant evening, and no one expected a storm. The flapping of a sail as if the wind had suddenly shifted, caught the ear of the officer on watch, and springing to the wheel, he examined the compass. “You are half a point off the course,” he sharply said to the man at the wheel. The deviation was corrected, and the officer returned to his post. “It must be necessary to steer very accurately,” said the observer, “if half a point is of so much importance.” “Ah!” remarked the officer, “a half a point, sir, is liable to bring us directly on the rocks.” What a lesson for every boy. The half a point deviation from strict truthfulness strands one on the rocks of falsehood.

The shortest definition of a lie is, “The intention to deceive.” It may not be telling an out-and-out falsehood to conceal a crime, or to shield one’s self, but telling it to mislead or deceive others. “The essence of the thing,” said Dewey, “lies in the intention,” and if the intention is to mislead, such, as Immanuel Kant says, “is forfeiture of personal worth, a destruction of personal integrity.” As he contends, “a lie is the abandonment, or, as it were, the annihilation of the dignity 36of man.” It will undermine the noble instincts of any boy and cause his character to collapse.

A story of Abraham Lincoln shows his love for truth. It was a bright autumn evening, when Abraham, a great awkward boy of sixteen or seventeen said to his mother, “I’m going to the woods to-morrow. I’ve got a good job at Laird’s and as I shall be obliged to start by day-break, I thought there might be some chores you wished to have done.” “You are a good boy, Abram, always thinking of helping me,” said his step-mother. “If I was your own mother you could not be more kind, and God will reward you sometime. To-morrow, I am going to wash, and I would be very thankful if you would bring me a few buckets of water from the spring.” Back and forth the tall boy hurried, until all the tubs and kettles about the cabin were filled. Early next morning, when Abraham was ready to start for the place where the rails were to be split, his little sister Sally said, “Can’t I go, Abram?” “Just as mother says,” replied he, pausing to give the little girl an opportunity to consult her mother. The mother would not consent. No sooner had Abram started than she determined to follow him, and at once cut across the field intending to reach the ravine before him and give him a genuine surprise by jumping out unannounced in the path as he came up. She carried out her plan successfully, and when she heard his merry whistle in the distance she climbed upon the bank to be ready to make the spring for his shoulders when the proper moment arrived. But the poor child had forgotten all about the sharp axe which he carried, and although she gained her coveted seat on his broad shoulders, her little bare foot received a gash from the cruel axe, which changed her merry laugh into a bitter cry. “Why, Sally! How 37did you get here?” was all the boy could say as he placed her tenderly on the bank and began an examination of the wounded foot. Finding it to be a deep cut, he gathered some broad plantain leaves which grew near, and by their aid soon succeeded in staunching the flow of blood. This accomplished, he tore the sleeve from his shirt, and in his clumsy way bandaged the injured foot. Carrying her home, he learnt the story of her disobedience. She would have been willing to evade the truth in order to screen herself from her mother’s displeasure, but honest, truthful Abraham would not permit this. “Tell the truth, Sally, no matter what the consequences may be,” he insisted; “better suffer punishment than lie about it. I don’t think mother will be hard on you when she sees how sorely punished you are; but never tell a lie to shield yourself, never.” Such was the course taken through life by that boy who later became the honored President of these United States.

Much is said nowadays about degrees in lying. That is lying in a small way. There is the so-called white lie of custom when a certain article is slightly misrepresented to make a bargain; the white lie of courtesy when one makes politeness the garb behind which he deceives; the white lie of necessity, when one would evade the truth by nodding the head, or giving a wrong impression. Some men, and even great men, have maintained that this is sometimes a necessity, but would it not be a fine moral precept to say, “You must speak the truth generally, but you may utter a falsehood when it suits your convenience?” Who ever licensed one thus? Justin Martyr said, “Is life at stake? We would not live by telling a lie.” When Atillius Regulus was a prisoner of the Carthaginians he was sent by that great people to Rome with several ambassadors to arrange 38for peace, on the understanding that if peace-terms were not agreed upon he was to return to prison. He took the oath and swore to return. Arriving at Rome he urged his countrymen to continue in war and not agree to the exchange of prisoners. This meant to him the return to Carthage. The senators and priests held that as his oath had been forced from him he ought not to return. Then came the answer from Regulus which has made him imperishable: “Have you resolved to dishonor me? I am not ignorant that death and tortures are preparing for me. But what are those to the shame of infamous action, or the wounds of a guilty mind? Slave as I am to Carthage, I have still the spirit of a Roman. I have sworn to return. It is my duty to return. Let the gods take care of the rest.”

“One should never lie,” said Crispi, the great Italian statesman. “I will not stain speech with a lie,” said Pindar. “The genuine lie is hated by all gods and men,” said Plato. “That man has no fair glory,” said Theognis, “in whose heart dwells a lie, and from whose mouth it has once issued.” A lie is never justifiable, and to lie a little, is, as Victor Hugo remarked, “not possible.” The person who lies tells the whole lie, lying in the face of the fiend, and “Satan has two names, Satan and lying.” Therefore

Nothing so corrupts early simplicity, quickly destroys the nobler instincts, and depraves the heart as falsehood. If a boy will lie about one thing, can he 39be trusted in anything? If he is branded as a liar, what teacher will respect him, what business man will engage him, and what court will accept his testimony? “I have seldom known anyone,” said Paley, “who deserted truth in trifles, who could be trusted in matters of importance.” Oliver Wendell Holmes said: “Sin has many tools, but a lie is the handle which fits them all.” It destroys confidence, establishes false relations among men, blights the bloom of life, and saps the vital springs of existence. It is the progenitor of all wrongs, oppressions, cruelties and crimes, and what boy is there who dare do it when God prohibits it?

Like begets like, thus lies beget lies. Said Owen, “One lie must be thatched over with another, or it will soon rain through.” Lying brings misery. It troubles the conscience, destroys the peace of mind and makes one suspicious of others. Because of this, Eugene Field, when a young man, walked thirty miles to confess to his employer and to ask forgiveness for an untruth he had told him. Lying brings punishment, for “lying lips are an abomination unto the Lord.” Because of this Elisha’s servant was struck with leprosy, Ananias and Sapphira with death, and many others have had the seal of God’s wrath placed upon them.

One day, as Archbishop Leighton was going from Glasgow to Dumblane, a storm of lightning and thunder burst upon him. He was observed, when at a considerable distance, by two men of bad character. They had not the courage to rob him; but, wishing to extort money from him, one said, “I will lie down by the wayside as if I were dead, and you shall inform the archbishop that I was killed by the lightning and beg money of him to bury me.” When the Archbishop arrived, the wicked wretch told the fabricated story. The 40Archbishop sympathized with the pretended survivor, gave him money, and proceeded on his journey. But when the man returned to his companion, he found him really lifeless. Immediately he began to cry aloud: “Oh, Sir! he’s dead! Oh, Sir, he’s dead!” On this the Archbishop discovered the fraud and turning to the living man said, “It is a dangerous thing to trifle with the judgment of God.” How much better and safer to speak the truth, for

Truthfulness is the foundation of character. It is the basis of true manhood. Its spirit pervades the closest relation and highest intercourse, its law holds the planets in their course, and it is the presiding principle of every true and noble life. A greater tribute could not be paid to anyone than “his word is as good as his bond.” No more worthy epitaph or eloquent remark could be uttered of Colonel Huchurin, than when a friend, attesting the simplicity and nobility of him, said: “He never professed the thing he intended not.” No eulogy can surpass Xenocrates of Petrarch, who, standing before an ecclesiastical tribunal where an oath had been required of others, said, “As for you, Petrarch, your word is sufficient.”

An important conference was being held in the Executive Mansion in Washington. A caller had sent in his card, but either the caller was unwelcome or the time was quite unsuitable for his admission. One of the persons turned to a servant and said, “Tell the person who sent up the card that the President is not in.” “No,” said General Grant, “tell him no such thing.” Then, turning to his friends, he remarked: “I don’t lie myself, and I don’t want any of my servants to lie for me.”

41A “Mental Photograph” book was once presented to Charles Kingsley in which to write. One question was “What is your bête noire?” “A lie,” he penned. In dedicating her delightful biography of him his wife wrote:

Truthfulness underlies all honest and faithful work, all social confidence, all right fulfillment of relations and self-respect. It regulates lives and improves and elevates those it characterizes. It is one great secret of success in business, a magnet that draws confidence and wields a power second to none in the universe. A poor Persian boy was about to leave his mother’s home, to engage in business in the city. Within the lining of his coat she sewed forty golden dinars which she had saved during years of labor. Before the boy started she cautioned him to beware of robbers as he went across the desert, and as he left the home, she said: “Fear God, and never tell a lie.” The boy started, and toward evening saw in the distance the glittering minarets of the great city, but between the city and himself 42he saw a cloud of dust. It came nearer. Presently he saw that it was caused by a band of robbers. One of them approached him, and unceremoniously inquired what valuables he had. The boy answered with candor: “Forty golden dinars are sewed up in my garments.” Discrediting the boy’s story he wheeled his horse around and rode back to his companions. Soon another robber came and said: “Boy, what have you got?” “Forty dinars sewed in my garments,” he answered. The robber laughed and rode away. At last the chief came and asked him what he had. The boy replied, “I have already told two of your men that I have forty dinars sewed up in my clothes.” The chief ordered his clothes torn open, and the money was found. He was then asked what induced him to make such a revelation. “Because,” said the boy, “I would not be false to my mother, whom I solemnly promised never to tell a lie.” The robber leaned upon his spear and after reflecting said, “Wait a moment.” He mounted his horse and rode back to his comrades, but soon returned dressed as a merchant. “Boy,” said he, “art thou so mindful of thy mother, while I am insensible at my age of that duty I owe God? Give me thy hand, that I may swear repentance on it.” He did so, and his followers were struck with the scene. Said he, “I am a merchant. I have a large business house in the city. I want you to come and live with me to teach me about your God, and you will be rich, and your mother some day shall come and live with us.” Then one of the robbers turned to the chief and said, “You have been our leader in guilt, be the same in the path of virtue.” And taking the boy’s hand, they all promised to lead new lives.

Boys, speak only that which is true. You may do much good by it, although you may never lead a band of robbers to God and honesty. But—

Good old Matthew Henry used to say, “Truth is mighty and will prevail.” “Falsehood,” as one of the kings of Prussia said, “sometimes does good for twenty-four hours, but like a battle well fought, right comes off more than conqueror.” Falsehood is always defeated. It shrinks at detection and in due time is compelled to confess. Truth is sure and has a firm foundation because it is an attribute of God. And “God and truth,” said Theodore Parker, “are always on the same side.” Therefore

One moonlight night I was passing near a sentinel’s post. It was during the winter of 1861–2, in front of Alexandria, Virginia, at Camp California. The sentinel, in some trouble, used rough, coarse language, closing with an oath. Approaching him, till I could see his face, think of my astonishment to find him, instead of a burly man of low life, a handsome boy of seventeen. I said to him pleasantly: “How could your mother have taught you to swear?” Dropping his head with a sudden shame, he answered, “She didn’t, General. I learned it here.” And indeed, it came from the influence of his associates.

One’s language always gauges him.

Few things are more important and far-reaching than the use of words. If good, they

If bad, they corrupt and may flourish, as Carlyle said: “Like a hemlock forest after a thousand years.”

One of the most historic structures in the world was the Campanile, or the bell-tower of St. Mark’s Cathedral in Venice. Not long since it fell. One aged Lugui Vendrasco knew its danger. For ten years he had not ceased to beg the government to allow him to put the Campanile in better order. But his warnings were unheeded. One Sunday morning he took his son to see it. As the young man looked upon the crack he said, “That’s nothing. A small crack like that can really do no harm to such a building.” Replying, the father said, “Son, it is not the crack. It is that of which the crack is the effect and symbol. Our Campanile is doomed.” The next morning it fell with an awful crash. In like manner many a man has come tumbling down. His character was not safe because of some 48flaw in it. Improper words prove its great defect as the crack did the weakness of the Campanile.

Stephen Price, once Mayor of New York, and a warm friend to boys, lost his life in a steamboat disaster. When his body was recovered, a scrap of paper was found in his pocket-book. It was so worn with oft reading that the words were scarcely legible, but two paragraphs were finally made out, one of which was: “Good company and good conversation are the very sinews of virtue.” In fact, these are inseparable. Conversation is a reflex of character, and no boy can associate with another who delights in slangy, smutty talk without being more or less contaminated.

A very common and bad habit of some boys is the attachment of improper words to a sentence, as if it made it more binding. These in no sense give grace or beauty to language. They do not round out a period or enrich a metaphor. They define nothing, bound nothing, measure nothing, mean nothing, accomplish nothing, and he who uses them should be shunned. Vulgar expressions are never in order. “They help,” as South says, “no one’s education or manners. They are disgusting to the refined, abominable to the good, insulting to those with whom one associates, degrading to the mind, unprofitable, needless and injurious to society,” and beneath the dignity of any self-respecting person. “Are there any ladies around?” said a young officer to a group of others, “I’ve a splendid story to tell.” “There are no ladies present,” said General Ulysses S. Grant, who overheard the remark, “but there are gentlemen here, sir, and what is not fit for a lady to hear, is unfit for a gentleman.”

When Coleridge Patterson, the martyred bishop of Melanesia, was a boy at Eton, he was enthusiastically 49fond of cricket, at which he was an unusually good player. At the cricket suppers at Eton, it was the custom to give toasts followed by songs, and these songs were often of a very questionable sort. Before one of these suppers, “Coley” told the captain that he would protest against the introduction of anything that was vulgar or indecent. His protest apparently had no effect, for during the evening, one of the boys arose and began to sing a song which “Coley” thought was not fit for decent boys to hear. Whereupon, rising from his seat, he said, “If this sort of thing continues, I shall leave the room.” It was continued and he left. The next day he wrote to the captain of the eleven, saying unless he received an apology, he should withdraw from the club. The apology was sent and Patterson remained. By that stand he showed his character, which won the admiration of the rest and brought about a new state of affairs. No boy need answer another who addresses him in unbecoming language. He might say as Stephen A. Douglas, when denounced in the Senate in improper language, “What no gentleman should say, no gentleman need answer.” And as to keeping the company of anyone who is inclined to be vulgar, there is no law to compel it. Far better be a Coleridge Patterson in shunning such company.

The true gentlemanly boy has a sense of honor, scrupulously avoiding profane words as he would profane actions. No habit is more unbecoming, useless and contagious than swearing. It is the fool’s impulse and the coward’s fortification. It neither helps one’s manners nor education, and no boy with the least personal pride will be guilty of indulging in it. Louis IX of France punished everyone who was convicted of swearing by searing his lips with a hot iron.

50George Washington made the following law August 3, 1776, which he caused to be read to the men under his command: “The general is sorry to be informed that the foolish and wicked practice of profane cursing and swearing, a vice heretofore little known in an American army, is growing into fashion; he hopes the officers will, by example as well as influence, endeavor to check it, and that both they and the men will reflect that we can have but little hope of the blessing of Heaven on our armies if we insult Him by our impiety and folly; added to this, it is a vice so mean and low, without any temptation, that every man of sense and character detests and despises it.”

Years ago the Hon. John Finch visited an asylum in the East and asked to see a certain professional gentleman committed there. He had been a good and true man, but by overwork, physical and mental, had wrecked himself and become a raving maniac. The superintendent of the asylum said, “You will not want to see him again, he swears so.” As they entered the room in which the man was locked in a “straight jacket,” the most vulgar oaths came from his lips. Touching the superintendent Mr. Finch said, “What can this mean? When I knew that man he was one of the grandest Christians, true, noble and good in every respect; and now to hear such vile language coming from him surprises me.” The superintendent said, “He learned to swear when a boy. The impressions made on his brain at that period of life when the brain most readily receives impressions now become the governing ones. In this asylum we can almost uniformly tell what have been the habits, customs and abuses of insane people when they were children. The brain at such times receives impressions readily, the impressions are permanent, and if they have indulged in vile practices, or used bad language, the dethronement of 51reason and intelligent conscience will give to early impressions and habits the control of the mind.” This being true, how careful every boy should be, for who wants the bad habits of youth noticeable in age?

There are many ways in which language may be improperly used, but none more unbecoming and attended with more serious consequences than blasphemy, or using the name of God or Christ with disrespect. It is a presumptuous sin against which God has declared: “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain,” declaring with emphasis, “for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh His name in vain.”

Sometimes, as Jacob Knapp said in his autobiography, “God steps aside from His ordinary course and smites presumptuous sinners dead, that they may stand as beacon lights to warn others to shun the rocks on which they struck.” During the Black Hawk war, in Illinois, at the time when God sent the cholera among the people, an officer cursed God for sending the disease into their midst. With an awful oath he opened his mouth, and God smote him down even as the word trembled on his lips. Such cases are rare, yet the words, “will not hold him guiltless,” show that He forgets not and that sometime He will hold the blasphemer accountable.

Howard, the philanthropist, on hearing anyone use blasphemous expressions, always buttoned up his coat. Being asked the reason, he replied, “I always do this when I hear men swear, as I think that anyone who can take God’s name in vain can also steal.” Nothing so chills one’s blood as—

Many years ago when the Duke of Gordon was spending the day in a Scotch village a company of soldiers was drawn up under the window of the room in which the duke and a party of friends were enjoying themselves. The officer in command was inspecting his men’s arms and clothes, and if anything displeased him he berated the soldier with blasphemous oaths. The duke, who abhorred such language, expressed a wish that the inspection might soon be over. “If your Grace desires it,” said one of the company, “I will clear the coast of this man of oaths without noise or bloodshed.” “Do so, and I’ll be obliged to you,” said the duke. The gentleman stepped into the street, took his station behind the officer and pulled off his hat. As the officer swore, the gentleman, with the grave solemnity of a parish clerk, said in a loud voice “Amen.” “What do you mean?” asked the officer, hastily turning around. “I am joining with you in prayer,” answered the gentleman with a grave face. “I thank you, sir,” rejoined the officer, “but I have no further need for a clerk. Soldiers! to the right-about, march!” And he and his soldiers departed, much to the amusement and happiness of the duke, after teaching an important lesson to the officer that it is wrong to call upon God to do this or that, or to belittle others by vile epithets which never fail to bring in due time just retribution.

My boy, the only language to use is the pure and 53refined. By-words, slang phrases, profanity and blasphemy are only uttered by lips whose heart is bad, for “out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.” Let your tongue utter sound sentences, choice words and pleasant expressions, then will they be musical to the ears of the good, sweet to the soul of the pious, educational to those who associate with you, and beneficial to all. From this day put into practice the last words of the eloquent John B. Gough. He was lecturing in the Presbyterian Church, Frankford, Pa., on the night of February 19, 1886. In the course of that lecture he said: “I have seven years in the record of my own life when I was held in the iron grasp of intemperance. I would give the world to blot it out, but alas! I cannot.” Then, stepping forward, with an impressive gesture, he added, “Young man, keep your record—” but he was unable to finish the sentence, for he sank insensible into a chair from which he was never able to rise. Evidently he meant to say, “Young man, keep your record clean.”

Do not forget that improper words have a reflex influence. A fable is told how a bee took an offering of honey to Jupiter, which so pleased him that he promised to grant the bee whatever it should ask. The bee said, “O glorious Jove, give thy servant a sting, that when anyone approaches my hive to take the honey, I may kill him on the spot.” Jupiter answered, “Your prayer shall not be granted in the way you wish, but the sting you ask for, you shall have; and when anyone comes to take away your honey, and you sting him, the wound shall be fatal, not to him, but to you, for your life shall go with the sting.” So is it to this day. He that curseth others, curseth himself. Therefore my boy, control your tongue, and keep the door of your lips, remembering:

Writing of the gentleman who introduces this chapter—the Washington of his people in industry, education and religion, Paul Dunbar, the negro poet, says:

I would say to every young man, no matter what his color, to choose as early as possible a good, clean-cut business, something that will help make the world better, and then strive in every worthy way to make that business the most successful of its kind in the world. The boy who lets obstacles overcome him will not succeed. The great thing is to succeed in spite of discouragements.

Many a pen has been used against this inward passion, declaring it a “secret poison, a gallant madness and the mother of hypocrisy.” The great Wolsey cried, “I charge thee, fling away ambition.” Bowes said, “The most aspiring are frequently the most contemptible,” but there are exceptions to the rule. Where there is no aspiration, there is no endeavor. It is not wrong to strain mental and physical energies to succeed, provided it is to be good and to do good. The ambition of Napoleon to lay waste the town of Acre was wrong, that of Wellington to intercept the “scourge of Europe,” right. “To be ambitious of true honor, of the true glory and perfections of our natures, is,” as Sir Philip Sidney said, “the very principle and incentive of virtue.”

One of the customs of the Norsemen was that of wearing a pickaxe crest with the motto, “Either I will find a way or make one.” An adage of the day reads, “Where there’s a will there’s a way.” What one wills to do can usually be done. George Stephenson determined to make an engine to run between Liverpool and Manchester at the rate of twelve miles an hour. The Quarterly Review ridiculed the idea, saying, “As well trust one’s self to be fired off on a Congreve rocket.” He did it, nevertheless. Prince Bismarck’s greatest ambition was to snatch Germany from Austrian oppression and to gather round Prussia, in a North German 58confederation, all the States whose tone of thought, religion and interest, were in harmony with those of Prussia. “To attain this end,” he once said, “I would brave all dangers—exile, even the scaffold. What matters if they hang me, provided the rope with which I am hung binds this new Germany firmly to the Prussian throne?” And, he did it.

There is nothing wrong in aspiring high. George Washington proposed to carve his name higher than any other on the Natural Bridge in Virginia, and did it. Alfred Harmsworth, “king of the penny press,” said on entering journalism, “I will master the business of editing and publishing.” At twenty-one he had a little capital, at thirty he was a millionaire, and later became head of the largest publishing house in the world.

Emerson once said, “Hitch your wagon to a star.” It is but a natural condition of a healthful life when energies seek an outlet in some lofty activity. Better endeavor if but to fail, than never try at all. “I know,” says Morris, “how far high failure overleaps the bounds of low successes.” The sense of such makes us capable of a grave and holy sense of the real soberness and meaning of life. George Eliot in writing the last words of her most powerful book, exclaims, “It is so much less than what I hoped for.” A great artist was once highly praised for a beautiful painting which he had just completed. “Ah, do not praise me!” he sadly said, “it may be very beautiful, but I aimed at perfection.” When Napoleon started on his campaign he was ridiculed and nicknamed “The Little Corporal,” which cut him to the quick, but it proved to be a goad which stirred him to become a great general. In one of our courts a poor carpenter was once planing a magistrate’s bench, when an onlooker inquired, “Why are you so careful with 59such a rough piece of furniture?” “Because I wish to make it for the time when I shall sit as judge upon it,” was the reply. And that time came.

In 1805 there was born in London a boy of a hated and branded people. When sixteen years of age he became a clerk in a solicitor’s office, and, to the amusement of his companions, he was wont to say: “I intend to be prime minister of England.” He had no liberal education, yet he won honors of literary skill and scholarship. He was ambitious, and eventually won his way to Parliament. When he attempted to deliver his first speech, his highflown style and extravagant gestures provoked laughter and hisses, so that he took his seat with great mortification. In doing so, he uttered a remarkable prophecy, “I shall sit down now, but the time will come when you will hear me.” True to the utterance, that time came to Benjamin Disraeli, when, in Shakespeare’s words he could have said, “People and senators! be not affrighted; fly not; stand still; ambition’s debt is paid.”

Years ago a poor German boy named Schliemann read of the siege of Troy, and made up his mind to find the ruins of that ancient city. He procured books and taught himself six or seven languages. He persevered and prospered until as a merchant he made a fortune. Every step of his study and money-making was taken with the aim of fulfilling the vow of his boyhood. In due time he started eastward with a company of laborers, and for long years pursued his search. At last success crowned his efforts. Troy was discovered and the gold, silver and bronze articles of the Trojan king were dug out of his palace, and placed on exhibition at South Kensington, England.

60One day while wandering about Cincinnati a young artist saw a sign which read, “Peter Skinner, Chairmaker.” “Why can’t I make chairs?” he asked himself. He straightway entered the establishment, resolved to ask for a position. In order to get to the office, he had to pass through the paint room, and the sight of several busy workers prompted him to inwardly exclaim, “Anyway I can paint chairs.” The firm wanted a hand, and he was engaged to come the next morning to work in the paint shop. As he wended his way back he tarried a moment to see how the painters did their work. That evening when he reached his room in the boarding-house, he borrowed a brush and an old chair, and began practising. Next morning he was on hand at the chair factory and there continued to work for two months at nine dollars per week. No one ever discovered that he was not an experienced chair-painter. During his leisure time at the boarding-house he made pencil drawings and dropped them carelessly on the floor so that they would attract attention. The landlord, a colonel in the militia, possessed a strong, characteristic face and the artist drew him in uniform, and dropped this picture on the floor of his room. His chief ambition was to return to portrait painting. He thought the drawing would please the colonel, and it did; so much so, that it led to his receiving a commission to paint the portraits of the colonel and his family, consisting of five members, at five dollars each. With this work to occupy him he left the chair factory, and soon the reputation of James H. Beard, the celebrated portrait and animal painter, was made.

History records thousands of those who have pressed their way upward until they were crowned with success in spite of the distressing, discouraging, circumstantial law of gravitation, in which poverty and uncouth ancestry have played an important part. What 61these have done, any other boy can do, providing he argues not

There is, however, a spirit of discontent manifested by many who envy those a few rounds higher on life’s social or business ladder, and who are determined to surpass them at whatever cost. Such ambition is justly foredoomed to disappointment, like Alexander’s, who wept because there were no more worlds for him to conquer; and like Pisistratus, to whom the Athenian law-giver said, “Were it not for your ambition, you would be the best citizen of Athens.”

Ambition that rises from discontent or selfishness is false. It lacks conscience to engineer it. A boy is only fit to go higher as he demonstrates faithfulness where he is. A boy that simply wants to climb without endeavoring to do well in the position he holds is, as Beecher said, “Neither fit to be where he is, nor yet above it; he is already too high, and should be put lower.” “Out of the frying-pan into the fire,” though not his motto, will doubtless be his result.

Not long ago, at Ellis Island, a large number of immigrants were awaiting examination. Among them was a tall Polish lad with a little black bag under his arm. When his turn came to answer the inevitable question, “How much money have you?” he smiled, and frankly answered “None.” “But don’t you know you can’t come in here if you have no money, and no friend to speak for you? Where are you going?” asked the 62inspector. “To Fall River first. I have a friend there. Then I shall see the whole country. You will hear of me,” he answered. The inspector proceeded rather sharply, “How will you get to Fall River? Where will you eat and sleep to-night?” “I shall be all right,” replied the lad confidently. “With this,” tapping the black bag, “I can go anywhere.” “What is it?” The Pole laughed, and opening the bag, took out a cornet. It was a fine instrument, and gave evidence of loving care. “Can you play it well?” asked the officer, kindly. In answer the young man stepped out into an open space, and lifting the horn to his lips, began the beautiful intermezzo from “Cavalleria Rusticana.” At the very first note every one in the great building stood still and listened. The long lines of immigrants became motionless. The forlorn waiters in the pit looked up, and their faces became tender. Even the meanest among them seemed to feel the charm of the pleading notes. When the music ceased, there was a burst of applause. Shouts of “Bravo,” “Good boy,” “Give us some more,” came from every side. The physicians, who a few moments before had made their hurried and not over-gentle examination, joined in the applause. The officer who had questioned him so sharply slapped him on the back. The commissioner himself had come up from his office at the sound of the horn, and asked for particulars. When he had heard them, he turned to the agent of the Fall River boats, and said, “Give this lad a passage, including meals, and charge it to me.” “I will charge it to myself,” said the agent, and he took the young Pole by the arm and led him away. “With this I can go anywhere,” showed not only his ambitious spirit, but demonstrated faithfulness in the prosecution of his studies, which now stood him in good stead and made him master of the situation. How true, as Massinger sang,

Ambition, to succeed, must seize opportunity by the forelock. “Behind she is bald; if you seize her by the forelock, you may hold her; if suffered to escape, not Jupiter himself can catch her again.” “Do that which lies nearest you,” is an injunction worth obeying, and though not the most satisfactory, may be the stepping-stone to something higher. John D. Rockefeller, who is computed to be worth three hundred million dollars, earned his first money hoeing potatoes, and when thirty-five years of age owned but a thousand dollars. When Edison was a very poor young man, walking the streets in search of work, he happened to step into an office in Wall street. The telegraph recording machine was out of order, and no one could make it work. Instead of pleading his case in general statements, he simply asked if he might try his hand on the balky machine. He was permitted, and was successful. This was the turning point in his career toward fortune. He not only had knowledge and skill enough to make a machine go, but he had wit enough to perceive the opportunity just at hand. Some things are difficult to perceive because they are close to us. But this is all the more reason why we should look for them and with the barest possibility seize them.

Ambition which ennobles, must do well whatever there is to be done. Gladstone’s advice to boys was, “Be thorough in what you do, and remember that, though ignorance often may be innocence, pretension is 64always despicable.” President Garfield tells of a schoolmate who established a factory for the single purpose of making hammers, which he had brought to great perfection, and in which he took a great pride. The statesman said to his old friend, “By this time you must be able to make a pretty good hammer.” The hammer-maker, who was shipping his wares by the thousands to all parts of the earth, replied: “No, we do not make any pretty good hammers; we make the best hammers that can be made.” “I commission thee, my son,” said an aged artist, whose eye was failing and hand trembling, “do thy best.” The young man hesitated, thinking the duty too vast to finish his master’s work, but the injunction “do thy best” rang in his ears. With prayer for help and high purpose in heart, the young man began. As he wrought, his hand grew steady, his conception cleared, each stroke became a master-stroke until with tearful exultation, the aged artist gave over into the hand of Leonardo da Vinci the task from which his own trembling hand was dropping, which task for da Vinci meant a world-wide reputation.

“I was invited,” said the late D. W. Richardson, “to give an address at St. Andrew’s University, and to listen in the evening to a lecture by another man—like myself, an outsider. I was not personally acquainted with this other man, but I knew that he filled an important judicial office in Scotland, and was considered one of the most able and learned, as well as one of the wittiest men in that country. He chose for his subject ‘Self-Culture,’ and for an hour held us in a perfect dream of pleasure. For my own part, I could not realize that the hour had fled. The lecture ended at seven o’clock, and at eight I found myself seated at dinner by the side of the lecturer, at the house of one of the university professors. In the course of the dinner I made some reference 65to the hall in which the exercises of the day had been held, how good it was for sound, and what a fine structure to look upon. ‘And did you like the way in which the stones were laid inside?’ asked my new friend. ‘Immensely,’ I replied, ‘the man who laid those stones was an artist who must have thought that his work would live through the ages.’ ‘Well, that is pleasant to hear,’ he said, ‘for the walls are my ain daein’.’ He had the Scottish accent when in earnest. ‘Fortunate man,’ I replied, ‘to have the means to build so fine a place,’ for I thought, naturally enough, that, being a rich man, he had built this hall at his own expense, and presented it to the university. ‘Fortunate, truly,’ he answered, ‘but not in that sense. What I mean is, that I laid every one of those stones with my ain hand. I was a working mason, and the builder of the hall gave me the job of laying the inside stone-work; and I never had a job in my life in which I took so much pride and so much pleasure.’

“While this man was working with his hands he was working also with his brain. He took his degree, went to the bar, and became a man honored throughout the country. We applauded his brilliant lecture; but those silent, beautiful stones before him, which echoed our applause, must, I think, have been to him one cheer more, and a big one.”

Be ambitious, my boy. Embrace every opportunity, for such “is the small end of a big thing.” The small end comes first and may be good as a handle. “My chance has come,” said Commodore Dewey to a naval captain with whom he dined just before leaving Washington to assume command of the Asiatic squadron early in 1898. “You know, Farragut did not get his chance till he was over sixty, but he took it, and—” something interfered with the conversation and the 66sentence was never finished in words, but the rest of it reverberated around the world from the roar of Dewey’s guns at Manila. Keep your eyes open. Hear, but say little. Count the cost before you bargain. Weigh matters before you buy, and if there is a possibility of success, grasp it. Spare no labor, nor shrink from danger, for in the words of Montrose,

Industry means success in life. Without it, genius, ability, scholarship and good intentions are of no avail. By industry, poverty, lack of opportunity and the greatest obstacles in human life may be overcome, and success in life assured.

“The best thing I remember,” said Chauncey Depew to a company of young men in New York, “was my graduation from Yale. I made up my mind that day that I would lead a life of scholastic ease. I thought I would read a little, write a little, take it easy and have a good time. I had a hard-headed father of sturdy Dutch ancestry. He had enough money to take care of me, and I knew it, and when he discovered that I knew it and intended to act accordingly, it was a cold day for me. Said he, ‘You will never get a dollar from me except through my will. From this time forth you have to make your own way.’ Well, I found I had a hard lot of it—nobody had a harder one—and my father stood by and watched me tussle and fight it out. I bless him for that to-night with all the heart and gratitude I have. If he had taken the other course, what should I have done? I should have been up in Peekskill to-night nursing a stove, complaining of the men who have succeeded in the world, and wondering by what exceptional luck they had got on; but having my way to dig alone, I got beyond everything my father dreamed of, but it was done by fourteen, or sixteen, or eighteen hours’ work a day, if necessary.”

The path to any notable achievement, whether business or professional, is not easy. “No pains, no gains,” is an old English proverb, which is akin to the well-known 70one, “No sweat, no sweet.” Few are the royal roads to fame. Every house Beautiful is situated on a hill Difficulty, the pathway to which is lion-guarded. He who has not the hardihood to climb the one and face the other, will never cross the threshold of the palace. Former Chief Justice Chase used to say that when he came to Washington, a poor boy, an uncle of his was a member of the Cabinet. He went to him and said, “I want to get a place under the government.” His uncle answered, “Salmon, if you want money to buy a pickaxe and shovel to go to work out here on the street, I will furnish you with the money; but you shall never have a position, under the government, with my consent.” To that act of his uncle Chief Justice Chase said he owed his successful career. “Your royal highness,” said Paderewski when told that he was surely inspired, “will be surprised when I tell you that I remember the day when I was quite an indifferent player. I was determined, however, to be what the world calls a genius, and to be a genius I well knew that I must first be a drudge, for genius and drudgery always go hand in hand. Genius”—and Paderewski spoke excitedly—“is three-quarters drudgery—that’s what genius is. I at one time practiced day after day, year after year, till I became almost insensible to sound—became a machine, as it were. Now, ‘Paderewski is a genius,’ says the world! Yes, but Paderewski was a drudge before he was a genius!”

Just as the acorn goes slowly toward the oak, so does the babe journey toward the sage. Haydn and Handel were years before they presented the world with perfect music. Some of the pages of Tennyson’s manuscript have as many as fifty corrections. Only by filling barrels with manuscripts and steadily refusing to publish, Robert Louis Stevenson attained his exquisite style. Millet described his career as ten years of daubing, ten 71years of despair, and ten years of liberty and success. Of the late Professor Joseph H. Thayer of Harvard Divinity School, it was said, “His greatness was the result, not of native ability alone, but of life-long tireless industry.” Addressing his students he once asked, “Do you wish to become great? Remember it means more hours at your desk. The greater you desire to become, the more hours you must work.” Genius is not only the capacity for keeping at it, but taking pains in its accomplishments. Wellington’s military genius was said to have been perfected by encounters with difficulties of apparently the most overwhelming character, yet such trained him to self-reliance, courage and the highest discipline.

A boy once wrote to Henry Ward Beecher soliciting his aid in securing an easy place wherein he might make his mark. Mr. Beecher replied, “You cannot be an editor; do not try the law; do not think of the ministry; let alone all ships, shops and merchandise; abhor politics, don’t practice medicine; be not a farmer nor a mechanic, neither be a soldier nor a sailor; don’t work, don’t study, don’t think. None of these are easy. My son, you have come into a hard world. I know of only one easy place in this world, and that is the grave.”

Indolence is a characteristic of some boys. Some one wrote:

Doubtless this is a gross exaggeration. All boys are not “made that way,” though there are some, who, at the thought—

The father of Daniel and Ezekiel Webster on leaving the home for a short time gave these boys some special work on the farm. On his return he found the labor unperformed, and frowning, demanded, “What have you been doing Ezekiel?” “Nothing, sir,” was the reply. “Well, Daniel, what have you been doing?” “Helping Zeke, sir,” he answered. How many boys are likewise disposed. They care not, and, if they can help it, will not work. They are like

Idleness has been well expressed by the ancients as “the burial of a living man.” It is “the very rust and canker of the soul, the devil’s cushion, pillow and chief reposal.” The boy who courts it will experience no little personal feeling of disgust in after years. When along in life, he will be able to say with a French beggar, who, while undergoing a long imprisonment, tattooed upon his right arm, “The past has deceived me, the present torments me, the future terrifies me.” Better heed Plato’s advice, “Prefer diligence before idleness, unless you esteem rust above brightness, for idleness is the hour of temptation.”

“Wanted, a well-grown boy who can make himself generally useful. Salary moderate to start with.” This 73was the advertisement that had called together some twenty-five boys. The merchant talked with one after another until only two remained in the outer office. “Come in, both of you,” called the merchant, “I can tell you what I want and what I’m willing to pay.” Then followed an enumeration of the services expected with the promise of two and a half dollars a week with an increase at the end of each six months. One of the two boys turned on his heel and said, “That settles it! I can’t afford to work for any such wages as that.” “I’ll try it,” said the other, “and if I suit you six months will soon pass. The two-fifty will pay my actual expenses, for I live at home; then when I get to earning more I can help more.” Five years passed. The first boy idled away his time and went from bad to worse. At last he stood in the prisoner’s dock awaiting trial for forgery. What was his astonishment to behold his former friend ranged on the side of the prosecution as junior member of a firm of eminent lawyers. There was no need for argument on either side, for the poor fellow broke down at the sight of his former schoolmate, and rising, said, “I’ll tell the truth and take my punishment. If I’d begun as that young man did five years ago I might have been somebody to-day, but I was above low wages and didn’t believe in small beginnings. Now I am a living example of what pride and indolence can do for a boy.” Satan is sure to find mischief for idle hands, and the only way to keep clear of his work is to be busy at something, pay or no pay.

Industry is one of the pet laws of nature, and as Periander, one of the Seven Wise Men of Greece, said, “Nothing is impossible to industry.” It has conquered our American forests, built cities as by magic, improved prairies and valleys until they blossom like the rose, and made our civilization rich with the arts, both liberal and fine. Long before the Indians owned California 74the gold fields were there. Before Franklin found electricity in the clouds, it was there. Before Marconi discovered the unseen waves of air to carry his messages across the sea, they were there. All that was needed was concentration, careful thinking and earnest, persistent effort to bring them into use.

All great men have had the gift of laboring intensely, continually and determinedly before succeeding, many of whom won their way against heavy odds. Arsaces, who founded the Parthian empire, against which the mighty hosts of Rome long contended in vain, was a mechanic of obscure origin. Andersen, the popular Danish author, was the son of a cobbler, and in his earlier years worked on the bench, doing his literary work on scraps of paper during the moments of rest from his regular duties. Cararra began his life as a drummer boy and driver of cattle, but subsequently rose to the presidency of the Republic of Guatemala. Demosthenes, the Greek orator and “prince of eloquence,” was the son of a blacksmith. In his first attempt at public speaking, he displayed such a weakness of voice, imperfect articulation and awkwardness that he withdrew from the speaker’s platform amidst the hooting and laughter of his hearers. Giotto, one of the founders of Italian art, was a shepherd boy whom Cimabue discovered drawing sheep in the sand with a pointed stone, with such accuracy that he took him as a student. Herschel when a boy, played for balls, and while the dancers were lounging round the room he would go out and take a peep at the heavens through his telescope. It was while doing this that he discovered the Georgium Sidus, which made him famous. Samuel Richardson, the novelist, was a poor bookseller. He sold his books in the front part of the store, while he wrote them in the rear. It was a hard struggle. “My own industry and God’s providence,” said he, “have been my whole reliance.” 75Lough, the English sculptor, reached success only through self-denial and hard work. He followed the plough by day and modelled by night. At length he went to London and took lodgings in an obscure house in a back street above a grocer’s shop, and there began his statue of Milo. While working on it he went three months without meat. All the coal he used that winter was a bushel and a half. When Peter Coxe found him he was tearing up his shirt and dipping the strips into water to keep the clay moist. At last the statue was finished. The roof had been removed to finish its head. His work was soon noised abroad and sculptors took great interest in it. The Duke of Wellington went to see it and ordered a statue, and the boy who had struggled and suffered so much became the greatest sculptor of England.

James Ferguson, the Scotch astronomer, was very anxious when a boy to understand the mechanism of watches. His father refused to allow him to play with his watch, and so James waited until a stranger called with a watch. “Will you be good enough to tell me what time it is?” asked the boy. The gentleman told him. “Would you be willing that I should look at your watch?” continued James. “Certainly,” replied the gentleman. The boy took the watch eagerly. After examining it for a moment he asked, “What makes that box go round?” “A steel spring,” replied the owner. “How can a steel spring in a box turn it round so as to wind up all the chain?” The gentleman explained the process. “I don’t see through it yet,” answered the boy. “Well, now,” said the visitor, who had become interested, “take a long, thin piece of whale-bone, hold one end of it fast between your thumb and forefinger, and wind it around your finger. It will then attempt to unwind, 76and if you fix the other end of it to the inside of a small hoop and leave it to itself it will turn the hoop round and round and wind up a thread tied to the outside.” “I see it! I see it!” exclaimed the boy, enthusiastically. “Thank you, very much!” It was not long before he had made a wooden watch, which he enclosed in a case about the size of a teacup. Soon after this he was set to watching sheep by night. Here he took an interest in the stars with as great a zeal as in the watch and ere long became noted as a great astronomer.

Boys of to-day are living in the most enlightened age, when everything is an improvement of the past. Time was when man lived in caves, now in mansions; when he sailed the rivers in dug-outs of trees, now in steamers; when he traveled overland in ox-carts, now on steam cars; when he depended on fire or candle light to banish darkness, now electricity; when he spun cotton and wove it by a crude hand machine, now the spinning jenny and power loom; when he wrote on the bark of a tree with a sharpened iron or stick, now on the finest paper with a typewriter; when he sent messages by swift runners, now by telegraph. He now holds communication with other continents by cable, brings distant worlds near with the telescope, examines a single hair of a fly with the microscope and harnesses the elements of nature in his forward movement. All things are conquered, utilized and perfected by industry. “Fortune,” as one said, “is ever on the side of the industrious, as winds and waves are on the side of the best navigators.” There is no reason why any industrious boy should not reach the pinnacle of success. To do so will doubtless mean struggles, hard thinking, careful planning, but the end pays for all.

77My boy, remember there is a place for you in the world. A place honorable, useful, influential, but it demands tireless exertion, steadfastness of purpose, carefulness of detail to reach and hold it. To neglect is to invite suffering in the future. “If I neglect my practice a day,” said Malibran the singer, “I see the difference in my execution; if for two days, my friends see it; and if for a week, all the world knows my failure.”

Don’t wait my lad, for something to “turn up.” “Things,” said Garfield, “don’t turn up in this world until somebody turns them up.” While ninety-nine persons wait for chances that never come, the one hundredth realizing upon his irresistible strength and determination, makes his chance. “Never mind. What is the next thing to be done?” asked young Huxley, when he failed to pass the medical examination on which he thought his future depended. Looking back in after years at his defeat, the great scientist wrote, “It does not matter how many tumbles you have in life, so long as you do not get dirty when you tumble. It is only the people who have to stop and be washed who must lose the race.”

“When I was a boy on my father’s farm in Connecticut,” said Collis P. Huntington,—the man who had a hundred thousand people in his employ, “I worked hard, utilizing every moment, for there was plenty to do. But if I had any spare time I did chores for the neighbors. I never wanted for anything I needed! I always got it. But many buy things they do not need. When I went to New York in 1836 I had quite a sum of money, the result of my savings, judicious investments, and little tradings about the neighborhood.” He had an aim in life, and he worked till he accomplished it. That person who has not a definite purpose cannot expect to succeed. Philip, King of Macedon, lost his eye from a bowshot. When the soldiers picked up the 78shaft they perceived upon it these words, “To Philip’s eye!” The archer had an aim that accomplished something, and he that has not, cannot.

The boy who would be an intelligent and wise man needs to be studious. What may now seem irksome employment will prove a delight in after years. Through study he will not be a burden to himself, nor will “his society be,” as Seneca said, “insupportable to others.”

Study whenever and wherever you can. Pliny in one of his Letters relates how he used spare moments. “Sometimes I hunt; but even then I carry with me a pocket-book, that whilst my servants are busied in disposing of nets and other matters, I may be employed in something that may be useful to me in my studies; and that if I miss of my game, I may at least bring home some of my thoughts with me, and not have the mortification of having caught nothing.”

In choosing subjects you will not have to combat with the difficulties our forefathers met, for in these days of cheap paper and cheap printing the whole world of literature is open to you. But here, my lad, let me warn you against the worthless, the pernicious trash with which the literary market is flooded.

Study history with its descriptions of growth and decay of nations; science with its marvels and recent revelations, biographies of good and great men and nature whose pages are always open to view. Study everything which will lead you to look higher and feel nobler.

The impression that study is only for those who attend school is decidedly wrong. If carried into practice it would prove disastrous to one’s success. There is no period in life when one can afford to be otherwise than studious. Had Henry Clay after learning to write by filling a box with sand and tracing letters with a pointed stick, or had young Daniel Webster, after plucking his pen out of the wings of his mother’s pet goose and making ink out of the soot scraped from the fireplace, ceased to go farther, their names as great speakers and writers would not be known.

John Quincy Adams was considered the most learned man of his day. When his parents intended to keep him in school, he plead so earnestly to leave that they gave him his choice between two things, work on the farm or school. John said he thought he would work and he was therewith assigned with other help in ditching. After working three days he became weary of his job and coming to his father said: “Father, if you are willing I guess I’ll go back to school.” In after life he confessed, “If I have accomplished anything as a scholar, I owe it to those three days’ work in the abominable ditch.”

General Lew Wallace, according to his own words, was a poor student in his young manhood. He grew 82tired of his college course after six weeks, and returned home. Calling him into his office, his father took from a pigeonhole in his desk a package of papers neatly folded and tied with red tape. These were the receipts for his tuition. After reading the items the father said, “That sum represents what I have expended to provide you with a good education. After mature reflection I have come to the conclusion that I have done for you, in that direction, all that can reasonably be expected of any parent; and I have, therefore, called you in to tell you that you have now reached an age when you must take up the lines yourself. If you have failed to profit by the advantages with which I have tried so hard to surround you, the responsibility must be yours. I shall not upbraid you for your neglect, but rather pity you for your indifference which you have shown to the golden opportunities you have been enabled to enjoy through my indulgence.”

Lew left the office thinking. The next day he set out with a determination to accomplish something for himself. He secured employment of the County Clerk to copy the records of the courts. For months he worked in a dingy, half-lighted room, receiving as compensation ten cents per hundred words. The tediousness and regularity of the work was a splendid drill besides teaching him the virtue of persistence as one of the avenues of success. He had a desire to become a lawyer, but realizing his deficiency in education he was compelled to study evenings. “I was made to realize,” said he, “the time I had spent with such lavish prodigality could not be recovered, and that I must extract every possible good out of the golden moments then flying by all too fast.” This he did until “Ben Hur,” one of the greatest books ever published, show how well he did it.

To be studious is to be ambitious, to excel, to be anxious for the acquisition of such knowledge as will be beneficial. From any source it will be gathered as the bee gathers honey from any flower. “Drink deep or taste not the Pierian spring of knowledge,” wrote an eminent poet. “Study chiefly,” said Lord Bacon to Cecil, “what you can turn to good account in your future life.” James Russell Lowell once counselled his nephew, “A man is valuable in our day for what he knows, and his company will be always desired by others in exact proportion to the amount of intelligence and instruction he brings with him.” William E. Gladstone in counselling boys said, “Get all the knowledge you can.” And Theodore Roosevelt declared, “Shiftlessness, slackness, indifference to studying are all most certain to mean inability to get on in other walks of life.”

A boy accompanied an old hunter through the woods in search of game. Suddenly a partridge whirred from before their feet. The huntsman with steady nerve, quick eye and calculating brain brought the bird down at the first shot. “How could you aim so quickly?” the lad inquired. “I didn’t wait till I got into the woods to learn,” was his chaffing reply. He had done what Stone, the author of “The Mathematical Dictionary” did when perusing scientific works while aiding his father, who was gardener to the Duke of Argyll, had done; what David Livingstone did before he became Africa’s explorer, while in the old Blantyre cotton works with a Latin grammar on his spinning jenny; had done, what Ezra Cornell did before he built a two-story dwelling for his father’s family when only seventeen years of age; had done, what Henry Clay did with 84“these off-hand efforts” as he called his speeches in the corn field before he stirred the country with his orations,—made careful preparation beforehand.

What one will be in manhood depends largely on what he is in boyhood. The loftiest attainments are nothing more than fruits of earnest study. There is no perfection, no great excellence without great labor. “It is the deepest soil,” said Dewey, “that yields not only the richest fruits, but the fairest flowers; it is the most solid body which is not only the most useful, but which admits of the highest polish and brilliancy; it is the strongest pinion which not only carries the greatest burden, but which soars to the highest flight.” It is the best education which fits a person for a responsible position. If a man succeeds who has had no education he does so in spite of his misfortune and not by reason of it. Dickens owed less to education than probably any literary man. He was not in school two years in his whole life, but he was a genius by right divine. Few are so richly endowed, hence “a good education is a young man’s best capital.”

He was called the dunce. His teacher would stand him apart from his class, for he could not or would not learn. One day a gentleman came into the room and seeing the lad standing, inquired the reason. “Oh, he is good for nothing,” replied the teacher. “There’s nothing in him. I can make nothing out of him. He is the most stupid boy in the school.” The gentleman was stirred to pity. Going to him, he placed his hand on the head of the humiliated lad and said, “One of these days, you may be a fine scholar. Don’t give up, but try, my boy, try.” The boy’s soul was aroused. His dormant intellect awoke. A new purpose was formed. Clinching his teeth, he said, “I will.” From that hour 85he became ambitious and studious. He became a great scholar, an author of a well-known commentary on the Bible, and was beloved and honored by many. This dunce was the celebrated Adam Clarke.

The same was true of others. Isaac Newton was kicked by the brightest boy in the school because he was the most ignorant, but he said, “Never mind, I’ll repay him by beating him in my studies.” After a long time of earnest effort he did it. Oliver Goldsmith in his boyhood was very stupid, but he resolved to surprise his fellow students, and this he did by writing that popular book, the “Traveller.” Sir Walter Scott was nicknamed the “blockhead” when a student, but he declared, “I’ll make them change it,” and change it they did. Through close study he attained such eminence that he was afterward styled, “The Wizard of the North.” Sir William Jones, the greatest scholar of Europe, was not a bright student. He was put into a class beyond his years, and where all the scholars had the advantage in that they had previous instruction that had been denied him. The teacher accused him of dullness, and all his efforts could not raise him from the foot of the class. He was not daunted. Procuring for himself grammars and other elementary text books, which the rest of the class had gone through in private terms, he devoted the hours of play, and some of the hours of sleep, to the mastering of them. By this he soon shot ahead of his fellow pupils, and became the leader of the class and the pride of Harrow School. Dean Stanley was declared by Mr. Rawson, his schoolmaster, to be the stupidest boy at figures who ever came under his care, save only one, who was yet more hopeless, and was unable to grasp simple addition and multiplication, yet Arthur Stanley rose like a rocket at Rugby, achieved fame in Oxford and became a blessing to mankind. The other developed a phenomenal mastery of arithmetic. Years 86after he would make a budget speech of three hours’ length and full of figures. He is known throughout the world as William E. Gladstone.

Boys of studious mind may achieve an education if they desire. It may not be such as will enable them to secure a diploma from a college, but such as will make them successful and useful. All should strive for a college education. It is an investment, the returns of which in after years will be worth more and may do more than gold. Kitto, who was one of the greatest Biblical scholars in the world, receiving from the University of Geissen the degree of Doctor of Divinity, craved for the greatest knowledge of his day. Notwithstanding his affliction of deafness he begged his drunken father to take him from the poor-house and let him struggle for an education. Said he, “I know how to stop hunger. Hottentots live a long time on nothing but gum. Sometimes when hungry they tie a band around their bodies. Let me go. I can do as they do. There are blackberries and nuts in the hedges, and turnips in the fields and hay-ricks for a bed. Let me go.” And go he did with the already mentioned result.

Should circumstances, however, prevent a college education, every boy should use the margins of time in reading books and studying principles until he attains a cultured mind. Reading is one of the great means of education, and whether it be a blessing or curse, depends on what is read. By reading one communes with the mightiest and wisest minds. Great men have usually been great readers. Abraham Lincoln and James A. Garfield used to read and study lying flat upon the floor before the fire. Hugh Miller, after working from early morn to night as a stone-mason, managed to find 87time after his hours of work to read every good book he could secure, pondering over them during the day. In this way he became eminent as a scholar, and when the time came in Scotland’s history that some man should plead for her ecclesiastical freedom from State domination, Hugh Miller stepped to the front, though until he was thirty-three years old he was nothing more than a studious stone-mason.

To remember what one reads is of great importance. It is not the amount of matter read but the amount remembered. Lord Macaulay always stopped at the foot of each page and gave a verbal account of what he read. Said he, “At first I had to read it three or four times before I got my mind firmly fixed. But I compelled myself to comply with the plan, until now, after I have read a book once through, I can almost recite it from beginning to end. It is a very simple habit to form early in life, and is valuable as a means of making our reading serve the best purpose.”

Granville Sharp was only an apprentice to a linen draper in London. To know the exact meaning of the Scriptures he mastered the Greek and Hebrew languages. A poor lame and almost blind African who had been cured by his brother’s medical skill was recognized on the streets of the metropolis by his old master and claimed as a slave. Granville resolved that the negro shall never more be in bondage. But what can he do? Slavery was then a legal right. Lord Chief Justice Mansfield was of the opinion that a slave did not become free by coming to England. Granville Sharp soon decided on his course. For two years he read and memorized law. Then came the tract from his pen, “Injustice of Tolerating Slavery in England,” which changed the mind of Mansfield and eventually made the slave-trade of England illegal.

Every boy should study by concentrating his mind. 88The reason of so much ignorance is not through a lack of educational facilities, but lack of will force and mental force to master a subject in hand. Many a boy commits his lessons parrot-like, with little or no disposition to understand the whys and wherefores, while another studies and inquires until he comprehends the reason of all that he learns. The result is, one masters his study, the other is mastered by his study. When Sir Isaac Newton was asked “how he had discovered the true system of the universe” he replied, “By continually thinking upon it.”

Every boy should study with eyes open. The inspired penman declared, “The wise man’s eyes are in his head,” not in his elbows or feet, though multitudes act as if they were. But “in his head,” just where they ought to be. In other words, the “wise man” is a careful observer; he possesses this faculty of comprehending the nature and reason of things. Not that observation alone insures success but this is one of the leading, indispensable elements of it.

Professor Morse, who was judge of pottery at the World’s Fair, Chicago, being asked to what he attributed his knowledge, answered, “To the habits of close inspection acquired in my boyhood when collecting shells.” General Sherman explains his victorious march to the sea by saying that during his college days he spent a summer in Georgia. While his companions were occupied with playing cards and foolish talk the young soldier tramped over the hills, made a careful map of the country and years later his expert knowledge won the victory.

Many persons go through life without an observation that is educative. Ten men will observe a steam engine only to admire its novelty, one studies each valve 89and screw until he understands the principle on which it is constructed. Ten travelers will pass through the country without noticing special peculiarities, one observes each tree, flower, hill, valley and river. Ten readers will skim over a book, catching only its general drift, one criticises style, expression and thought and is rapt with its beauties and sensitive to its faults. These are they who profit themselves and benefit others.

Every boy should study by utilizing the moments. As success in business depends upon the small margin of profit secured and retained, rather than upon the large volume done, so success in life may depend upon our ability to save the moments, the precious “margin” that is left after we have done the things which are necessary in order to discharge our duties or earn our daily bread.

Dr. Cotton Mather would express his regret after the departure of a visitor who had wasted his time, “I would rather have given my visitor a handful of money than have been kept so long out of my study.” Cæsar, it is said, would not permit a campaign, however exacting, to deprive him of minutes when he could write his Commentaries. Schliemann standing in line at the post-office and waiting for his letters when a boy, saved the fragments of time by studying Greek from a pocket grammar. Heine, the noted classicist of Germany, while shelling peas with one hand for dinner, held his book in the other. Matthew Hale’s “Contemplations” was composed while he was traveling as circuit judge. Henry Kirke White learnt Greek while walking to and from a lawyer’s office. Elihu Burritt is said to have mastered eighteen languages and twenty-two dialects by improving the fragments of time in his blacksmith’s shop. William E. Gladstone and Lord Lyttelton in 90their younger days always carried one of the smaller classics in their pockets to read if they had a leisure moment. Sir James Paget, in his youth, made tables of Cuvier’s classifications while dressing, which he posted in his bedroom. Cardinal Manning, when an undergraduate at Oxford, acquired a satisfactory Italian vocabulary during the time spent in shaving. Phillips Brooks combined the processes of shaving and study, and, it is said that Theodore Roosevelt carries constantly a small volume of Plutarch or Thucydides to read in spare moments. Fifteen minutes thus saved, or utilized, four times a day, gives us thirty hours in a month, the working time of about sixty days of six hours each in a year, or about five years’ study in thirty years’ time, and five years well used yield more fruit than a whole lifetime squandered.

Every boy should study for the pleasure and profit there is in it. Knowledge is power, and sometime, somewhere, the information will come useful. When Sherman’s troops were passing through a critical experience during the Civil War, they captured a telegraph line of the enemy. Hastily cutting the wire, the General inquired if any of his men understood telegraphy. A young officer stepped forward saying, “One vacation I studied this art just for the pleasure of it.”

When Bishop Whipple came to Chicago to preach he was anxious to reach the many artisans and railway operatives. He called upon William McAlpine, the chief engineer of the Galena Railway, and asked his advice as to the best way of approaching the employes of the road. “How much do you know about a steam engine?” asked McAlpine. “Nothing.” “Then,” said McAlpine, “read ‘Lardner’s Railway Economy’ until you are able to ask an engineer a question about a locomotive 91and he not think you a fool.” The clergyman had the practical sense to see the justice of that advice. So he “read up,” and in due season went to the round-house of the Galena Railway, where he found a number of engineers standing by a locomotive which the firemen were cleaning. He saw that it was a Taunton engine with inside connections, and asked, at a venture, “Which do you like best, inside or outside connections?” This brought out information about steam heaters and variable exhausts, and in half an hour he had learned more than his book had ever taught him. When he said good-by, he added: “Boys, where do you go to church? I have a free church in Metropolitan Hall, where I shall be glad to see you, and if at any time you need me, shall be glad to go to you.” The following Sunday every man was in church.

Years ago, when Mr. Gladstone was in active political service, he made some public addresses during a parliamentary recess that gave offence to the leaders of the opposite party. They thought it necessary to discipline him by what would be regarded as an official rebuke, when Parliament should reassemble. He was to be convicted of breach of courtesy and violation of constitutional rights. In due course the reprimand was administered. A Conservative statesman of distinction was set up to chastise the offending lion. He rejoiced as a strong man to run a race. A splendid audience was present to see the thing done properly, and the Conservative orator’s wife had taken with her a party of friends to the House of Commons to aid in swelling the triumph. Through a long speech Mr. Gladstone sat in silence. He was accused of ignorance of English history and disregard for the English Constitution, rightly so sacred to every Englishman. After midnight he arose to reply. For two hours he poured forth his matchless eloquence. Not a point had escaped him. Not a 92fact or a sentiment of the arraignment had been overlooked or misplaced. He did not indulge in invective. He made no counter charges. He emptied out his stores of history. He unfolded and eulogized the provisions of the British Constitution. He left no loophole of retreat for his adversaries. He overwhelmed them with the fulness of his knowledge and his oratory, and routed them most ignominiously. The noble lady and her friends had no occasion to celebrate a triumph. Mr. Gladstone’s victory was largely due to his marvellous power of early study.

My boy, be studious. You will find sometime a market for everything you know. Be patient in your studies. If things do not seem clear, do not give up. A dull, hazy morning often turns out a bright day. Dryden would think for two weeks in the composition of one of his odes. There are few things which patient labor will not enable one to accomplish. Difficulties like spectres melt when approached. It is not one stroke of the axe that fells the tree, or one blow of the hammer that demolishes the rock, but the repetition. Study everything of advantage, but bend energy and mind mostly in the line of your life work. Study for what it will do for you. Study for what you can do for others, and never give up study.

Temperance is reason’s girdle and passion’s bridle, the strength of the soul, and the foundation of virtue.

In all the world there is not to be found an old man, who has been a total abstainer from intoxicating liquors through all his life, who regrets the rule he adopted and kept. Such a man was never heard to say: “I am sorry I did not learn to love wine, whiskey, ale, beer or brandy when I was young.” This is a very safe rule for young men, that has not a single exception in all the wide world. On the other hand, how many have said: “Drink has been my curse”? Take the pledge, boys, keep it, and you will find it a jewel in nature, a comfort through life, and a consolation in death.

One of the great curses, if not the greatest in our land, is intemperance. It is productive of murder, lawlessness and crime; the chief agency in the corruption of the ballot, legislation and administration of the law; the voracious consumer of purity, reputation and health, and the chief architect in establishing mad-houses, orphan asylums, prisons and county farms. It demands and controls annually more than a billion dollars by which bread, meat, clothing, shoes and sugar could be purchased for the poor, and all schools and Christian missions supported. In silver dollars this money could be laid side by side on the equator till it formed a band around the earth, while the liquor it purchased would fill a canal twenty feet wide, twenty feet deep and forty-six miles long. The grain alone used by distilleries in the manufacture of the destructive drink is fifty million bushels, enough to furnish three hundred one-pound loaves of bread to each family in the United States. No wonder that “ninety-nine of every hundred men,” as John B. Gough said, “are ruined morally, intellectually and religiously by the use of drink,” and that fifty of every hundred insane persons, seventy-five of every hundred prisoners, and ninety-six of every hundred tramps are made thus by this evil. Far better that every boy “touch not, taste not.” Longfellow said:

In one of the older colleges in Massachusetts years ago, there was a boy of great promise, bearing an honored name, and concentrating in his own intellect the mental power of generations of ancestors. He was a prodigy in learning. He seized a language almost by intuition. His person was faultless; his hair like the raven’s wing, his eye like the eagle’s. On the day of his graduation he married a charming young lady. His profession, the law, led him to the highest office of advocacy in the State. He was Attorney General at an age when most students are admitted to the bar. Suddenly, when as yet no one knew the cause, he resigned his high appointment, giving no reasons. He was a secret drunkard. Too high was his sense of honor, and the importance of his station, to intrust himself longer with the destinies of society. As years rolled by he sunk like a mighty ship in mid-ocean, not without many a lurch, many a sign of righting once more to plow the proud seas that were destined to entomb him forever. His lovely wife left him, and, returning to her parents, died of a broken heart. With bowed head at the grave, he wept bitterly on the head of a dear boy she had left behind. Friends of his, men of talent and piety, prayed over him, and at times he would get the better of the demon that ruled him, and again put forth his gigantic 97powers. The greatest effort he exerted during this period was in an important case before the Supreme Court of the United States. Marshall, the patriarch of American judges, gazed with wonder on the barrister, as burst after burst of eloquence and oratory followed. George Briggs, member of Congress from Massachusetts, seeing his splendid portrait hanging in a conspicuous place at Washington, inquired who it was, and was told “that is the portrait of Talcott, the brilliant genius, the most talented man in the United States.” In his last spasm of temperance he wrote a beautiful tract: “The Trial and Condemnation of Alcohol.” After a fatiguing argument before a court in the city of New York, he was over-persuaded by a friend to take a glass of beer. It was his last sober moment till he was in the agonies of death. Down, down he went and never rose to assume manliness again. As the fabled phœnix is said to rise from the ashes of its parent, one of the most noble and eloquent advocates of temperance proved to be the son of this ruined genius.

It is a great delusion for boys to think it manly to drink. Manliness implies strength and courage. A drunkard lacks both. He might be brutal, but he is a coward. Manliness also implies reason, and when we consider that liquor robs one of this, a boy shows his manliness by letting it alone and helping others do the same. Liquor is a poison. Incorporated in it is a deadly drug known as alcohol. Drop a little on the eye and it destroys the sight. Sprinkle a few drops on the leaf of a plant and it will kill it. Immerse a tadpole in it and it ceases to live. Drink it and its action produces weakness, and its reaction nervousness. In a word, alcohol is the devil’s best drug and the boy’s worst enemy. Said General Harrison, “I was one of a class 98of seventeen young men who graduated at college. The other sixteen now fill drunkards’ graves. I owe all my health, my happiness and prosperity to a resolution I made when starting in life, that I would avoid strong drink. That vow I have never broken.”

In 1812 the town of Farmington, New Hampshire, saw a poor boy. When old enough he was bound out to a farmer. Afterward he learned a trade. He worked well and studied evenings. A friend took an interest in him and encouraged him to attend and speak at a political meeting. “How can I be anything when my father is a drinking man?” he was wont to say. He solemnly signed the pledge of total abstinence and began speech-making. Soon the young men said: “Let us send him to the Legislature.” At every step he did his best. Finally Massachusetts sent a petition by him to Congress. John Quincy Adams invited him to dinner. While at dinner, Mr. Adams filled his glass, and turning to the young man, said: “Will you drink a glass of wine with me?” He hated to refuse, there was the ex-President of the United States, and a company of great men. All eyes were upon him, and so he hesitated and grew red in the face, but finally stammered: “Excuse me, sir, I never drink wine.” The next day the whole account came out in the Washington papers. It was copied all over Massachusetts, and the people said: “Here is a man who stands by his principles. He can be trusted. Let us promote him.” He was made Congressman and Senator. Finally he became Vice-President of the country. That farmer-boy was Henry Wilson.

When elected to this office, he gave his friends a dinner. The table was set without one wine-glass upon it. “Where are the glasses?” asked several of the guests, 99merrily. “Gentlemen,” said Mr. Wilson, “you know my friendship and my obligation to you. Great as they are, they are not great enough to make me forget the rock whence I was hewn and the pit whence I was dug. Some of you know how the curse of intemperance overshadowed my youth. That I might escape I fled from my early surroundings. For what I am, I am indebted to God, to my temperance vow and to my adherence to it. Call for what you want to eat, and if this hotel can provide it, it shall be forthcoming; but wine and liquors can not come to this table with my consent, because I will not spread in the path of another the snare from which I escaped.” At this, three rousing cheers rent the room for the man who had the courage to stand by his noble convictions.

It pays to be a total abstainer. “Abstinence,” said Bishop Spalding, “is but negative, a standing aloof from what hinders or hurts.” The tendency of drink is to deaden the moral sensibilities. It weakens the nerves, impairs the brain, feeds disease and at last “bites like a serpent and stings like an adder.” On the other hand, “temperance is a bridle of gold, and he who uses it rightly is more like a god than a man.” Nothing is so conducive to one’s happiness and success in life. Burdette said, “Honor never has the delirium tremens; glory does not wear a red nose; fame blows a horn, but never takes one.”

There is a story told of Hannibal, the great Carthaginian, who fought so long and so successfully against the Romans, that when he was still a boy of nine years, his father Hamilcar asked him if he would like to go to the wars with him. The child was delighted at the thought. “Then,” said his father, “you must swear that you will, as long as you live, hate the Romans and fight 100against them.” Young Hannibal took the oath, and all through life was the bitter enemy of Rome. He took sides with his father and his country against the proud foes. The boy who wishes to succeed in life must incorporate “no liquor” in his resolutions, and under all circumstances refuse it, choosing rather to be an advocate of ennobling temperance.

It pays to be a total abstainer, because it is right. It is not so much a question of dollars saved or happiness promoted as a question of right. Said Amos Lawrence, “Young men, base all your actions upon a sense of right, and in so doing, never reckon the cost.” In the army, drinking and treating were common occurrences. One noble captain had the heroism to decline the oft-proffered treat. An observer asked, “Do you always reject intoxicating liquor?” “Yes.” “Do you not take it to correct this Yazoo water?” “Never.” “You must have belonged to the cold water army in your youth.” “Yes, but I learned something better than that; my mother taught me that what is right is right, and coming to Mississippi makes no difference. It would not be right for me to accept an invitation to drink at home, it is no more right here; therefore I don’t drink.” Some time after an officer met a lady who wanted to see one who had met her boy, naming his office and regiment. He told her of the noble examples of piety which were found in the army and related the case of the captain. She exclaimed, “That’s beautiful! That’s beautiful! His mother must be proud of him.” “Yes, she is, and you are that mother.” Amid grateful tears she exclaimed, “Is that my boy? Is that my Will? It’s just like him; I knew he would do so. He was a good boy. He told me he always would be and I knew he would.” Beautiful trust. Excellent commendation. Would that it could be said of every boy.

It pays to be a total abstainer for the sake of those 101who suffer through intemperance. The good and wise Governor Buckingham, of Connecticut, gave as his reason for being a total abstainer, “If I indulge, I am not safe. There is no degradation so low that a man will not sink to it, and no crime so hellish that he will not commit it, when he is drunk. But if it could be proved conclusively to my own mind that I could drink and never be injured, yet I could not be certain but others, seeing me drink, might be influenced to drink also, and, being unable to stop, pass on in the path of the drunkard.” Were many more as considerate there would be less drinking husbands, and less despised and taunted children because of drunken fathers.

Who would ever think of a two-dollar bill relating a sad story and giving a pathetic warning? Yet such a bill was brought to the office of a Temperance Union recently. Written in red ink a poor man told what liquor had done for him, and what it would do for others. Here is what it said, “Wife, children and $40,000 all gone. I alone am responsible. All have gone down my throat. When I was twenty-one I had a fortune. I am now thirty-five years old. I have killed my beautiful wife, who died of a broken heart; have murdered my children with neglect. When this bill is gone I do not know how I am to get my next meal. I shall die a drunken pauper. ’Tis my last money and my history. If this bill comes into the hands of any man who drinks, let him take warning from my ruin.”

When Colonel Alexander Hogeland was sitting in his room at Louisville some years ago, a lame boy knocked at the door. Said he, “My father is to be hung to-morrow. The Governor will not pardon him. He killed my mother when he was drunk. He was a good father, and we were always happy only when he drank. 102Won’t you go and talk and pray with him, and then come to our house when his body is brought to us?” The Colonel did as requested, and found that the demon drink was the sole cause of that family’s ruin. The father was hung, and when the body was taken to the home, he was there. Six worse than orphans were curled up on a bundle of straw and rags, crying with a grief that would make the stoutest heart quail. The crippled boy but fourteen years of age was the sole support of the little family. The father’s body was brought in by two officers. The plain board coffin was rested upon two old chairs, and the officers hurried out of the room and away from the terrible scene. “Come,” said the crippled boy, “come and kiss papa’s face before it gets cold;” and all six children kissed the face of that father, and, smoothing the brow, sobbed in broken accents, “Whiskey did it. Papa was good, but whiskey did it.”

My boy, be temperate. Do your best to stop another such scene. Sign the pledge. Talk against, work against, and when able, vote against the liquor interests. “Woe to the man or boy who becomes a slave to liquor,” said General Phil. Sheridan. “I had rather see my son die to-day than to see him carried to his mother drunk. One of my brave soldier-boys on the field said to me just before a battle, ‘Tell mother, if I am killed, I have kept my promise to her. Not one drink have I ever tasted.’ The boy was killed. I carried the message with my own lips to the mother. She said, ‘General, that is more glory for my boy than if he had taken a city.’”

The influence of example is always a powerful one. With such wide-spread habits as those of tobacco smoking and chewing it is little wonder why so many boys indulge. They see only the pleasureable side of these habits; but it devolves upon us, from our daily experience with “the ills that flesh is heir to” to make known to you young friend the dangers lurking in these seductive vices. We doctors are often consulted by victims of these habits, who are quite surprised upon stopping the use of tobacco to find to what a degree they have become enslaved. That the baneful effect from the use of tobacco is universally recognized is evidenced by the fact of its prohibition in schools and naval academies, and by the laws now in force in several of the States and also in Germany, making it illegal to sell tobacco to any under sixteen years of age.

Tobacco is especially injurious to those subjected to severe mental strain or physical training, and to such as are engaged in delicate manual work. The symptoms are many. Digestion is sometimes greatly impaired. On the heart the effect is very noticeable. My advice to boys is, not to use tobacco in any form.

An old monk was once walking through a forest, with a scholar by his side. He suddenly stopped and pointed to four plants that were close at hand. The first was just beginning to peep above the ground, the second had rooted itself well into the earth, the third was a small shrub, while the fourth was a full-sized tree. Turning to his young companion he said: “Pull up the first.” The boy easily did so. “Now pull up the second.” The youth obeyed, but not so easily. “And now the third.” The boy had to put forth all his strength, and use both arms, before he succeeded in uprooting it. “And now,” said the master, “try your hand upon the fourth.” But although the lad grasped the trunk of the tree in his arms, he scarcely shook its leaves, and found it impossible to tear its roots from the earth. Then the wise old man explained to his scholar the meaning of the four trials.

“This, my son, is just what happens with our bad habits and passions. When they are young and weak, one may, by a little watchfulness over self, easily tear them up; but if we let them cast their roots deep down into our souls, no human power can uproot them. Only the almighty hand of the Creator can pluck them out. For this reason, my boy, watch your first impulses.”

Tobacco-using is frequently the beginning and stepping-stone to other vices. Many who have hesitated in entering a saloon or gambling place have not done so in the use of tobacco.

The origin of tobacco is shrouded in mystery. Mezen was of the opinion that the Chinese used it from antiquity. Dr. Lizards says it existed in Asia from early times. Columbus in his discovery of Cuba tells how he found the natives “carrying with them firebrands, puffing smoke from their mouths and noses, which he supposed to be the way they had of perfuming themselves.”

An ancient tradition relates that there was once a Mohammedan passing along who found a viper lying in his path, almost chilled to death. In pity the Moslem stooped, picked up the serpent, and put it into his bosom to warm it. After a while the viper fully revived and became aware of its situation. He said to the man, “I’m going to bite you.” “O, no! please don’t,” said the man. “If I had not taken you up and warmed you, you would even now have been chilled to death.” The viper replied, “There has been a deadly enmity existing between your race and mine ever since the world began, and by Allah, I am going to bite you.” “Very well,” said the man, “since you have sworn by Allah I will not prevent you, but bite me here on my hand.” He did so, and the man immediately placed the wound to his lips and sucked the venom out and spit it on the ground; and from the place where he spit the poison a little plant sprang up which was—tobacco.

Though this story be not true, yet true it is that tobacco contains a very strong poison, known as nicotine, supposed to be “the juice of cursed Hebanon,” referred to in Hamlet. In one pound of Kentucky and Virginia tobacco, there is, according to Dr. Kellog, an average of three hundred and eighty grains of this poison, which is 107estimated to kill two hundred and fifty people if applied in its native form. “A single leaf of tobacco dipped in hot water,” said Dr. Coles, “and laid upon the pit of the stomach will produce a powerful effect by mere absorption from the surface. By being applied to a spot where the scarf skin, or external surface of the skin is destroyed, fearful results are liable to follow, and no man can use it without being affected by it.”

Tobacco injures physically. “No less,” said Dr. Shaw, “than eighty diseases arise from it, and twenty-five thousand lives perish annually from it.” A young man asked Wendell Phillips if he should smoke, and that statesman answered: “Certainly not. It is liable to injure the sight, to render the nerves unsteady, to enfeeble the will and enslave the nature to an imperious habit likely to stand in the way of duty to be performed.” Many professors of leading colleges have asserted with figures to prove that boys who begin the tobacco habit are stunted physically and never arise to the normal bodily development.

Tobacco injures mentally. Beecher said, “A man is what he is, not in one part, but all over.” And to have a strong mind, one needs a strong stomach. By the use of tobacco, the stomach is outraged and the brain becomes narcotized, “the intellect of which,” said Prof. Gause, “becomes duller and duller until at last it is painful to make any intellectual effort and one sinks into a sensuous or sensual animal, whose greatest aspiration is to benumb the nerves and befog the intellect.” Such assertions may be ridiculed, but as two and two make four, they are facts. The French government prohibits its use by students in the public schools. The Swiss government prohibits its sale to juniors. During the last fifty years no user of it has graduated from 108Yale, Harvard or Amherst at the head of his class. Professor Seely, of the Iowa State Normal, said, “I have not met a pupil who is addicted to the habit who will go through a single day’s work and have good lessons. I have had numbers of cases in which they have remained in the same grade for four successive years and then they were not ready to be advanced into the next higher grade.” Dr. Herbert Fisk, of the Northwestern University, Chicago, declared, “A somewhat careful observation of facts has convinced us that students who get low marks do so through the use of tobacco. Last year not one of the boys who used tobacco stood in the first rank of scholarship. This has been the usual rule. One year, out of thirty-three pupils in the first rank of scholarship, there was but one user of tobacco.” Dr. Charles A. Blandchard, President of Wheaton College, said, “Among our former students who are now physicians, the one who has the largest income never touched tobacco. Two are now judges of courts in large cities, with salaries of six or seven thousand dollars. They do not and have not for years used tobacco. Other men, who after graduation, became smokers, do not exhibit the same mental ability. They are, some of them, very able men, but they suffer in mind from the use of tobacco.”

Tobacco injures morally. It heads the list of vices. It is the first step to bad companionship, lewd conversation and liquor drinking. The latter and tobacco-using are twin habits; and do you wonder at it when tobacco is saturated with Jamaica rum; while “plug” tobacco which is composed of licorice, sugar, cabbage, burdock and the refuse of tobacco leaves and other weeds, is often found nailed at the bottom of whiskey barrels? Said Horace Greeley, “Show me a drunkard who does not use tobacco, and I will show you a white blackbird.” Many medical witnesses testify that tobacco 109using and drinking are kindred habits. When an investigation was made in the State prison at Auburn, N. Y., some years ago, out of six hundred prisoners confined there for crimes committed when they were under the influence of strong drink, five hundred testified that they began their intemperance by the use of tobacco. “In all my travels,” said John Hawkins, “I never saw but one drunkard who did not use tobacco.” “Pupils under the influence of the weed,” said Professor Seely, “are not truthful, practice deception and can not be depended upon. The worst characteristic of the habit is a loss of personal self-respect and of personal regard for the customs and wishes of ladies and gentlemen, especially when among strangers.”

Tobacco is used in two ways, smoking and chewing. Both are filthy, sickening habits, the latter being the more disgusting. For any boy to chew is to exemplify bad manners doubtless influenced by bad morals. A few years ago a call was issued from London, to the scientists of the world to assemble for the discussion of whatever scientific subjects might be presented, every statement to undergo rigid scrutiny. One member said: “Tobacco is not injurious. I have chewed it for fifty years, and my father for sixty years, without perceptible damage. All this cry about it is nonsense.” The chairman answered: “Step forward, sir, and let us canvass this matter thoroughly. How much do you chew?” “I chew regularly three quids per day, of about this size,” cutting off three pieces from his plug. One of these was given to a Russian and another to a French chemist, with “please return the extract.” Then the presiding officer said, “Will any young man unaccustomed to the use of tobacco, chew this third quid before the audience? Here are four pounds ($20) to 110anyone who will.” A young man stepped forward. The audience was requested to scan his looks, cheeks, eyes and general appearance, before he took it, and closely watch its effects. He soon became pale from sickness, then vomited and fainted before the assembly. The extract from one quid was given to a powerful cat. He flew wildly around, and died in a few minutes. The other extract was put upon the tongue of a premium dog, which uttered a yelp, leaped frantically, laid down and expired.

Smoking tobacco is used in three ways, in the pipe, cigar and cigarette. Neither adds beauty to the face or is conducive to health. It is stated on good authority that Senator Colfax was stricken down in the Senate chamber as the result of excessive smoking and from that time smoked no more. It caused the death of Emperor Frederick through cancer of the lip, killed Henry W. Raymond, of the New York Times, through heart failure, and struck President Orton and General Dakin down with paralysis of the heart. Rousseau says, “Excessive smoking cut short the life of the poet Berat through nervous effect.” It wielded its sceptre over Royer Collard who died in the dawn of a most brilliant career through his loved cigar. It produced cancer of the throat, which ended the life of President Grant and Robert Louis Stevenson. “Out of one hundred and twenty-seven cancers cut from the lips of persons in a short time,” says the Medical Times, “nearly all were from the lips of smokers.” What a dangerous luxuriant weed! How quaintly yet truthfully “Billy” Bray, the Cornish miner, said: “If God intended a man to smoke, He would have placed a chimney at the top of his head to let the smoke out!”

Tobacco smoke is poisonous. It contains one of 111the deadliest vapors known to man, which so frequently injures the throat. It has also a poisonous oil which secretes itself in the stem of the pipe. Dr. Brodie says that he applied two drops of this oil to the tongue of a cat, which killed it in fifteen minutes. Fontana made a small incision in the leg of a pigeon and paralyzed it by applying a drop of this oil. The reason for so many pale-faced, nervous men can be traced to this cause.

But supposing that smoking a pipe is not injurious, is it not unbecoming a gentleman? Napoleon said, “It was only fit for sluggards.” Gouverneur Morris, being asked if gentlemen smoked in France, replied, “Gentlemen, sir! Gentlemen smoke nowhere!” Horace Mann when addressing the teachers of an Ohio school, said, “The practice is unfit for a scholar or a gentleman.”

To smoke a cigar may be considered more refined than the use of a pipe. But whoever heard of refining a vice? Horace Greeley, when addressing a class of young men on the subject, said, “A cigar is a little roll of tobacco leaves with a fire at one end and a fool at the other.” At which end should refinement begin? The cigar is more directly injurious than the pipe because the user inhales more of the smoke, sucks the weed, and a greater proportion of the poisonous substance is drawn into the mouth and filtered through the system, causing dyspepsia, vitiated taste, congestion of the brain, loss of memory, nervousness and many other diseases.

The worst of all, however, is the cigarette. Sometime ago in New York, an Italian boy was brought before a justice as a vagrant. He was charged with picking up cigar stumps from the streets and gutters. To prove this the policeman showed the boy’s basket, half full of stumps, water-soaked and covered with mud. “What do you do with these?” asked his honor. “I 112sell them to a man for ten cents a pound, to be used in making cigarettes.” This is not all. In the analysis of cigarettes, physicians and chemists have been surprised to find opium, which is used to give a soothing effect, and creates a passion for strong drink. The wrapper warranted to be rice paper is manufactured from filthy scrapings of rag pickers, and is so cheap that a thousand cigarettes can be wrapped at a cost of two cents. By the use of this dangerous thing, thousands of boys have been mentally and morally ruined. A distinguished French physician investigated the effect of cigarette-smoking in thirty-eight boys between the ages of nine and fifteen. Twenty-seven presented distinct symptoms of nicotine poisoning. Twenty-two had serious disorders and a marked appetite for strong drink. Three had heart affection. Eight had very impure blood. Twelve were subject to bleeding of the nose. Ten had disturbed sleep and four had ulceration of the mouth.

Several years ago Representatives Cockran, Cummings and Stahlnecker, of New York, petitioned the Government to suppress cigarettes by imposing an internal revenue tax upon them. During one year they cut clippings from the papers concerning one hundred young men, mostly under sixteen, who died from the effects of these murderous things, while another hundred were consigned to insane asylums for the same cause. Because of such harmful effects Germany has legislated against it. France, West Point and Annapolis have closed their doors to the boy that uses it and more than a score of States in the Union have prohibited their sale.

A young man who had failed by only three points in an examination for admission to the marine corps appealed to his representative in Congress for assistance, 113and together they went to see the Secretary of the Navy, in the hope of securing what is known as a “re-rating” of his papers. “How many more chances do you want?” asked Secretary Long. “This is your third time.” And before the young man had a chance to answer, the Secretary continued, “How do you expect to get along in the world when you smoke so many cigarettes? Your clothes are saturated with their odor. Pull off your gloves and let me see your fingers. There, see how yellow they are!” pointing to the sides of the first and second fingers. Before the young man found his tongue to offer an explanation the Secretary asked if he drank. “Only once in a while,” was his sheepish reply. Mr. Long then invited the Congressman into his private office, and while offering to do everything that he could added, “I am sick of trying to make anything of these boys that are loaded with cigarette smoke and ‘drink once in a while.’ They are about hopeless, it seems to me.” As they left the department building the young man, half apologizing for his poor showing, remarked, “Drinking, my father says, is the bane of the navy.” “I guess it is,” replied the Congressman. “It is the bane everywhere else, and I should think quite likely it would be in the navy.”

My boy, let tobacco in any form alone. It is a dirty, dangerous, expensive habit. It costs this country six hundred and fifty million dollars annually. Worse than the cost, however, is the injury to body, mind and soul. Figures cannot enumerate nor scales estimate the evil it produces. A story is told of a giant who fell in with a company of pigmies. He roared with laughter at their insignificant stature and their magnificent pretensions. He ridiculed with fine scorn and sarcasm their high-sounding threats. When he fell asleep they bound him with innumerable threads and when he awoke he found himself a helpless captive.

114My boy, ridicule not the contents of this chapter. They are all important. Heed the warning cry and shun the weed. Many a fair lad has been stunted in development, lost to ambition, sunk to all appeals to honor when once in its grasp; therefore let it alone. The God that made your mouth made the weed, but He did not make the mouth for the tobacco, nor the tobacco for the mouth. If addicted to it, I charge you stop right now.

A boy should carefully consider his natural bent or inclination, be it business or profession. In other words, take stock of himself and ascertain, if possible, for what he is adapted, and endeavor to get into that vocation with as few changes as possible. Having entered upon it, let him pursue the work in hand with diligence and determination to know it thoroughly, which can only be done by close and enthusiastic application of the powers at his command; strive to master the details and put into it an energy directed by strong common sense so as to make his services of value wherever he is. Be alert, and ready to seize opportunities when they present themselves. The trouble with most young people is, that they do not learn anything thoroughly, and are apt to do the work committed to them in a careless manner; forgetting that what is worth doing at all is worth doing well, they become mere drones, and rely upon chance to bring them success. There are others who want to do that for which they are not fitted, and thus waste their lives in what may be called misfit occupations. Far better be a good carpenter or mechanic of any kind than a poor business or professional man.

“All things come to him who waits,” is a pretty sentiment, but practical application hews the way. No great book was ever written at one sitting. Edward Gibbon was twenty years composing “The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire,” and Noah Webster was thirty-five years in producing the dictionary that bears his name. No great address was the result of a moment’s inspiration. When Dr. Lyman Beecher was asked how long he was preparing a certain speech which had electrified his audience, he answered, “Forty years.” No great invention sprang from a dream. George Stephenson was fifteen years making improvements on his locomotive before he won the victory of Rainhill, and when asked by a company of young men how they might succeed, answered, “Do as I have done; persevere.”

One of the great manufacturing firms in Glasgow, Scotland, owes its prosperity largely to a boy whom they engaged. The story runs that thirty years ago a barefoot, ragged boy presented himself at the desk of the chief partner and asked for work as an errand boy. 118“There’s a deal of running to be done, and you will need a pair of shoes first,” said Mr. Blank. The boy, with a grave nod, disappeared. He lived by doing odd jobs in the market and slept under the stalls. Two months passed before he had saved money enough to buy the shoes. He then presented himself to Mr. Blank and held out a package. “I have the shoes, sir,” he quietly said. “Oh!” the proprietor remarked, “you want a place? Not in those rags, my lad. You would disgrace the house.”

The boy hesitated a moment and then went out without a word. Six months passed before he returned, decently clothed in coarse but new garments. Mr. Blank’s interest was aroused. For the first time he looked at the lad attentively. His thin, bloodless face showed that he had stinted himself of food in order to buy those clothes. On questioning him, the manufacturer found to his regret that he could not read or write. “It is necessary that you should do both before we could employ you in carrying home packages,” he said. “We have no place for you.” The lad’s face grew paler, but without a word of complaint he left. He now found employment in a stable and went to night school. At the end of a year he again presented himself before Mr. Blank. “I can read and write,” he joyfully said. “I gave him the place,” the employer remarked, years after, “with the conviction that in process of time he would take mine, if he made up his mind to do it. Men rise slowly in Scotland, but to-day he is our chief foreman.” How true as St. Paul says in Myer’s poem:

No word should be more prominent in any boy’s vocabulary than perseverance. Industry is a good word, but one may be industrious, without being persevering, but he cannot be persevering without being industrious. Perseverance means persistence in any design, steadiness in pursuit, constancy in progress. It is the bending of all energies in one direction till the thing is accomplished. Demosthenes was a stammerer. He would be an orator, and with pebbles in his mouth walked the seashore articulating, until when Philip threatened to invade Athens, he with matchless oratory so appealed to the Athenians that they cried, “Let us fight Philip.” Fight they did, and Greece was saved. James Watt was poor and unlettered. He sees the lid of the kettle rise and fall by the power of steam, and from that day bends his mind and hand until in after years he creates a steam engine. Gutenberg beholds the coarse types of Lawrence Coster and declares he can do better. After much persecution by superstitious persons, he shuts himself up in a cell of St. Arbogast monastery and works early and late till he has carved lead type, made an ink roller and built a printing press. Marcus Morton wants to be Governor of Massachusetts. Seventeen times he runs for the position and at last succeeds. Cyrus Field spends eleven years before he succeeds in designing and laying the Atlantic cable. Edison makes eighteen hundred experiments before he discovers the proper substance for the incandescent light, and six thousand before he solves the problem of preparing the products of the great iron mills for the blast furnace. The boy who expects to succeed may have to try many times and face many opposing forces, but as adverse winds aid the kite to fly, so difficulties are usually blessings in disguise. To climb Alpine peaks “will put to proof the energies of him who would reach the summit.”

Nothing guarantees success like persistency; it is more effective than brilliancy. The faculty of sticking and hanging on when everybody else lets go is one of the secrets of success. When Congress and the country were excited over President Johnson’s effort to drive Mr. Stanton from the Cabinet because he opposed the President’s policy in the South, Charles Sumner sent the Secretary this message, “Stanton stick.” He did so to the benefit of the nation. The boy who expects to make his mark in the world must be a “sticker.” He must “keep everlastingly at it.” With determination he must conquer opposition and annihilate obstacles. With Pitt he must trample on so-called impossibilities. “Impossible is not found in the dictionary of fools,” said Napoleon, when told that the Alps stood in the way of his conquest. “Impossible,” cried Chatham, when confined to his room with gout, “who talks to me of impossibilities?” Lord Anson had sent word that it was impossible to fit out a naval expedition within a prescribed period. “Tell him that he serves under a minister who treads on impossibilities.” When Daniel Webster was speaking at Bunker Hill, the crowd became so large and pressed so near to him that he shouted: “Keep back! Keep back!” “It is impossible,” cried some one in the crowd. The orator looked at them a moment and then said, “Nothing is impossible at Bunker Hill.” And few things are impossible to persevering lads.

Tamerlane was once forced to take shelter from his enemies in a ruined building, where he sat discouraged for hours. His attention was at last attracted by an ant that was carrying a grain of corn larger than itself up a high wall. Sixty-nine times did the grain fall, but the insect persevered, and the seventieth time it reached the top. That sight instilled courage in the bosom of Tamerlane. Robert Bruce, of Scotland, had a similar 121experience. On one occasion he was so harassed by the English that he was compelled to take shelter in a barn over night. In the morning he saw a spider climbing a beam of the roof. Twelve times in succession did it fall but the thirteenth time it succeeded in gaining the top. The object lesson impressed Bruce. Rising, he said: “This spider has taught me perseverance. I will follow its example. Twelve times I have been beaten, and the thirteenth time I may succeed.” He rallied his forces, met and defeated Edward and was crowned king.

Christopher Columbus conceived the idea that undiscovered continents existed west of the Atlantic, and he determined to test the truth of his theory. He had many difficulties to contend with, such as poverty and repeated discouragements. The Court of Portugal disappointed him, his native city of Genoa would not render him aid, and the city of Venice refused him. At last he laid his cause before Ferdinand and Isabella, King and Queen of Spain, and he was about to give up and repair to France, when the Queen sold her jewels to defray the expenses of the expedition. Thus assisted, he turned his ships westward and started. On board his vessel he had ignorance, superstition and mutiny to contend with, and this continued until the cry of “Land! Land!” came from the lookout at the top of the mast; then a new world and a glorious triumph crowned his efforts.

Great results are not accomplished in a moment. Sowing precedes reaping. The wheat must first be sifted and crushed in the mill before it is baked into bread. The railroad that runs from the Atlantic to the Pacific coast is but numerous steel rails placed one before the other. The President in the White House, the 122general in the army, the judge on the bench, the orator on the platform reached their positions, not by a hop-skip-and-jump manner, but by perpetual pushing and concentration of their energies in one direction. There might have been times when these were side-tracked and their procedure necessarily slow, but as soon as the main track was clear, or as soon as they had cleared it, they went forth with undaunted persistence realizing as the Italian proverb reads: “Who goes slowly goes long, and goes far,” and contentment was not theirs till the goal was reached. To such of like determination, in Richelieu’s words:

True, many persevering persons fail as men call failure, but it is only like the tiger’s crouch before a high leap. Discovering the bounds through a sense of such, life thenceforth turns all its capacities into right and effective uses. “To change and to change for the better, are two different things,” says an old German proverb. Pestalozzi, the great educator, made several failures in early life, which he made stepping stones to success. Washington’s military career was a series of failures. He shared in Braddock’s defeat at Fort Duquesne. He was beaten at Long Island, driven from New York and forced to retreat through New Jersey and across the Delaware, when he suddenly turned like a lion at bay, recrossed the icy stream and overwhelmed the Hessians at Trenton. This rapid movement and his attack at Germantown first led observers like Frederick the Great to recognize his military genius. Peter Cooper failed in making hats, failed as a cabinet maker, locomotive builder and grocer, but as often as he failed he tried and tried again until he could stand upon his 123feet alone, then crowned his victory by giving a million dollars to help poor boys in time to come. Horace Greeley tried three or four lines of business before he founded the Tribune, and made it worth a million dollars. Patrick Henry failed as merchant and farmer, but resorting to law and politics was a brilliant success. Stephen A. Douglas made dinner tables, bedsteads and bureaus many a long year before he made himself a “giant” on the floor of Congress. Abraham Lincoln failed to make both ends meet by chopping wood, failed to earn his salt in the galley-slave life of a Mississippi flat-boatman; he had not even wit enough to run a grocery, and yet he made himself the grandest character of the nineteenth century, an emancipator of four million slaves. General Grant failed at everything. At the age of thirty-nine he was obscure, at forty-three his picture hung in the homes of the grateful millions. He first learned to tan hides, but could not sell leather enough to buy a pair of breeches, then teamed for forty dollars a month, then entered his father’s store at Galena, Illinois, as clerk, and to use his own words “nor had I any capacity to become one.” Then he enlisted as a soldier, was the hero of Appomattox, and eventually reached the highest position of honor this country can give—the Presidency. When Daniel Webster was told that his profession of law was overcrowded and that the chances were against him, he replied, “Overcrowded? There is always room at the top.” The condition of affairs is still the same. No reason can be produced why a persevering lad cannot make his way in the world to-day as in any other day, for as the philosopher Young declared, “Any man can do what any other man has done.”

My boy, be persevering. Form good resolutions. They mean success, triumph, victory. “He who resolves upon doing a thing, by that very resolution scales the barriers to it, and secures its achievement. To determine upon attainment is often attainment itself.” Aim high and pursue the path accordingly. Let others be indolent and indifferent, but press toward the goal of your ambition. As Mr. Dickens’ friend would have us understand, “It’s dogged does it.” “Eustace,” said William Carey, the founder of modern missions, to his wife, “if they write my life, and say I am a genius, they will say falsely; but if they say I can plod, they will tell the truth. Yes, Eustace, I can plod.” “Yes, sir,” said Whitcomb Riley to one who was nearly heartbroken, because his manuscripts were constantly returned, “through years, through sleepless nights, through almost hopeless days, for twenty years I tried to get into 125one magazine; back came my manuscripts eternally. I kept on. In the twentieth year that magazine accepted one of my articles. I was not a believer in the theory that one man does a thing much easier than any other man. Continuous, unflagging effort, persistence and determination will win. Let not the man be discouraged who has these.” “Peg away, keep pegging away,” was Lincoln’s reply to one who wanted to know what he intended to do concerning the cessation of the Civil War. Plan carefully and begin planning now. When Alexander was asked how he had been able to conquer the world, he said, “By not delaying.” Sir Robert Peel became a great orator and statesman by practising when a boy before his father, repeating to the best of his ability any address he heard. Kepler solved the laws of the planetary system, and exposed the absurd notions of the Ptolemic theory of axles and cranks by which the planets were strung together; but it took him seventeen years from the time he began until he met success, and then he exclaimed in his enthusiasm: “Nothing holds me! The die is cast! The book is written to be read now or by posterity, I care not which. It may well wait a century for a reader, since God has waited six thousand years for an observer.”

To be wavering and dilatory is to close opportunity’s gate and not infrequently make life unsuccessful. A young man, the son of an old friend of Mr. Vanderbilt, once solicited his influence in aiding him to secure a certain very desirable clerkship in a railroad office. Mr. Vanderbilt, who liked the young man and believed in his ability, agreed to help him. “Be here to-morrow morning at ten o’clock,” he said, “and I will go with you to see the president of the road and say a good word for you.” The next morning at twenty minutes after ten the young man appeared in the anteroom of Mr. Vanderbilt’s office. He was informed that Mr. Vanderbilt 126had left fifteen minutes before to attend a meeting. A few days later he called on Mr. Vanderbilt, and said, with a shade of annoyance in his tone: “Why, Mr. Vanderbilt, I was here just after ten.” “But the appointment was ten,” replied Mr. Vanderbilt. “It was only a matter of fifteen or twenty minutes,” said the young man. “Well,” answered Mr. Vanderbilt, “the twenty minutes in your case have lost you the position, for the appointment was made the very day on which you were to have met me. Furthermore, let me tell you, you had no right to assume that twenty minutes of my time was of so little value that I could afford to wait for you. Why, sir, I managed to keep two other appointments of importance within that time.”

Be prompt. Keep in mind the words Edmond Burke wrote on a tablet for the Marquis of Rockingham, “Remember-Resemble-Persevere.” Judson when completing the translation of the Bible into the Burmese language said, “Thanks be to God, I can now say I have attained.” Arago, the great French astronomer, tells how he became so discouraged in the study of mathematics that he almost resolved to abandon his efforts. He was just about ready to give up when he happened to notice something printed or written under the paper binding of his book. He unfolded the leaf, and found it was a letter from D’Alembert, which read, “Go on, sir; go on! The difficulties you meet will resolve themselves as you advance. Persevere, and the light will dawn and shine with increasing clearness upon your path.” This striking passage made an impression upon the young mathematician’s mind which he never forgot. It was a perpetual spur to his ambition, and came to him just in the nick of time. He resolved then and there that he would surmount every difficulty; that he would become a great mathematician and ere long Fame crowned him as one of the greatest astronomers of his 127time. Go on, my boy! There’s not a profession or business but

Three things to do—think, live, act.

Three things to govern—temper, tongue, and conduct.

Three things to cherish—virtue, goodness and honor.

Three things to hate—cruelty, arrogance and ingratitude.

Three things to like—cordiality, goodness and cheerfulness.

Three things to delight in—beauty, frankness and freedom.

Three things to avoid—idleness, loquacity and jesting.

Three things to cultivate—good looks, good friends and good humor.

Three things to shun—Satan, sin and selfishness.