Suppose again that the money was devoted to building tenement houses that would be fit for human beings to live in, look at the wonderful good that could be done. I am not desirous of giving here a dry temperance lecture; but the object of this work is to aid others to success, and if vice and drink were removed there would be but little need for further advice. Ah! there lies the root of the evil. Strike the root, pull it up and trample it under foot until it is dead. Never allow it to take root again, and you can reasonably expect to be at least fairly successful.
This chapter is on "Concentration of Effort". Possibly some will imagine that we have wandered; not at all, as we see it. The abolition of these vices tends toward concentration; bad habits, of no matter what nature lead to failure and tend to draw the attention from one's calling. Then let the young man who would succeed join his heart, his sympathies, his desires, with the right; let him live a consistent life; let him lead a strictly temperate life; let him give his whole influence to temperance, resting assured that if he puts his purposes into action that he will succeed in more ways than one.
SELF-RELIANCE.
Of all the elements of success, none is more essential than self-reliance,--determination to be one's own helper, and not to look to others for support. God never intended that strong independent beings should be reared by clinging to others, like the ivy to the oak, for support.
"God helps those who help themselves," and how true we find this quaint old saying to be. Every youth should feel that his future happiness in life must necessarily depend upon himself; the exercise of his own energies, rather than the patronage of others. A man is in a great degree the arbiter of his own fortune. We are born with powers and faculties capable of almost anything, but it is the exercise of these powers and faculties that gives us ability and skill in anything. The greatest curse that can befall a young man is to lean, while his character is forming, upon others for support.
James A. Garfield, himself one of the greatest examples of the possibilities in our glorious Republic, once said:--
"The man who dares not follow his own independent judgment, but runs perpetually to others for advice, becomes at last a moral weakling, and an intellectual dwarf. Such a man has not self within him, but goes as a supplicant to others, and entreats, one after another, to lend them theirs. He is, in fact, a mere element of a human being, and is carried about the world an insignificant cipher, unless he by chance fastens himself to some other floating elements, with which he may form a species of corporation resembling a man." The best capital with which a young man can start in life, nine times out of ten, is robust health, good morals, fair ability and an iron will, strengthened by a disposition to work at some honest vocation.
We have seen in the preceding pages that a vast majority of our great men started life with these qualifications and none other. The greatest heroes in battle, the greatest orators, ancient or modern, were sons of obscure parents. The greatest fortunes ever accumulated on earth were the fruit of great exertion. From Croesus down to Astor the story is the same. The oak that stands alone to contend with the tempest's blast only takes deeper root and stands the firmer for ensuing conflicts; while the forest tree, when the woodman's axe has spoiled its surroundings, sways and bends and trembles, and perchance is uprooted: so is it with man.
Those who are trained to self-reliance are ready to go out and contend in the sternest battles of life; while those who have always leaned for support upon those around them are never prepared to breast the storms of life that arise.
How many young men falter and faint for what they imagine is necessary capital for a start. A few thousands or even hundreds, in his purse, he fancies to be about the only thing needful to secure his fortune. How absurd is this; let the young man know now, that he is unworthy of success so long as he harbors such ideas. No man can gain true success, no matter how situated, unless he depends upon no one but himself; remember that. Does not history bear us out in this? We remember the adage, "Few boys who are born with a silver spoon in their mouth ever achieve greatness." By this we would not argue that wealth is necessarily derogatory to the success of youth; to the contrary, we believe it can be a great help in certain cases and conditions; but we have long since discarded the idea that early wealth is a pre-eminent factor in success; if we should give our unbiased opinion, we should say that, to a vast majority of cases, it is a pre-eminent factor of failure. Give a youth wealth, and you only too often destroy all self-reliance which he may possess.
Let that young man rejoice, rather, whom God hath given health and a faculty to exercise his faculties. The best kind of success is not that which comes by accident, for as it came by chance it will go by chance.
The wisest charity, in a vast majority of cases, is helping people to help themselves. Necessity is very often the motive power which sets in motion the sluggish energies. We thus readily see that poverty can be an absolute blessing to youth. A man's true position in the world is that which he himself attains.
How detestable to us is the Briton's reverence of pedigree. Americans reverence achievement, and yet we are tending towards the opposite.
Witness society, as it bows with smile and honor to the eight-dollar clerk, while frowning on the eighteen dollar laborer. This is wrong; work is work, and all work is honorable. It is not only wrong, but disgraceful. It is better to make our ancestry proud of us than to be proud of our ancestors. He is a man for what he does, not for what his father or his friends have done. If they have given him a position, the greater is his shame for sinking beneath that position. The person who is above labor or despises the laborer, is himself one of the most despicable creatures on God's earth. He not only displays a dull intelligence of those nobler inspirations with which God has endowed us, but he even shows a lack of plain common sense.
The noblest thing in this world is work. Wise labor brings order out of chaos; it builds cities; it distinguishes barbarism from civilization; it brings success. No man has a right to a fortune; he has no right to expect success, unless he is willing to work for it. A brother of the great orator, Edmund Burke, after listening to one of those eloquent appeals in Parliament, being noticed as employed in deep thought, was asked of whom he was musing. He replied: "I have been wondering how Ned contrived to monopolize all the talent in the family; but I remember that all through childhood, while we were at play, he was at study."
Ah! that's it. The education, moral or intellectual, must be chiefly his own work. Education is education, no matter how obtained. We do not wish to be understood as depreciating the usefulness of colleges; not at all.
But a mere college diploma will avail a young man but little. As before stated, education, no matter how obtained, is equally valuable. Study like that of Webster and Greeley, by New Hampshire pine knots, and that of Thurlow Weed before the sap-house fire, is just as valuable, when once obtained, as if it had the sanction of some college president.
The world will only ask, "What can he do?" and will not care a fig for any college certificate. The point is; if a young man be not endowed by self-reliance and a firm determination, colleges will avail him nothing; but if he have these, colleges will push him wonderfully. Nevertheless, colleges are not essential to success--an educated idiot will never make a statesman. It is said that when John C. Calhoun was attending Yale College he was ridiculed for his intense application to his studies. He replied, "Why, sir, I am forced to make the most of my time, that I may acquit myself creditably when in Congress." A laugh followed which roused his Southern blood, and he exclaimed: "Do you doubt it? I assure you that if I was not convinced of my ability to reach the National Capitol as a representative within three years from my graduation, I would leave college this very day." While there are some things in this speech that were possibly unbecoming; yet the principle of self-reliance, this faith in himself, this high aim in life, was undoubtedly the marked characteristic which brought to Calhoun his splendid success.
No young man will ever succeed who will not cultivate a thinking mind.
If he is not original in aims and purposes he will not succeed. Witness the attempt of others to continue the business of Stewart. They had not only his experience, but the benefit of his great wealth; he succeeded without either--they failed with both; he was obliged to establish a business--they had the benefit of his great patronage.
It has been said that a lawyer cannot be a merchant. Why? While a lawyer he thinks for himself: When a merchant he allows others to think for him. A certain great manufacturer made "kid" gloves his specialty, and so well did he succeed that to-day his trade mark imports to manufactured ratskins a value incommunicable by any other talisman. It is a poor kind of enterprise which thus depends upon the judgment of others. What can be more absurd than for a man to hope to rank as a thundering Jupiter when he borrows all his thunder. Remember that the world only crowns him as truly great who has won for himself that greatness.
ECONOMY OF TIME.
"Full many a gem, of purest ray serene, The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear; Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, And waste its sweetness on the desert air."
How many young men for whom nature has done so much, "blush unseen," and waste their ability. Franklin said, "Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of." We have seen how Franklin used his time. Born the son of a soap-boiler, lived to become one of our most noted philosophers, died worth thousands. Advice from such men carries conviction, for we cannot but feel that our chances are fully equal to what theirs were.
Gladstone, England's most noted Premier, once said, "Believe me when I tell you that thrift of time will repay you in after-life with usury, but the waste of it will make you dwindle away until you fairly sink out of existence, unknown, unmourned." Thurlow Weed was so poor in boyhood that he was of necessity glad to use pieces of carpet to cover his all but freezing feet; thus shod he walked two miles to borrow a history of the French revolution, which he mastered stretched prone before the sap-fire, while watching the kettles of sap transformed to maple sugar.
Thus was it that he laid the foundation of his education, which in after years enabled him to sway such mighty power at Albany; known as the "king maker."
Elihu Burritt, a child of poverty, the son of a poor farmer, the youngest of ten children. He was apprenticed at eighteen to a blacksmith. He wanted to become a scholar and bought some Greek and Latin works, carrying them in his pocket and studying as he worked at the anvil. From these he went to Spanish, Italian and French. He always had his book near him and improved every spare moment. He studied seven languages in one single year. Then he taught school one year, but his health failing, he went into the grocery business. Soon what money he had was swept away by losses.
Here we see him at twenty-seven, life seemingly a failure. Alas! how many would have given up. He left New Britain, his native town, walked to Boston, and from there to Worcester, where he once more engaged himself at his trade. His failure in business turns his attention once more to study. He now is convinced as to the proper course to pursue, his aim is fixed, and he now sets himself strenuously about the accomplishment of his purpose. At thirty years of age he is master of every language of Europe, and is turning his attention to those of Asia, such as Hebrew, Syriac, Chaldaic. He is offered by a wealthy gentleman a course in Harvard University, but prefers to work with his hands while he studies.
He now begins to lecture, and everybody is eager to hear the learned blacksmith. After a very successful tour he returns to the anvil. After this he visits Europe, becomes the warm friend of John Bright and other eminent men; writes books, lectures, edits newspapers, builds a church and holds meetings himself. He said: "It is not genius that wins, but hard work and a pure life." He chose the best associates only, believing that a boy's companions have much to do with his success in life. At sixty-eight he died, honored by two hemispheres.
If our readers want further proof as to the result of improving spare moments, let them study the lives of such men as Douglass, Lincoln, Grant, Garfield, Blaine, Cleveland, and others too numerous to mention, and they will find that they were reared in the lower walks of life, but by using every available minute they have been enabled to rise to influence and usefulness. By this means they have worked the very odds and ends of time, into results of the greatest value. An hour every day, for ten years, will transform any one of ordinary ability from ignorance to learning.
Think of it. One hour could be easily improved each evening, counting three hundred week days to a year; in ten years you have spent three thousand golden hours. If directed toward some specific end, think what it would accomplish. Then there are the Sundays devoted to religious knowledge. One of the first things to be learned by him who would succeed, is ECONOMY OF TIME. Lost wealth can be replaced by industry; lost health by hygiene; but lost time is gone forever.
The most frequent excuse one hears is: "I have no time." They cheat themselves with the delusion that they would like to do this or that, but cannot as they have no leisure. Dear reader, did you ever think that the more a person has to do, the more they feel they can do? Look at the men in our own community who have done the most for mankind; are they the wealthy, whose only duty seems to be to kill time? No. Almost universally they are the over-worked class who seem already burdened with cares. These are the men who find time to preside at public meetings, and to serve on committees.
It is easier for an over-worked man to do a little more than for a lazy one to get up steam. A light stroke will keep a hoop in motion, but it takes a smart blow to start it. The busy man succeeds: While others are yawning and stretching, getting their eyes open, he will see the opportunity and improve it. Complain not that you have no leisure.
Rather be thankful that you are not cursed with it. Yes, curse it is nine times out of ten. Think of the young man going to some vile place of amusement to kill time, then think of that young man utilizing that hour every night in the acquisition of knowledge which will fit him for life's journey. Think also of the money he will save. Leisure is too often like a two-edged sword; it cuts both ways.
CAUSES OF FAILURE.
Horace Greeley has truly said: "If any man fancies that there is some easier way of gaining a dollar than by squarely earning it he has lost the clew to his way through this mortal labyrinth, and must henceforth wander as chance may dictate." Look about you; how many there are who are determined to share all the good things of this world without exchanging an equivalent. They go into business, but are not content to wait patiently, adding one dollar to another, and thus rendering to mankind an equivalent for this wealth for which they are asking. This excessive haste to become rich is one of the most frequent causes of failure. When a young man has decided to work with a will, and to accumulate every dollar he legitimately can he has made a long stride toward success. We do not deprecate a desire to be some one in the world, but we do most emphatically frown upon the desire to get wealth by speculation or illicit means. We most earnestly advise all young men to choose a calling, become thoroughly master of that calling, then pursue that vocation to success, avoiding all outside operations.
Another man who has dealt in stocks all his life may be able to succeed, but your business is to stick to your vocation until, if necessary, you fairly wring success from it.
Moses Taylor was a successful merchant, he had long deposited with the City Bank, and was finally made its president. The late Commodore Vanderbilt often tried to induce him to enter into his grand speculations, but of no avail. At last the crash of '57 came. The bankers called a meeting to discuss the situation. One bank after another reported drafts of from sixty to even ninety per cent. of their specie. When Mr. Taylor was called he replied: "The City Bank contained this morning $400,000; to-night we had $480,000." This was the kind of a bank president such principles made him.
Hardly anything is more fatal to success than a desire to become suddenly rich. A business man now counts his wealth by the thousands, but he sees a grand chance to speculate. This is a little risky, of course, but then the old adage: "Never venture, never have." I admit I may lose, but then all men are subject to loss in any business, but I am reasonably sure of gaining an immense amount. Why! what would folks think? I would be a millionaire. I would do so and so. Thus he indulges in this sort of reasoning, goes into a business of which he knows nothing and loses all. Why wouldn't he? Men who have made a study of that business for years, and who have amassed a fortune in it, are daily becoming bankrupt. What an idiot a man makes of himself when he leaves a calling in which he has been eminently successful to embark in a calling which is, at best, uncertain, and of which he knows nothing. Once for all, let me admonish you: If you would succeed never enter outside operations, especially if they be of a speculative nature. Select a calling, and if you stick to your calling, your calling will stick to you.
Frequent changes of business is another cause of failure, but we have treated this subject quite thoroughly elsewhere in this work. Therefore it seems to us that to add more here would be superfluous. True it is that some men have succeeded who have seemingly drifted about. Dr. Adam Clark has said: "The old adage about too many irons in the fire conveys an abominable lie. Keep them all agoing--poker, tongs and all." But Dr.
Clark seems to forget that the most of the people who try to follow his advice, either burn their fingers or find their irons cooling faster than they can use them. We cannot all be Clarks if we try, and to follow this method the most of us will fail; but we can, by following one line of procedure, at last bring success.
Extravagance of living is another prolific cause of bankruptcy. A man imagines that by hiring a horse and driving in the park he will show people that he is as good as the neighbor who drives his own horse. He deludes himself with the idea that this sort of extravagance will, in the eyes of his fellow-men, place him on an equal footing with millionaires.
Dr. Franklin has truly said: "It is not our own eyes, but other people's, that ruin us." It has been said that the merchant who could live on five hundred a year, fifty years ago, now requires five thousand. In living, avoid a "penny wise and pound foolish" custom. A man may think he knows all about economy and yet be ignorant of its first principles. For instance, a business man may save every imaginable piece of writing paper, using all the dirty envelopes that come in his way. This he does instead of using a neat letter head and clean paper, at a slight additional cost, and vast gain in the influence which such a letter carries over the other. Some years ago a man stopped at a farm house over night. After tea he much desired to read, but found it impossible from the insufficient light of one candle. Seeing his dilemma, the hostess said: "It is rather difficult to read here evenings; the proverb says, 'You must have a ship at sea in order to be able to burn two candles at once.'" She would as soon have thought of throwing a five dollar bill into the fire as of setting the example of burning two candles at once. This woman saved, perhaps, five or six dollars a year, but the information she thus denied her children would, of course, out-weigh a ton of candles. But this is not the worst of it.
The business man, by such costly stinginess, consoles himself that he is saving. As he has saved a few dollars in letter paper, he feels justified in expending ten times that amount for some extravagance. The man thinks he is a saving man. The woman is a saving woman, she knows she is a saving woman. She has saved five or six dollars this year in candles, and so feels justified in buying some needless finery, which could gratify nothing but the eye. She is sure she understands economy, yet she starves the mind to clothe the body in finery. She is something like the man who could not afford to buy more than a penny herring for his dinner, yet hired a coach and four to take it home. Saving by retail and wasting by wholesale. Nowadays we use kerosene and thus our light is both good and cheap, but the principle remains.
Wear the old clothes until you can pay for more; never wear clothes for which you owe anyone. Live on plainer food if need be. Greeley said: "If I had but fifty cents a week to live on, I'd buy a peck of corn and parch it before I'd owe any man a dollar." The young man who follows this principle will never be obliged to live on parched corn. How few people keep an itemized account of their expenses. Spendthrifts never like to keep accounts. Buy a book; post in it every night your daily expenditures in the columns; one headed "Necessaries," the other "Luxuries," and you will find that the latter column will be at least double the former. Indeed, in some cases it will exceed it ten times over.
It is not the purchase of the necessaries of life that ruin people, but the most foolish expenditures which we imagine necessary to our comfort.
Necessary to our comfort; Ah! what a mistake is that, as many a man will testify who is perpetually dunned by uneasy creditors. It is the sheerest kind of nonsense, this living on credit. It is wicked. Yet a gentleman recently told the writer that he personally knew a clergyman who had been preaching for years on a salary exceeding seven hundred dollars per year, and of late on twelve hundred per year; yet, this man of the gospel to-day owes his college debts. A man loaned him money to go through school, and he has never been "able" to repay that money, although he has practiced the most "rigid economy."
Stuff! this man knows nothing of the first principles of economy. In my opinion, there are many clergymen who will have to answer for the sin of extravigance: There are many more who will have to answer for the sin of slothfulness. The Bible says: "Six days shalt thou labor and do _all_ thy work." Ah! there is a part of the commandments too often skipped flippantly over. Many a clergyman would be horrified if asked to do any labor on the seventh day; but would be equally horrified if accused of sinning by attending to a foreign business, thereby neglecting to do _all_ his labor during the six other days.
God gives us ample time to do our work, and it is a sin to leave any of it undone. God expects a man to choose some calling, and He also expects that man to master that calling, and He expects him to do his utmost to excel in that calling. No clergyman can spend four days out of a week in some foreign work, and in the two remaining days thoroughly prepare himself for the Sabbath work. For two reasons: One is, he disregards the law of concentration, divides his mind and thoughts; hence, loses force and influence. The other, that God does not approve of other than our best effort.