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diff --git a/17110.txt b/17110.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f0ff43d --- /dev/null +++ b/17110.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9305 @@ +Project Gutenberg's The Young Man and the World, by Albert J. Beveridge + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Young Man and the World + +Author: Albert J. Beveridge + +Release Date: November 20, 2005 [EBook #17110] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE YOUNG MAN AND THE WORLD *** + + + + +Produced by Suzanne Lybarger, Jeannie Howse and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +_The_ YOUNG MAN _and_ +THE WORLD + +By + +Albert J. Beveridge + + +D. Appleton and Company +New York +1905 + + +COPYRIGHT, 1905, BY +D. APPLETON AND COMPANY + +_Published October, 1905_ + + + + +PREFACE + + +The chapters of this volume were, originally, papers published in _The +Saturday Evening Post_ of Philadelphia. The first paper on "The Young +Man and the World," which gives the title to the book, was written, at +the request of the editor of that magazine, as an addition to a series +of articles upon the Philippines and statesmen of contemporaneous +eminence. + +This paper called for another, and each in its turn called for the one +that followed it. And so the series grew from day to day, largely out +of the suggestions of its readers--a sort of collaboration. A +considerable correspondence resulted, and requests were made that the +articles be collected in permanent form. This is the genesis of this +book. I hope it will do some good. + +While addressed more directly to young men, these papers were yet +written for men on both sides the hill and on the crest thereof. I +would draw maturity and youth closer together. I would have the +sympathy between them ever fresh and vital. I would have them +understand one another and thus profit each by the strength of the +other. + +The manner in which these papers were written created certain +repetitions. After careful consideration I have concluded to let them +remain. They are upon subjects of vital concern. Where it is necessary +to remember, it is better to be wearied than to forget. And these +papers were meant to be helpful. They are merely plain talks as of +friends conferring together. + + ALBERT J. BEVERIDGE. + + INDIANAPOLIS, _May 1, 1905._ + + + + +CONTENTS + + + PAGE + + I.--THE YOUNG MAN AND THE WORLD 1 + + II.--THE OLD HOME 54 + + III.--THE COLLEGE? 83 + 1. The Young Man who Goes. + 2. The Young Man who Cannot Go. + + IV.--THE NEW HOME 152 + + V.--THE YOUNG LAWYER AND HIS BEGINNINGS 186 + + VI.--PUBLIC SPEAKING 217 + + VII.--THE YOUNG MAN AND THE PULPIT 246 + +VIII.--GREAT THINGS YET TO BE DONE 278 + + IX.--NEGATIVE FUNDAMENTALS 310 + + X.--THE YOUNG MAN AND THE NATION 334 + + XI.--THE WORLD AND THE YOUNG MAN 366 + + XII.--THE YOUNG MAN'S SECOND WIND; OR, FACING + THE WORLD AT FIFTY 387 + + + + +THE YOUNG MAN AND THE WORLD + + +I + +THE YOUNG MAN AND THE WORLD + + +Be honest with the world and the world will be honest with you. This +is the fundamental truth of all real prosperity and happiness. For the +purposes of every man's daily affairs, all other maxims are to this +central verity as the branches of a tree to its rooted trunk. + +The world will be honest with you whether you are honest with it or +not. You cannot trick it--remember that. If you try it, the world will +punish you when it discovers your fraud. But be honest with the world +from nobler motives than prudence. + +Prudence will not make you _be_ honest--it will only make you _act_ +honest. And you must be honest. + +I do not mean that lowest form of honesty which bids you keep your +hands clean of another's goods or money; I do not mean that you shall +not be a "grafter," to use the foul and sinister word which certain +base practices have recently compelled us to coin. Of course you will +be honest in a money sense. + +But that is only the beginning; you must go farther in your dealings +with the world. You must be intellectually honest. Do not pretend to +be what you are not--no affectations, no simulations, no falsehoods +either of speech or thought, of conduct or attitude. Let truth abide +in the very heart of you. + +"I take no stock in that man; he poses his face, he attitudinizes his +features. The man who tries to impress me by his countenance is +constitutionally false," said the editor of a powerful publication, in +commenting on a certain personage then somewhat in the public eye. + +You see how important honesty is even in facial expression. I +emphasize this veracity of character because it is elemental. You may +have all the gifts and graces but if you have not this essential you +are bankrupt. Be honest to the bone. Be clean of blood as well as of +tongue. + +Never try to create a deeper impression than Nature creates for you, +and that means never attempt to create any impression at all. For +example, never try to look wise. Many a front of gravity and weight +conceals an intellectual desolation. In Moscow you will find the exact +external counterpart of Tolstoi. It is said that it is difficult to +distinguish the philosopher from his double. Yet this duplicate in +appearance of the greatest of living writers is a cab driver without +even the brightness of the jehu. + +Be what you are, therefore, and no more; yes, and no less--which is +equally important. In a word, start right. Be honest with yourself, +too. If you have started wrong, go back and start over again. But +don't change more than once. Some men never finish because they are +always beginning. Be careful how you choose and then stick to your +second choice. A poor claim steadily worked may be better than a good +one half developed. The man who makes too many starts seldom makes +anything else. + +But don't pretend that you have a thousand dollars in bank when you +hold in your hands the statement of your overdraft. Face your account +with Nature like a man. For Nature is a generous, though remorseless, +financier, delivering you your just due and exacting the uttermost of +your debt. Also Nature renders you a daily accounting. + +And, at the very beginning, Nature writes upon the tablet of your +inner consciousness an inventory of your strengths and of your +weaknesses, and lists there those tasks which you are best fitted to +perform--those tasks which Nature _meant_ you to perform. For Nature +put you here to _do something_; you were not born to be an ornament. + +First, then, learn your limitations. Take time enough to think out +just what you _cannot_ do. This process of elimination will soon +reduce life's possibilities for you to a few things. Of these things +select the one which is nearest you, and, having selected it, put all +other loves from you. + +It is a business maxim in my profession that "law is a jealous +mistress." It is very true, but it is not more true than it is that +every other calling in life is a jealous mistress. To every man _his_ +task is the hardest, _his_ situation the most difficult. + +By finding out one's limitations is not meant, of course, what society +will permit you to do, or what men will permit you to do, but what +Nature will permit you to do. You have no other master than Nature. +Nature's limitations only are the bounds of your success. So far as +your success is concerned, no man, no set of men, no society, not even +all the world of humanity, is your master; but Nature is. "We cannot," +says Emerson, "bandy words with Nature, or deal with her as we deal +with persons." + +"_Poeta nascitur, non fit_," is just as applicable to lawyers and +mechanics and engineers as to poets. More failures have been caused by +the old idea that a man may make himself what he will, than by any +single half-truth that has crept into our common speech and belief. A +man may make himself what he will within the limitations Nature has +set about him. + + "When I was born, + From all the seas of strength + Fate filled a chalice, + Saying, This be thy portion, child," + +declares the Persian sage. But all that Hafiz means by that is that a +Paderewski shall not attempt blacksmithing, or a Rothschild try +cartooning or sculpture or watchmaking, or any man undertake that for +which Nature has not fitted him. + +Do we not see instances every day of men made unhappy for life, and +their powers lost to the world by trying to do that for which they +have no aptitude? Parents obeying the attractive theory that any boy +can make himself what he pleases decide upon some ambitious career for +him without considering his natural abilities and efficiencies. +Usually some calling of clamorous conspicuity is selected. + +Twenty years ago the law was the favorite avenue upon which fond +parents would thus set the feet of their offspring; the law, they +thought, would enable him better to "make his mark"--that is, to +parade up and down before the public eye and fill the public ear with +declamation. Even yet that profession has clientless members, +miserable in their hearts over their self-consciousness that they are +not lawyers and never can be lawyers, who would have been useful, +prosperous, and happy if they could have been permitted to be +architects or merchants or farmers or doctors or soldiers or sculptors +or editors or what not. + +One of the cleverest of our present-day writers of fiction started out +to be a lawyer. But he could not keep his pen from paper nor restrain +that mysterious instrument from tracing sketches of character and +drawing pictures of human situations. Very well! He had the courage to +obey the call of his preferences; and to-day, instead of being an +unskillful attorney, he is noted and notable in the present-hour world +of letters. + +Anthony Hope in England is another illustration precisely in point. On +the other hand, Erskine, who was intended by his parents for the army, +was destined by Nature for the bar. This master-advocate of all the +history of English jurisprudence felt it in his blood that he _must_ +practise law; and so his sword rusted while he studied Blackstone. +Finally, he deserted the field for the forum, there to become the most +illustrious barrister the United Kingdom has produced. + +I therefore emphasize the importance of finding out what you can _do_ +best rather than what either you or your parents _wish_ you could do +best. For it seems to me that this is getting very close to the truth +of life. The thoughtless commonplace that "every boy may be President" +has worked mischief, sown unhappiness, and robbed humanity of useful +workers. + +Every boy cannot be President, and, what is more, every boy ought not +to be. Let Edison remain in his laboratory and enrich mankind with his +wizard wisdom. England would have lost her great explorer if Drake had +tried to write plays; while Shakespeare would doubtless have been +sea-sick on the decks of the Golden Hind. Let Verdi compose, and charm +the universal heart with his witcheries of sound; let Cavour keep to +his statesmanship, that a dismembered people may again be made one. +Every man to his calling. "Let the shoemaker stick to his last," said +Appelles. + +Ito might have led the Japanese armies to defeat--Oyama led them to +victory. But Ito created modern Japan, wrote its constitution and +introduced those methods which made Oyama's successes possible. Each +man succeeded because he chose to do what Nature fitted him to do. + +Of course you may be fitted for more than one thing. Caesar could have +equaled if not surpassed Cicero in mere oratory had he not preferred +to find, in war and government, a fame more enduring. But, if you try +all things for which you may be equipped by Nature, you will so +scatter your energies through the delta of your aptitudes that your +very wealth and variety of gifts neutralizes them all. No. Pick out +one of the things you can do well and let the others go. A tree is +pruned on the same principle. Stick to one thing. Beware of your +versatilities. + +Your life's work chosen give wing to your imagination. Behold yourself +preeminent in your field of effort. Dream of yourself as the best +civil engineer of your time, or the soundest banker or ablest +merchant. If you are a farmer fancy yourself the master of all the +secrets science is daily discovering in this most engaging of +occupations; picture yourself as the man who has accomplished most in +the realm of agriculture. + +Set for yourself the ideal of perfection in your calling--being sure +that it is Nature's calling. Then let your dreams become beliefs; let +your imaginings develop into faith. Complete the process by resolving +to make that belief come true. Then go ahead and _make it come true_. +Keep your resolution bright. Never let it rust. Burnish it with +work--untiring, unhasting, unyielding work. + +Work--that is the magic word. In these four letters all possibilities +are wrapped up. "Seek and ye shall find; knock and it shall be opened +unto you." Or let us paraphrase the sacred page and say--Work and you +will win. Work to your ideal. If you never reach it--and who can +achieve perfection?--you surely will approach it. + +Do not be impatient of your progress. If, to your own measurement, +you seem to be moving slowly, remember that, to the observation of +your fellow men, you are making substantial and satisfactory advance +and, to the eye of your rivals, you are proceeding with unreasonable +speed. + +Don't pay any attention to how _fast_ you are getting on but _go ahead +and get on_. Keep working. And work with all your might. How wise the +Bible is: "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might." +And keep on doing it--persist--persist--persist. Again the Bible: +"Seest thou a man diligent in his business? he shall stand before +kings." Do not fear hard knocks. They are no sign that you will not +finally win the battle. Indeed, ability to endure in silence is one of +the best evidences that you will finally prevail. + +Yes, put yourself into your work--and put all of yourself into your +work. Having done that, be content with your effort--do not fret. If +all you do yields the fruit you hope for, do not fret while that fruit +is ripening. On the other hand, if your labor comes to nothing, still +do not fret. A like fate has fallen upon uncounted millions before you +and will come to unnumbered myriads after you. If you have done your +best you have done better than the man who has done more than you but +who has not done his best. + +And so, whatever the outcome, start out with this rule and keep it to +the end. For nothing wastes your powers so much as apprehension. The +hardest work, if done with common sense, is after all a tonic. But +fear lest that work will not yield you as much as you wish is a sort +of irritating cocaine of character, numbing and deadening all of your +powers and at the same time lashing your mind and nerves with the +knotted thongs of unhappiness. Besides, fretting is so trivial, so +little, so commonplace. Fail if you must, but do not be contemptible. + +He who worries not only poisons the very fountains of his own strength +but arouses in the world's attitude toward him a sort of sneering +pity. So the very first thing that I have to suggest to you is that +you should _be a man_ in all your doings and throughout your whole +career. + +That is it--be a man; a great, strong, willing, kindly man--calm in +the glory of a fearless heart, serene in your trust and belief in God, +the Father of the world, and so sure of the justice of His providence +that you go about your daily business free from those silly cares +which corrode and ruin manhood itself. + +Be a man--that is the first and the last rule of the greatest success +in life. For the greatest success in life does not mean dollars heaped +in bank-vaults nor volumes written, nor railroads built, nor laws +devised, nor armies led. No, the greatest success is none of these. +The supreme success is character. + +Pay no attention to mere spiteful criticism, but seek, as for gold and +precious stones, the chastening advice of friends. Do not be offended +if your friends say an unpleasant thing of you. And here we are at the +Bible again: "Faithful are the wounds of a friend; but the kisses of +an enemy are deceitful." + +These recurrences to what those wise old Hebrews said make one feel +that one is committing a superfluity when one attempts to say anything +along the line of practical advice, since anything that any man can +say is nothing more than a very weak dilution of the concentrated +thought of the most acute minds of the greatest business people, the +most successful material people--yes, and the most idealistic +people--who ever lived, the ancient, the mysterious, the persistent +Jews. + +This is saying much for the Hebrew blood and genius; but have not +these Jews given us our moral laws, our spiritual ideals, our sacred +faith? Not only the bankers of the world are they, but the formulators +of the rules of conduct between man and man, and of that adoring +attitude which the enlightened mind should always maintain toward the +All-Father. The Jews are the universal people. + +If you like ethnology, study the Jews. Study the Germans, too. What +peoples they both are--utterly unlike, yet full of the inspiration of +thoughts and deeds and persistence. Persistence--there is a word of +might it will pay you to ponder over. + +Persistence--"stick-to-it-ive-ness." It is a quality better than +genius. The Germans have that quality preeminently, and other +wholesome and masterful characteristics as well. They are domestic yet +warlike, industrial yet artistic, experts in commerce yet disciples of +science. Study the Germans! + +Though you must not fear criticism, do not disregard it. You may find +a suggestion in it, and thus your enemy will become your counselor. +But applause! Fly from the desire for it as from pestilence. It will +weaken you infinitely. And to a strong man achievement is the only +applause of value--the making of his point. + +Many years ago I heard this story of Bismarck. If it is not true, it +ought to be. And if it is not true specifically, it is true +abstractly. He had just returned from one of his notable diplomatic +victories at the beginning of his career; great crowds had assembled +for a speech. + +Bismarck heard it all, but smoked and drank his beer and gave no sign. +His secretary rushed in with excitement, and said: + +"You must go out and acknowledge the applause of the people, and make +a speech." + +"And why," said Bismarck; "why do they want me to speak; why are they +applauding me?" + +"Because of your great success in these negotiations," said the +secretary. + +"Humph!" said Bismarck, "suppose I had failed?" and turned back to his +smoking and his beer. + +Bismarck, you see, was too great for applause. + +I have quoted the Bible so frequently that it suggests remarks upon +one of the great influences of life--the influence of books. Like +every other power, this should be exercised with judgment. Let us +indulge no immoderate expectations of the results of mere reading. +Reading is, at best, only second-hand information and inspiration. It +is not the number of books a man has read that makes him available in +the world of business. + +What the world wants is power; how to get that is the question. + +Books are one source of power; but, necessarily, books are artificial. +That is why we cannot dispense with teachers in our schools, +professors in our colleges, preachers in our pulpits, orators on the +political platform. There is no real way of teaching but by word of +mouth. There is no real instruction but experience. + +You see that the German universities have come back to the lecture +method exclusively--or did they ever depart from it? And they know +what they are about, those profound old German scholars. They have +created scientific scholarship. They have made what we once thought +history absurd, and have rewritten the story of the world. + +But all this is _obiter dicta_. The point is that they know the value +of books as a source of power and learning, and they know their +limitations, too. So does the public. Public speaking will never +decline. It is Nature's method of instruction. You will listen with +profit to a speech which you cannot drive your mind to read. + +It would seem, therefore, that the largest wisdom dictates +conservatism in mere reading. Read, of course, and deeply, widely, +thoroughly. But let Discrimination select your books. Choose these +intellectual companions as carefully as you pick your personal +comrades. Read only "tonic books," as Goethe calls them. Yes, read, +and abundantly--but don't stop there. Don't imagine that books, of +themselves, will make you wise. Reading, alone, will not render you +effective. + +Mingle with the people--I mean the common people. Talk with them. Do +not talk _to_ them but talk _with_ them, and get them to talk with +you. Who that has had the experience would exchange the wit and wisdom +of the "hands" at the "threshings," during the half hour of rest after +eating, for the studied smartness of the salon or even the +conversation of the learned? But think not to get this by going out to +them and saying, "Talk up now." The farm-hand, the railroad laborer, +the working man of every kind, does not wear his heart on his sleeve. + +Mark the idioms in Shakespeare. He spoke the words and uttered the +thoughts of hostlers as well as of kings. Observe the common language +in the Bible. It is curious to note the number of the pithy +expressions daily appearing among us which are repetitions of what the +people were saying in the time of Isaiah. + +All who love Robert Burns have their affection for him rooted in the +human quality of him; and Burns's oneness with the rest of us is +revealed by the earthiness of his words. They smell of home. They have +the fragrance of trees and soil. We know that they were not coined by +Burns the genius, but repeated from the mouths of plain men and women +by Burns the reporter. It is so with all literature that lives. + +Mingle with the people, therefore; be one of them. Who are you that +you should not be one of them? Who is any one that he should not be +one of the people? Their common thought is necessarily higher and +better than the thought of any man. This is mathematical. + +And the people, too, are young, eternally young. They are the source +of all power, not politically speaking now, but ethnically, even +commercially, speaking. The successful manager of any business will +tell you that he takes as careful an inventory of public opinion as he +does of the material items of his merchandise. A capable merchant told +me that he makes it a point to mingle with the crowds. + +"Not," said he, "to hear what they have to say, for you catch only a +scrap or a sentence here and there; but to go up against them. Somehow +or other you get their drift that way. Anyhow I am conscious that this +helps me to understand what the people need and want. There is such a +thing as commercial instinct; and contact with the people keeps this +fresh and true." + +We have come to that state of enlightenment where the people want to +know not only that they are getting the best goods or best service, +but that the business which supplies either is run all right. Who can +doubt that in the universal mind there is a question as to the moral +element in American business? + +This is nothing but the composite conscience of the American people +demanding that American business shall not only be conducted ably, but +also that it shall be conducted honestly. It is a force which you must +take into account. It will be a glorious asset for you if you will pay +enough attention to it to understand it. + +But you must mingle with the people yourself in order to comprehend +this source of power. Do not sit alone in your room and read about the +people; that is no way to learn about them. + +Remember that no workable constitution was ever written exclusively by +scholars. Recall the ordinance for the government of Carolina devised +by the philosopher Locke. It failed; yet it reads well. Time and again +theorists with highest purpose and broadest book wisdom have +formulated laws for the good of mankind which would not work. + +Most statutes that live and operate have had their origins among men +of the soil as well as men of the study. The point I am making is that +learning and accomplishments will do no good if you do not connect +them with the people. + +Is not this why so many reformers retire disappointed--men and women +of finest excellencies of purpose and practical and fruitful +thought--they have insisted in projecting their reforms from office or +parlor upon the masses without knowing those masses? It is as +impossible for the wisest man to be a statesman by confining himself +to his study and his weighty volumes and his careful abstract +thinking, as it is to be a chemist by reading about chemistry. + +The laboratory, the test-tube, the actual contact with the real +materials and forces in nature, are essential to the scientist of +matter. This is much more true of the art of government. No man ever +lived so wise that association with the millions would not enrich his +wisdom mightily. And thus, page after page, we might go on pointing +out the value of contact with the people, whom, after all, it ought to +be your highest purpose to serve in some way. + +For in all your doings never forget that, build you ever so cunningly, +young man, you have builded in vain if the work of your hands has not +helped humanity. Every occupation, trade, business, employment has its +reason in service of the people. + +Grocery man, harness-maker, carpenter; doctor, lawyer, or railway man; +farmer, miner, or journalist; actor on the stage, teacher in the +school-room, preacher in the pulpit--all your effort is for the +service of the people, the ministering to their needs, the +enlightenment of their minds, the uplifting of their souls. And I +insist, therefore, that you shall know with the knowledge of kinship +this humanity with whom you are to work and _for_ whom you are to +work. + +Spend some time with Nature, too. The people and Nature--they alone +contain the elemental forces. They alone are unartificial, +unexhausted. You will be surprised at the strength you will get from a +day in the woods. I do not mean physical strength alone, but mental +vigor and spiritual insight. + +The old fable of Antaeus is so true that it is almost literally true. +Every time he touched the earth when thrown, that common mother of us +all gave him new strength; and, rising, he came to the combat as fresh +as when he began. + +Learn to know the trees; make friends with them. I know that this +counsel will appear far-fetched if you have never cultivated the +companionship of the woods. But try it, and keep on trying it, and you +will find that there is such a thing as making friends with the trees. +They will come to have a sort of personality for you. + +No doubt this is all in your mind. No matter, it is good for you. It +makes you more natural; that means that you are more simple, kindly, +and truthful. What is more soothing and restorative than to stand +quite still in field or forest and listen to the thousand mingled +sounds that make up that wondrous melody which Nature is always +playing on the numberless strings of her golden harp. Learn the peace +which that music brings to you. + +In short, cultivate Nature, get close to Nature. Try to get Nature to +give you what she has for you as earnestly as you try to get what you +want in business; and your days and nights will be glorified with a +beauty and strength the existence of which you would have denied +before you experienced their blessings. + +But, of course, you must work for the benefits you get from Nature, +just as you must work for everything worth having. You cannot quit +your office and say, "Now I shall take a ten-minutes' walk in the park +and commune with Nature." Nature is not to be courted in any such way. +She does not fling her favors at your feet--not until you have won her +utterly. Then all of the wealth and power which Nature has for those +who love her are yours in a profuse and exhaustless opulence. + +There is nothing so important for a young man, especially a young +American, as to resolve not to wear himself out nervously and +physically. Take stated vacations, therefore. I should advise every +young man who expects to run a long race to resolve, _after he has +established himself_, that he will take one, and, if possible, two +months' period of absolute vacation every year. Let him make this a +part of his business, just as he makes sleeping a part of his business +every day. + +What matter if another lawyer gets the case that would have come to +you, or another real-estate dealer secures the corner lot on which you +have had your eye, or another operator makes the profitable deal which +would have given you fame and fortune? + +_You_ have obtained and preserved that which they most probably have +lost. _You_ have made an investment in Youth. You have purchased +power. You have taken stock in length of years. You have equipped +yourself with new nerves, a rested heart, a refreshed brain, a hearty +stomach, and a sane mind in a sound body. + +And you have done more than all this: You have restored your +perspective. You have corrected your vision, so that you see things in +their just proportion. One reason why men waste energy so prodigally +is that their intense pursuit of their business makes them lose all +sense of the proportion of things. That which is of little consequence +appears, to the distorted vision, of immense importance; and as much +energy is wasted in trifles as should be expended on great affairs. +This process keeps up until really first-class men are reduced to very +small men. + +Let a man go each year to the everlasting mountains; to the solitude +of the ancient forests; to the eternal ocean with its manifestation of +power and repose. Let him sit by its solemn shore listening to it sing +that song which for a million years before our civilization was +thought of it had been singing, and which for a million years after +our civilization has become merely a line in history it will continue +to sing, and he will realize how unimportant are the things which only +a few weeks before seemed to him of such vast moment. Perhaps the +words of the old Khayyam will come to him: + + "And fear not lest Existence, closing your + Account and mine, should know the like no more; + The Eternal Saki from that Bowl has pour'd + Millions of Bubbles like us, and will pour." + +Or, + + "When You and I behind the Veil are passed, + Oh! but the long, long while the World shall last, + Which of our Coming and Departure heeds + As the sea's self should heed a pebble cast." + +Then you will come back to your work and see things in their proper +dimensions. You will expend your energy on things that require it, and +you will smile at the things that do not deserve your attention, and +pass them by. You will substitute duty for ambition, and you will go +your way with sanity for perhaps ten months. Then you will need again +the elemental lesson of the forest, the mountain, or the sea. + +I do not mean that you shall take a vacation until you have deserved +it. What right have you to rest before you have labored--before you +have earned a thread that clothes you or a mouthful that nourishes +you. There are men whose whole lives are a vacation. These words are +not for them. From my viewpoint, such men might as well be dead. The +men upon whom I am urging the wisdom of taking periods for +recuperation are those who have been pulling with the team and keeping +their traces taut. And I assume that you who read are one of these +worth-while men. Very well! I want you to last a long time. + +On this subject, many is the talk I have had with friends who are +business men. "Well," my business friend has said, "I just cannot get +away this summer. Next summer I will go away, but I cannot go away +this summer. You see, I have a 'deal' which I am about to close; it +demands my personal attention. It would be treason to my business to +leave this summer." + +Yes, quite true, no doubt. But so has Nature a "deal" on with this +same business man; and it will be treason to Nature if he does not go +away and let Nature's ministers attend him. If he has got to be false +to his business or to Nature, he had better be false to the former. It +is a fine thing to be true to one's business. But be sure that you are +_really_ true to your business; and that means that, first of all, you +shall look to your health. Your _business_ demands that. Good health +is good "business." + +I knew a business man who was so true to his business that he was +unfaithful to himself. The machinery of his superb mind had been +running at highest speed for ten months. It needed a rest--oil on the +heated bearings, a reburnishing of the soiled steel, a rest from the +high tension. He would have given just such care to an automobile, or +an engine, or any inanimate mechanism. He would have given much +greater care to his horse. + +But did he give it to himself? No. He had a "deal" on of large +proportions; that "deal" must be consummated before attending to the +mind and body that put it through. So the lever was pulled back +another notch; the machine was driven to its highest burst of speed +and power, and the "deal" was a success. + +Mark now what followed. The next day this splendid man did not feel +very well--a headache. And on the following day there was an eternal +end to all his "deals." I do not call that good business. Therefore, +my friend, the sea, the mountains, the forests; therefore Nature, with +her medicine for body and mind and soul. + +"Turn yourself out to pasture," said a wise old country doctor to an +exhausted city man. Certainly, that's the thing to do--"turn yourself +out to pasture." + +Singular advice for young men, you will say, this counseling of +restraint, calmness, and the husbanding of his powers. Yes; but I +would prevent you from exhausting yourself. No nervous prostration at +forty; no arrested development at fifty; no mental vacuity at +fifty-five. Too many Americans cease to count after middle life. They +have wasted their ammunition and are sent to the rear--there is no +longer use for them on the firing-line. Youth is so strong that it +wastes power like a millionaire of vitality. But you will need all +this dissipated energy later on--every ounce of it. + +And so, while I would have you labor to the last limit of your +strength while you are about your work, I would also have you regain +the strength thus consumed. I would have you let Nature fill up your +empty batteries. Hence the suggestion of vacations, a level mind, and +books of serenity. + +While you _do_ work, pour your full strength into every blow; but +having done your best do not spoil it by lying awake over it. No +half-heartedness in your task, however. If you try to save yourself +while you are about your business--if you "try to do things easy"--you +will neither work well nor rest well nor do anything else well. + +I know there are those who cannot, for long, quit work--those who "have +their noses to the grindstone," to borrow one of those picture-sentences +of the people. In the far off end to which evolution tends, civilization +will doubtless reach the point where every human being may have his +solid month of play, repose, and recuperation--though this cannot be, of +course, while nation competes with nation. A universal industrial +agreement alone can compass that happy end. And do we not here +perceive, afar off, one of the vast and glorious tasks for the statesmen +of the future? + +Meanwhile, if every man may not have an entire season of holiday, he +may have every day his hour of fun and rest. For every man that, at +least, is possible. And, too, he whom necessity drives hardest +owns--absolutely owns--for himself one day in seven. Not so bad after +all, is it? Not the ideal condition, but still quite tolerable. +Fifty-two days in three hundred and sixty-five, nearly two months in +the year, already given every man by the usage of our Christian +civilization for the purpose of "rest from all his work"; and with +divine example encouraging and instructing him in its use. + +A man can get along on these two months distributed at the intervals +of one in every seven days. He can get along, that is, if he really +rests--really gives himself up to the sane joy of normal repose. The +humblest toiler, even in our greatest cities, can find physical +renewal and soul's upliftment in forest, at river's side, or on the +shore of lake or ocean--thanks to rapid transit and cheap fares. + +So let us not get to pitying ourselves--we are pretty well +circumstanced for the alternation of work and play, even in our state +of partial development. It is for us to use the opportunity already +afforded us; and, speaking by and large, ought we not to deserve more +by using, without waste or worse than waste, what we already have? Is +there not sound philosophy in the legend which Mr. Lewis tells us was +inscribed on the headboard of Jack King, deceased: "Life ain't in +holding a good hand, but in playing a poor hand well"? + +My suggestion of one or two months' outing in addition to our +fifty-two Sundays and several holidays is to those who have poured out +in brain-work and nervous strain more than the system can possibly +replenish except by a period devoted exclusively to the manufacture of +force to replace that which has been unnaturally expended. There are +men who toil night and day. Mostly they are young men establishing +their business or getting their "start." + +I know many young men who work twelve and even fourteen hours every +day, and keep it up the year round. One of the greatest merchants of +my acquaintance worked from five o'clock in the morning until twelve +and one o'clock at night, and then slept in his little store. He was +just building up his business. We all know men who literally will not +stop work while awake, and when their task is near them. Such men must +go away from their business and let Nature work on them awhile. + +Have your doctor look you over every six months, no matter how well +you feel--or oftener, if he thinks best. Have your regular physician. +Pick out a good one, and, especially, a man congenial to yourself. +Make him your friend as well as medical adviser. The true doctor is a +marvelous person. + +How astonishing the accurate knowledge of the accomplished physician! +How miracle-like the dainty and beneficent skill of the modern +surgeon. The peculiar ability of a great diagnostician amounts to +divination. And he, whom Nature has fitted for this noble profession, +is endowed with a sympathy for you and an intuitive understanding of +you very much akin to the peculiar sixth sense of woman--that strange +power by which she "knows and understands." + +Consult your doctor, therefore. Be careful of medicines he does not +prescribe. The most innocent drug is a veiled force, a compound of +hidden powers--the system a delicate intricacy whose condition may be +different every day. The neurosis of our American life is seducing +too many of our best and busiest men to the use of chemicals, +mixtures, nostrums, pick-me-ups, etc., which make nerves and brain +utter brave falsehoods of a strength that is not theirs. + +Your doctor won't let you do this--he will stay your unconsciously +suicidal hand. If your machinery is out of order, he will tell you so, +and do what is necessary to repair it. He will comfort and reassure +you, too, and administer to the mind a medicine as potent as powder or +liquid. But you will get no false sympathy from him. If you have +nothing the matter with you, yet think you have, your doctor will take +you by the collar of your coat, stand you on your feet, and bid you be +a man. So don't dose yourself. Be a faithful guardian of the treasures +Nature gave you. + +Returning now to reading: You are not to neglect books. They must be +read. If you are a professional man they must be more than read; they +must be studied, absorbed, made a part of your intellectual being. I +am not despising the accumulated learning of the past. Matthew Arnold, +in his "Literature and Dogma," quite makes this point. What I am +speaking of is miscellaneous reading. + +After a while one wearies of the endless repetition, the "damnable +iteration" contained in the great mass of books. You will finally come +to care greatly for the Bible, Shakespeare, and Burns. Compared with +these most others are "twice-told tales" indeed. Of course one must +read the great scientific productions. They are an addition to +positive knowledge, and are a thing quite apart from ordinary +literature. + +My recommendation of the Bible is not alone because of its spiritual +or religious influences; I am advising it from the material and even +the business view-point. By far the keenest wisdom in literature is in +the Bible, and is put in terms so apt and condensed, too, that their +very brevity proves its inspiration--_is_ an inspiration to you. + +Carry the Bible with you, if for nothing else than as a matter of +literary relaxation. The tellers of the Bible stories tell the stories +and stop. "He builded him a city"--"he smote the Philistines"--"he +took her to his mother's tent." You are not wearied to death by the +details. Go into any audience addressed by a public speaker, and you +will perceive that his hearers' interest depends on whether he is +getting to the point. "Well, why doesn't he get to the point," is the +common expression in public assemblages. The Bible "gets to the +point." + +And it has something for everybody. If you are a politician, or even a +statesman, no matter how astute you are, you can read with profit +several times a year the career of David, one of the cleverest +politicians and greatest statesmen who ever lived. If you are a +business man, the proverbs of Solomon will tone you up like +mountain-air. + +A young woman should read Ruth. A man of practical life, a great man, +but purely a man of the world, once said to me: "If I could enact one +statute for all the young women of America, it would be that each of +them should read the book of Ruth once a month." But the limits and +purpose of this paper do not permit a dissertation on the Bible. + +Shakespeare, of course, you cannot get along without. I shall say no +more about him here; for if anything at all is said about Shakespeare +(or the Bible), it ought to take up an entire paper at least. "Don't +read anybody's commentaries on Shakespeare--don't read mine; read +_Shakespeare_," was the final advice of Richard Grant White, one of +the ripest of the world's commentators on this universal poet. + +From the Bible and Shakespeare roads lead down among books but little +lower in elevation and outlook. Of these the essays of Emerson furnish +a noble example; and the poems of the Concord philosopher are the +wisdom of the ancients stated in terms of Americanism. I would have +every young man spend half an hour over each page of our American +Thinker's essays on Character, Manners, Power, and Self-reliance. + +Indeed, wherever you turn, among the pages of our Sage, you find no +desert place, but always a very forest of thought, tumultuous and +vibrant with fancy and suggestion, sweet and wholesome with living +truth and all helpfulness. You can form no better habit than to read a +page or two of Emerson every night. + +Take Emerson as an example; read books of that sort--books that are +kin to the Bible and Shakespeare. There is no excuse for your +poisoning your time with idle books or low books or transient +books--moth volumes that flutter an instant in the light and in an +instant die. For the great books are entertaining. If you want +excitement, Plutarch's Lives furnish you thrilling-narrative fiction +cannot surpass--and undying inspiration besides. + +The great novels, too, have in them all the blood and battle-ax the +stoutest nerve can crave, all the incidents of love, self-sacrifice, +and gentle invention the tenderest heart can need. Yes, certainly: +Read books that come to stay--the kind of books you would like to be +as a man. + +The Rubaiyat would deserve mention but for the danger of +misunderstanding its message. Rightly read Omar Khayyam's lesson is +serenity and poise and that power and happiness which come from these. +The disciple of the tent-maker is not apt to lose his bearings. He no +longer regards to-day as eternity, no longer looks at the world and +the universe from himself as a center. Reject the Persian poet's +apotheosis of wine, absorb his philosophy of calmness, and you will do +your duty regardless of consequences. And that is the chief thing, is +it not? + +Do your duty, have the courage of your thought, and walk off with the +old fatalist's verse soothing your soul and brain, and let the +disturbed ones clamor. The clamor will cease in time and turn to +applause. And whether it does or not is a matter of absolutely no +importance if you have done right. + +There is nothing which will more conserve the nervous forces of any +serious-minded young man, nothing which will give him so much of that +composure of mind and necessary concentration of powers, as the +resolution to do his best and let it go at that, whether the world +applaud, or laugh, or rage. Be true to your deed, whatever it may have +been, and if the deed was true, the end must necessarily be +satisfactory. + +Burns, of course, we must read. We must have him to keep the milk of +human kindness flowing in our veins--to keep sweet and sincere and +loving. The good that you get from Burns cannot be analyzed. You +cannot say, "I have read Burns, and find in him of wisdom so many +grains, of humor so many grains, of beauty of expression so many +grains," and so forth and so on to the end. + +It is the general effect of Burns that is so valuable, so +indispensable. Read a little bit of Burns every day, and you will find +it very hard to be unkind; you are conscious that you are more human. +A mellow and delightful sympathy for your fellow man--aye, and for all +living things--warms your heart. And this human quality is more +valuable than all the riches of all the lords of wealth. + +At all cost keep your capacity for human sympathy. + +The sharp, hard processes of our strictly business civilization tend +to regulate even our sympathies into a system. It is as if we should +say each day, "I have time to-day for five minutes of human sympathy," +and promptly push the button of our stop-watch when the second-hand +shows that the time has expired. Burns is the best corrective of this +that I know--the best, that is, outside of the Bible itself. + +Indeed the more one thinks about it the clearer it is that we might +throw away all other books but the Bible, and still have all our +mental and moral needs ministered to by those who through all time +have thought and felt most highly; for the Bible is the record of the +loftiest of all human expression, not to mention its divine origin. + +Put your Bible, your Shakespeare, your Burns in your bundle when you +go for a journey, and you are intellectually and spiritually equipped. + +Let a man have the courage of his thought--I repeat it. Courage is +where we fail, not intellect. We hear much about intellect, about +"brains," as the rather coarse expression is. It is not that which is +needed; it is courage. + +Enter into conversation the next time you are at the club, or in a +hotel, or restaurant, or wherever you meet men in intellectual +hospitality, on almost any subject you may choose, you will be amazed +at the information, the original thought, the keen analysis, even the +constructive ideas of most of the men there. + +One of the most fertile minds I have ever known is nothing but an +unsuccessful lawyer in a country town; yet his intellect is as +tropical, and as accurate, too, as was Napoleon's, or Gould's. + +How is it that all these people do not achieve the successes to which +their mere thinking entitles them? I say, to which their mere +_thinking_ entitles them, because--I say it again--if you will put +them beside the great masters of affairs you will find that they have +as many ideas as have these captains of business. My young friend, it +is simply because they have not courage and constancy. Long ago I +catalogued the qualities that make up character, in relative +importance, as follows: + +First: Sincerity; fidelity, the ability to be true--true to friends, +true to ideas, true to ideals, true to your task, true to the truth +Who shall deny that the martyrs Nero burned did not experience joys in +the consuming flame more delicate and sweet than ever thrilled epicure +or lover? + +Second (and well-nigh first): Courage--the godlike quality that dreads +not; the unanalyzable thing in man that makes him execute his +conception--no matter how insane or absurd it may appear to others--if +it appears rational to him, and then stride ahead to his next great +deed, regardless of the gossips. + +Third: Reserve--the power to hold one's forces in check, as a general +disposes his army in an engagement on which the fate of an empire or +of the world may depend. This power of reserve involves silence. Talk +all you please, but keep your large conceptions to yourself till the +hour to strike arrives, and then strike with all your might. + +In politics they call some men "rubber shoes"; such men continue long, +but they never achieve highly. Do not try to cultivate this quality if +Nature has been so kind as not to endow you with it. It is not a +masterful quality. Have the courage not only of your convictions--that +is not so hard--but _have the courage of your conceptions_. But do not +simulate courage if you have it not. False courage is worse than +cowardice--it is falsehood and cowardice combined. + +Reserve also includes the power to wait; and that is almost as crucial +a test of greatness as courage itself. Many a battle has been lost by +over-eagerness. There was the greatness of Fate itself in the order of +the American officer of the Revolution who said, "Wait, men, until you +see the whites of their eyes." + +Time is a young man's greatest ally. That is why youth holds the +whip-hand of the world. That is why youth can afford to dare. It is +also why age does not dare to dare. With youth, to-morrow is merely an +accession of power; but with age--ah, well, with age, as Omar says, + + "To-morrow I may be + Myself with yesterday's seven thousand years." + +Fourth: The fourth quality in character, the lowest one in the list, +is Intellect. Not that it is not so valuable as the others, but it is +so abundant, and, without the others, so useless. What is it we hear +the strong-handed Philistines say in the market-place? "Brains are +cheap"; that is what we hear them say. And they say truly. Many years +ago I became acquainted with a millionaire who had acquired his +wealth by building things, raising cattle, erecting factories--not by +shuffling the cards of trade. + +His grammar is defective, but his elemental vitality will do you as +much good as a walk in the fresh air after the poisoned and steaming +atmosphere of a crowded room. "How have I succeeded?" said he, in +answer to a question one day. "Oh, by just having the nerve to decide +upon a plan, and then by hiring these brainy fellows to do my work. I +can get the services of the ablest lawyer in this city for a crumb of +the loaf I realize from his thought and industry. The secret of +success? Why, sir, it is will, that is all--will, nerve, 'sand.'" + +Let me enlarge on the first great quality of character. Sincerity, +truthfulness--write these on the tablets of your heart; get them into +your blood. This is something that you can cultivate. One of the keen +lawyers of my town whom we elected as judge of our court, and who is +full of the fresh and living wisdom of the people, said this one day: + +"A man can cultivate honesty--there is no doubt about that; but a man +who is born honest has a great advantage." + +So if you have any taint of the blood which you discover inclines you +toward guile, insincerity, and untruthfulness fortify yourself by the +reflection that _insincerity is a losing game_. Put it on the low +ground of self-interest, and be truthful, be "square." + +The old saying that "honesty is the best policy" has lost its original +force by much repetition. And it does not go far enough, either. I am +speaking of more than mere mercantile honesty; I am speaking of +political sincerity, of intellectual sincerity. Never attempt to fool +anybody. We live at such a rate of speed, our perceptions have become +so abnormally sensitive and acute, that it is next to impossible to +deceive any one; and he who attempts it is usually the only one +deceived. + +If, then, a man can mount upon this humble stepping-stone of low +personal interest to sincerity for the sake of his own advantage, he +will, after a while, be able to climb higher, to the exalted plane of +truthfulness for the sake of truth; and then he will behold the +beatitudes of righteous living, and experience the joys which putting +oneself in harmony with the order of the universe and the on-going of +events never fails to bring. As a great scientist puts it, "Establish +your polarity, young man, and sleep soundly at night." + +And courage: A successful manufacturer said to me one day, in +explaining his own success: _"I never let my idea get cold._ That, I +think, is why I have succeeded. When a great business deal came to my +mind, I did not waste my energy inquiring about whether I could do it. +I did not waste time and strength regretting that I was not stronger. +I did not destroy my force by doubting my own conception. I went at +it. I did it. I spent all my energy on execution after I had once +conceived it. Did I not make mistakes following such a plan? Why, of +course I made mistakes; and God protect me from the man who never made +a mistake! + +"But acting by that method alone," said he, "is the way I achieved all +my triumphs. I do not pursue that course now, because I am getting +old, and I am in very poor health. Age and ill health make me doubt; +so I have not made any large business success for several years. I +should say that the reason why so many men who are really capable +intellectually fail, is because they are infidels to their own +thought, traitors to their own conception. + +"If I could concentrate all the advice of my life into one thing," +declared this strong wise man, in concluding his comments on failure +and success, "it would be for those young men who expect to do +something constructive to have faith in their idea, and act upon it +before it gets cold. There is a tremendous force in the enthusiasm of +your freshly formed plan. You have contributed largely to the defeat +of your scheme when you have permitted yourself to doubt it." + +It was only the other day that the newspapers were full of an +extraordinary achievement of one of the American magicians of +business; and the papers said that the remarkable thing about it was +that the plan flashed upon him in a single evening, as he was leaving +for a long vacation. He acted upon it instantly, and devoted his +fortune, reputation, almost life, to its consummation. He succeeded. +If he had taken six months to have thought over it, his conception +would have been abandoned. + +While this man's plan came on him in an evening, a study of his life +shows that, unconsciously to himself, it had been growing for a long +series of years. It flowered out all at once, like the night-blooming +cereus. Caesar decided to cross the Rubicon on the instant? Yes, but we +cannot doubt that this imperial resolution had been formed the day +when in the Forum, as Macaulay describes it, Caesar said that the +future Dictator of Rome might be Pompey, or Crassus, or still +somebody else whom nobody was thinking of (that somebody else being +himself, of course). + +And, indeed, Caesar would at that time have been the last that any +Roman would have selected as the master of the world. He was young. He +was small. He seemed almost frail. He was an unspeakable egotist. He +was fastidious in his dress. I have read that he even used perfumes. +And how could the common eye discern, through all of these externals +of frippery, the lion heart, the eagle vision, and the mind of +conquest and empire? + +There is a very great danger in the examples just cited. These men +were geniuses, and they are not to be imitated except as their methods +may be applicable to the common man. This paper is for common men--for +people like ourselves. There _are_ geniuses; but their high-wrought +lives, tornado activity, and methods of lightning are not for us. All +the world's real leaders, whether in the fields of thought or action, +whether in the council-chamber of the statesman, on the battle-field +of the warrior, in the study of the writer, or in the laboratory of +the scientist--all have been men of genius. No mediocre man ever was a +great leader in the historic sense. + +With our habit of looking at to-day as though it were eternity, we +consider men "leaders," and use the adjectives "great," "splendid," +etc., as applied to them, when historically these men will hardly be +discernible. + +But all the figures large enough to fill history's perspective always +have been and always will be geniuses--men in whom the energy, the +thought, the imagination, the power of hundreds of men are +concentrated. Let us not deceive ourselves, and reap misery and +disappointment by thinking that we can, by any effort, equal them. +Alexander, Caesar, Richelieu, Napoleon, Bismarck, Washington, Darwin, +Goethe, Shakespeare, Lincoln, Pasteur, Edison, Plato, Rhodes, Ito, +Diaz, Peter the Great--we cannot explain these phenomena of human +intellect and character except by the word genius. + +All our toil and patience and everything cannot seat us in the high +places of these princes of Nature. "Who, by taking thought, can add a +cubit to his stature?" (The Bible again, you see; we cannot get away +from the Bible.) + +But these men never knew that they were geniuses. They would have +known it undoubtedly if they had stopped to think about it. But they +were too busy with their task. A genius never thinks about his powers, +any more than an eagle is concerned about the method of his royal +flight from the mountain crag. But for us, of the common mass of men, +only those methods of genius are applicable which are within our +reach. Mostly for us are the slow and toilsome--the sure, if +gradual--processes of patient labor and infinite pains. + +So do not let the thought that you are a genius abide with you for a +moment--the main traveled roads for us ordinary mortals! The beaten +paths are not so far wrong, after all; and at their end is certain, +even perhaps distinguished, if not startling and historic, success. + +And, besides, epoch-makers are not needed until an epoch needs to be +made. + +Do not worry about greatness, therefore. If greatness is for you, +God's call will surely come to you. If it does not--well, the +archeologists uncovered Nippur the other day, with its palaces and +courts and abodes of those who were great and mighty more than 2,500 +years before Abraham. + +So consider Nippur, and be patient and humble. I instanced Rhodes in +naming some of the world's monarchs of mind and will. Very well! +Yesterday all Christendom was ringing with his imperial work. He was +developing a continent; establishing the reign of law, industry, and +peace where savagery and the wilderness had held sway for a million +years. + +But it was _yesterday_ that he did this. He is dead now. Already you +have half forgotten him. You see we are living a century in a minute. + +Besides, if Clotho has not spun greatness into your destiny, be sure +that it does not matter. The reward of Cecil Rhodes was in the thing +he did, and not in the memory which men have of it. The man who digs a +well has precisely the same reward. The point is that you must do the +deed for the deed's sake. Do not do it because the crowd will clap +their hands. When present applause or ultimate fame become your chief +purpose in life, what are you, after all? You are a play-actor--that +is what you are. Put it from you. Be a man. + +Yes, consider Nippur, and be a man. One lesson these ancient ruins +teach--the nothingness of fame, and that the only things in life worth +while are love and duty. I cannot think of any blessing so great to an +ardent young American as to learn at the very threshold of his career +of activities that duty and affection are the only things really whose +value lasts and increases--the only things that pay increasing +dividends. + +In a conversation in which the same view of reading given in this +paper was set forth, a very bright and earnest woman questioned the +propriety of such advice. "For," said she, "the result of that advice +is to quiet rather than excite the activities and ambitions; it is to +retard rather than hasten intellectual acquisition; it is to check +rather than advance a young man's career." + +But, granting that this be true, the very objection is itself one of +the highest merits of the advice thus criticized. For the only grave +danger before capable young Americans, and, indeed, before our Nation, +is that of hastening too much, of sweeping on too rapidly, of +straining every nerve too tensely, of living our lives with an ardor +all too fierce and hot. Don't hurry--the world will last several +millions of years longer. + +What most of the young men of this country need is restraint, not +stimulant; what this Nation needs is reserve. The only serious fear I +entertain for our future is that the great rapidity of our common +lives will make us neurotic. I prefer a young man to be a little less +scintillant, than that his brilliancy should be at the expense of +exhausted nerves and enfeebled vitality. + +This paper is supposed to be advice which will be practically helpful +to young men in their struggle with the world. Very well, then! From +the low view-point of self-interest, I would advise every young man to +cultivate unselfishness. Do at least one thing every day which helps +somebody else, and from which you cannot possibly harvest any profit +and advantage. Do one thing every day that cannot in any way bring you +tangible reward, directly or indirectly, now or ever. + +I know of no discipline of character equal to this. After a while a +subtle change will come over your nature. You will grow into an +understanding of the practical value of the Master's words: "It is +more blessed to give than to receive." There comes to you an +acquisition of power. Your influence, by a process which escapes any +human analysis, reaches out over your associates, and, in proportion +to the magnitude of your character, over humanity. + +A man cannot select a surer road to character ruin than to have a +selfish motive back of every action. To do all of your deeds, or most +of them, with the thought of the advantage they will bring you, will +result in paralysis of soul as surely as certain drugs introduced into +the nerves for a long period of time will result in physical +paralysis. I do not think that there can be a more valuable suggestion +made to a young man facing the world and desiring to increase his +powers than to practise unselfishness. + +What is it we say of certain men: "Oh, he is for himself." It is a +Cain-like label. Never let it be pinned on your coat. In politics, +note how the power of some leader dissolves when his followers find +out that it is all for him and none for them. And in business we are +all on our guard against the man who wants the whole thing, and will +take it if he is not watched. Even when selfishness succeeds, it never +satisfies. It is like the drunkard's thirst. + +No, no, young man, put selfishness from you. It is not even the method +of business profit. After all, we are living for happiness, are we +not? Very well. Try to make some one else happy, and experience a +felicity more delicate and exalted than you ever imagined in your +fondest dreams of joy. By all means practise unselfishness. "Get the +habit," as our Americanism has it. Live for somebody or something +besides yourself. Really none of us amount to enough to live for +ourselves alone. Oh, no! that game is not worth the candle, believe +me. + +Finally and especially, reverence age. Be deferential to maturity. +This is the one thing in which we Americans are yet deficient. The man +who has lived a single decade longer than you, deserves your +consideration and respect. Be in no haste to displace your seniors. +Time will do that all too quickly. The finest characteristic of the +Oriental is his profound regard for all age. Follow the Asiatic in +this one thing only. Heed venerable counsels; defer to maturity's +wisdoms. There is something majestic about advancing years. Be to all +men and women older than yourself what you would like other young men +to be to your father and mother. + +Be a man; that's the sum of it all--be a man. Be all that we Americans +mean by those three words. + + + + +II + +THE OLD HOME + + +Do we not pay so much attention to mere material success that we +exclude from mind and heart other things more precious? I am anxious +that every young American should win in all the conflicts of life--win +in college, win in business, etc.; but I am even more anxious that +through all of his triumphs he should grow ever broader, sweeter, and +more kindly. After all, we are human beings. We do not want to become +mere machines of success, do we? + +That is carrying our mechanical age a little too far. We want to keep +that within us which makes our victory worth having after we have won +it. What matters your mountains of wealth, or your network of +political power, or those secrets which in your laboratory you have +wrung from Nature--what matters all and everything that the world +calls "success," if the human quality has been dried up in you? + +Those are fine things that St. Paul says about a man not amounting to +anything, no matter how talented and powerful he may be, if he have +not charity: "And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand +all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that +I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing"; and you +will recall the remainder of his admirable comments on this subject. + +Everybody points out to you what you can get out of college, and how +to get it; what you can get out of a "career," and how to get that. +But lest all of your getting turns to bitter emptiness in the end, you +must pay attention to that elemental manhood exalted by those +beautiful moralities that you get at but one place and at but one +period in this world. That period is the early time of your young +manhood before you enter college; and that place is the old home where +influences angelic have been at work upon your character. + +It could not be otherwise. Home--the home that you leave or the home +you make--is the spot where most of your life is to be spent. Home was +the place of your birth; and if the angel of death is kind to you, +home will be the place of your farewell. It is to the home that you +bring life's wages, whether those wages are opulence, glory, or merely +daily bread. + +It is the home which interprets the whole universe for you. And it is +the home which not only furnishes a reason for your existence, but in +itself constitutes the motive for all manly effort. Quite naturally, +therefore, the home is concerned with character more than it is with +grosser things. + +The instruction which the American mother gives her son is a training +in honor rather than in success. Her passion for righteousness creeps +into the commonplaces of her daily speech. "Be a good boy" is what she +says to the little fellow each day as he starts to school. "Be a good +boy" is what she says to the youth when he leaves for college. "Be a +good boy" is still her sacred charge when, standing at the gate, she +gives him her blessing as he goes out into the world. + +And, finally, "Be a good boy" is what her lips murmur when in after +years, rich perchance in achievement, honor, power, or wealth, the man +of the world returns to the old home to again get her benediction, and +have his weary soul refreshed by the beauty of her almost holy +presence. + +For you never cease to be a boy to her; and her supreme wish and most +passionate prayer for you is not that you shall be a strong man, or a +rich man, or an able man--she wants you to be all these, of course, +and everything else that is fine--but chiefly she cares that you +should be a good man. + +And so it is that home is the temple of ideals, the sanctuary of the +true, the beautiful, and the good. Or put it in scientific phrase, and +say: Home is the laboratory of character. The home is the place where +you get what the common people so pithily call your "bringing up." It +is there where your conception of all human relationships is formed. +It is there where it is largely determined whether you will make your +life worth the living. + +Your future sits at the old fireside. The fate of the Nation abides +beneath the roof-tree. And so it is that neither college, nor +market-place, nor forum, nor editor's sanctum, nor traffic of the high +seas, nor anything that you may do, nor any environment that may +hereafter surround you, is so important to you as the old home and +your early years. Yes, and not to you only, but to the Nation also. + +Nothing means so much to the Republic as the influence of the +American home upon the young manhood of the Nation. + +We are about to enter upon the serious problem of the regulation of +railway rates, which is a beginning in some sort of the national +control of transportation. It is a problem whose weight and +possibilities challenge and all but confound every thoughtful and +serious mind. Every step in its solution must be taken with both +wisdom and justice. + +Our relations with the Orient daily increase, and the fixedness of our +position in the Far East hourly becomes more definite. The public man +wears a scarf about his eyes who does not see that our historic +statesmanship during this century will deal with our growing mastery +of the Pacific, and the weaving backward and forward across that ocean +of our ever-multiplying relations with the East. + +This paper might be entirely taken up with a statement of tangled +situations and deep problems which will require the combined +intelligence of the whole American people to solve. + +Yet, for the purpose of this life, what are they all, compared with +the character of individual Americans, and therefore with the +influence of the American home upon American men in the making; for +men in the making is what the youth of our land are. Gladstone stated +a truth, wide and vital as English institutions, when he said that the +relation of the Church to the youth of Great Britain is a matter of +more concern than all the problems of the Empire put together. + +All this is commonplace, you say. I say so too. Yet it is the +commonplaces, and those things alone, by which we live and move and +have our being. For example, sunlight is commonplace, and so is air. +Who was it that spoke about the damnable iteration of the seasons? + +A storm is not commonplace, but how long could any of us live--how +long would any of us choose to live--were each day and night a +succession of thunder, lightning, and downpour? Good citizenship is +commonplace, whereas a murder mystery excites us thrillingly. Yet none +of us on that account would choose the society of criminals. + +It is to the elemental commonplaces that I am now going to direct your +attention. The world is kept alive by its monotonies. The trouble is +that the indispensable things are so inevitable and persistent that +we take them for granted, and yield them neither gratitude nor even +attention. + +Take the beauty of daylight as our illustration once more. We had it +yesterday, have it to-day, have had it ever since we were born, and +will have it until we die. Note, too, the eternal stability of the +heavens, which change not at all; and the endless pour of ocean's +currents, warming certain coasts and leaving others chill. It is the +same with the life intellectual and the life spiritual. + +"What is the grandest thing in the universe?" asks Hugo. "A storm at +sea," he answers, and continues, "And what is grander than a storm at +sea?" "The unclouded heavens on a starry and moonless night." "And +what is grander than these midnight skies?" "The soul of man!" A +spectacular climax such as Hugo loved; and still, with all its +dramatic effect, the picturesque statement of a vast and mighty truth! + +Very well. The home is the place where character is to be formed, and +therefore its influences on "the soul of man" are like those of the +sun on the body of man. Let us get to those commonplaces, therefore, +at which the cynic lifts his lip, but which are worth a good deal +more to you, young man, than all your achievings will be. + +As to the moralities, then, yield yourself utterly to the mother. She +has an instinctive perception of righteousness as affecting your +character that no other intelligence under heaven has, and that she +does not have for any one else, not even for herself. She has her own +way, too, of getting this nourishment of the verities into your +character. It is done not so much by preaching to you, or lecturing +you, as it is by her very presence. + +She carries about with her an atmosphere of sweetness and light. The +mother gives to her boy a kind of unspoken counsel. It is a very +subtle thing, like electricity in the material world, and equally as +powerful as that mysterious fluid. You get its effects by putting +yourself eagerly and lovingly under its soothing yet ennobling and +tonic influence. It is a matter hard to describe, but more real than +any other human force I know of. + +So the first thing for you to do is to resolve to be "mother's own +boy," as the sneering tongue of shallowness puts it, just as long as +you possibly can. It will be the greatest luck you will ever have, if +you are able to be "mother's own boy" as long as she lives. Don't be +afraid that that will make you effeminate and soft; don't think for a +moment that it will paralyze the force and power of your growing +manhood. + +I have seen one of this kind of fellows hold in awe a mob of cowboys +and plainsmen when passions were aroused and blows had already been +struck. I have seen such a man put down, single-handed, by word of his +fearless authority, fights among a score of woodmen who had known +nothing but the rank vigor of their unruled male lives. + +The man whose will and character has been tempered by this holy fire +takes on something of the suppleness, hardness, and firmness of steel, +of which a delicate blade will cut the grosser iron of which that +blade itself was a part before it was subjected to the refining +process that made it steel. + +Some time ago I was privileged to read the letters that one of our +naval heroes had, when a young man, despatched home to his mother +during our civil war. He participated in two or three of our most +desperate fights. All of these letters showed him to have been--and, +what is better, to have remained--a "mother's own boy" as long as she +lived. + +He never sailed far enough away to weaken that potent and sacred +power. It reached around the world. The years did not diminish it. +When her hair of brown had turned to white, he found that the +influence which to his boyhood and youth had been so delightful became +to his manhood uplifting and glorious. + +And yet no buccaneer that rioted afloat with Morgan had courage more +ferocious. Yes, and, on the other hand, no Bayard "without fear and +without reproach"; no Sydney who, when dying, handed his canteen to a +wounded comrade that he might moisten his lips, while Sydney's own +were crackling with fever, was ever more tender or considerate. + +What was it the expiring Nelson said when his decks ran blood, and +crimson victory placed upon his whitening brow laurels of triumph, +whose leaves were mingled with cypress? "Kiss me, Hardy," was what he +said. Strange words, were they not, for a scene of carnage? Yes, but +words which touched the hearts of the English people. + +They showed that upon the mind of England's greatest captain of the +sea the tender influence of the old mother, and the old home in +distant England, survived all the variableness of his character, all +the supreme efforts of his career, and that a gentleness and an +almost womanly yearning for affection were the qualities that ruled +the soul of the most desperate ocean fighter the world had seen since +Drake. They showed that the heart of the sternest warrior may be +beautiful with the humanities. How does the old song go?--"The bravest +are the tenderest"--that is it. + +So fear not that mother's influence will weaken you. It will do +nothing of the kind. It will strengthen you. It will make you want to +fight only for something worth fighting for. But when you fight for +that, it will make you fight to the death. And what is the use of +fighting at all unless it be to the death. A brawl is not conflict, +bravado is not bravery. + +I know there is another side to this question. It has been recently +stated by a resourceful Oriental. He said that the influence of women +on the Occidental man is effeminizing our civilization. He declared +that the mother gives the boy his first training, teaches him to talk, +etc., which is natural and therefore right and proper. + +But then, said our Asiatic critic, we give our boys to women +school-teachers, who educate them until they are ready for college, +and then, as soon as they are ready for college, they begin to "call +on the young women," and generally frequent the society of the softer +sex until the time arrives for them to marry. + +So that, according to this Oriental, we are under the direct influence +of woman from the cradle to the grave; and he points out that +gradually (imperceptibly, perhaps, to our own eyes) an effeminizing +process occurs in mind and character. As a result of this, he +maintains, our men increasingly fear hardships and seek to avoid them; +and life and even personal appearance are given a value which is +absurd, considering the inevitableness of death in any event, the +perfectly unthinkable number of myriads of human beings who exist, +have existed, and will exist hereafter. + +This philosopher of the East, therefore, claims that we will in the +end be no match at all for the Orientals, and that the yellow race, +which has been merely resting while we Caucasians have been having our +brief innings, is now to the bat again. And there was a lot more to +the same effect. + +This is of course the Asiatic way of looking at things. There may be +something in what he says about the continuity of female influence +softening our Western civilization. Certainly the present war shows +that the Japanese women, who were only yesterday altogether Oriental +in habits and ideals, have produced a race of strong men, so far as +physical daring and hardihood is concerned. The influence of women on +these men ceased with childhood--even then it was a Spartan influence. + +More than this, the Japanese generals and statesmen, nearly all of +whom are above sixty, were the product of Japanese civilization before +modern ideas had even been sown in the Island Empire. Oyama and +Kuroki, Ito and Katsura, and all the rest, are the offspring of purely +Asiatic conditions, uninfluenced in the slightest degree by Western +thought or custom; and yet the state of society which brought forth +these men is unfamiliar to American and European peoples. + +But even if what this Oriental assailant of our customs terms the +overcharge of femininity in Occidental society does mellow us, it does +not follow that it weakens us. Anyhow it does not affect what I say +about the influence of the mother upon the purposes and "principles" +of young men. And, in any event, our Western civilization constitutes +those human conditions in which you, young man, must spend your life, +and you must be in harmony with it if you are going to accomplish +anything. + +Don't try to be an Oriental in the midst of Occidental surroundings. +The yellow theory and the white theory of life must fight for the +mastery, and the one which is nearest the truth will prevail. +Meanwhile, stick to your own race and the ideals of it. I do not mean +that you should ignore any true thing you may learn from the East. +Welcome knowledge from every source. Light is light, no matter whence +it comes. + +And this brings back to us the little mother and the old home. If she +wishes it, be her companion. In any event, make her your confidant. +For a young man there is no source of safety and wisdom so abundant, +pure, and unfailing as the making his mother his confessor. Tell her +everything. I mean just that, tell her literally everything. + +Do not fear her reproof. Chemistry has no miracle a fraction as +wonderful as the patience and forgiveness of a mother for the +exasperations of her son. There is not a thing which you ought to do, +the telling of which to your mother will prevent your doing. And her +counsel to you will be golden upon those purely personal matters which +you could tell no one else, and which no one else could understand or +sympathize with. + +Remember that she has the wisdom of instinct--a wisdom peculiarly +worldly and practical in its applicability to real things and real +situations. The advice of a wife in business affairs has this same +peculiarly valuable quality, quite beyond the strength of her or his +intellect or the reach of her abstract understanding. + +It is the instinct to preserve the home nest which makes the business +advice of the wife to the husband so priceless; and it is this same +instinct exercising itself in another form--seeking to preserve the +offspring--which gives such shrewdness and depth to the counsel of +mother to son. + +This making your mother your confessor will not only keep you out of +trouble, and give you light and direction along lines where you +otherwise will be as blind as a young puppy, but it is good for you in +a far more important way--a far profounder way. I have always been +impressed with the wonderful understanding of human nature and the +needs of it which the institution of the confessional in the Catholic +Church reveals. "No man liveth to himself alone." + +For the ordinary human being there is no such thing as a secret. + +The ordinary man who is compelled to keep everything to himself gets +morbid and suspicious. He broods over what he thinks he must not utter +to others. Not daring to talk with friends, he converses with himself. +Thus his sympathies narrow, and his vision grows not only feeble but +false. He gets the proportion of things sadly confused. It is not only +a relief, but a real benefit to most men and women to be able to +unburden their souls to some other human being whom they know to be +faithful. + +And if this be the intellectual need, strong as nature itself, of +grown-up men and women, it is plain that the young man, whose +character is forming, requires the same thing a great deal more. Very +well. Your mother is the confessor, young man, whom Nature has given +you for this beautiful and saving purpose. Do not eat your heart out, +therefore, but frankly tell her your hopes, desires, offenses, plans. + +Confide in her your good deeds and your bad. And she, who would give +her life for you, and count it the happiest thing she ever did if it +would only help you, will give you the very gold of wisdom, refined +and superrefined by the fires of that love which burn nowhere else in +the universe save in a mother's heart. + +Of course I am talking now of the ordinary American mother, who is a +mother in all that the term implies. We all know that there are women +who have children without understanding at all--yes, or even caring at +all--what motherhood means; without understanding or caring what their +duties to their children mean. + +As is always the case with the abnormal, these unfortunate types are +found at the social extremes; in the so-called "depths" and the +so-called "heights." There are women too vicious to make good mothers +and women too vain to make good mothers. But these are not numerous. + +The mother this paper is dealing with is that angel in human form that +the ordinary American man knew in the old home when he was a boy; and +whether she be intellectual or not, educated or not, such mothers have +shaped the characters that have made the American people the noblest +force for good in all the world. + +In her work, her prayers, her daily life, you will find the sources of +all that is self-sacrificing, prudent, patriotic, brave, and uplifting +in American character. It is the influence of the American mother that +has made the American Republic what it is; and it is in her heart +that our national ideals dwell. + +"That is all right," said a practical-minded man, with a dash of +American humor in him, in the course of a conversation along this +line; "that is all right, and I think so, too," said he; "but where +does 'the old man' come in? What about the father?" And the question +is as sane as it is pat. Don't you neglect the father. He feeds you. +He clothes you. He is schooling you. It is to his brain and hand, and +the wisdom and skill of them, that you are indebted for the college +education you are going to get. + +And by these tokens your father is a _man_, and a whole lot of a man +at that. + +You will realize how much of a man he is if you will think what you +would be up against if you had to support yourself, and then another +person more expensive than yourself, and in addition several other +persons more expensive than yourself--not only support them, but +supply their whims and humor their caprices; for it must be said of us +Americans that we really do not need more than half what we think we +positively must have. + +Think, I say, young man, of having to do all that, and having to keep +on doing it to-day and to-morrow, this month and next month, and all +year and every year as long as you live. If, in your mind, you feel +yourself equal to that, tell me, do you not feel in your mind that you +have in you the makings of a man indeed--a tremendous man? + +Very well. That is what your father not only imagines, but _does_. So +he is decidedly entitled to your respect. You owe him gratitude, too, +of a very definite, tangible kind--the sort of gratitude you can weigh +in scales and count up in cash-book. + +Now we come to the point of definite benefit for you in all of this; +for, mind you, this paper is for your own selfish interests. Even when +I am advising the beatitudes of life, I am doing it from the +view-point of your practical well-being. + +Think, then, of the incalculable advantage of having at your beck and +call a friend who has proved that he knows the highways and byways of +the world by having successfully found his way around among them. + +Think of the value of having such a guide for your daily counselor. +Think of how the worth of such a man's directions to you is multiplied +infinitely by the fact that he cares more for your success than for +any other one thing in the world. When you have thought over all +these things, you will begin to have some faint understanding not only +of what you owe your father, but of his practical helpfulness to you. + +A father is an opportunity--a young man's first opportunity in life, +and the greatest opportunity he will ever have. That father has made +lots of mistakes, no doubt; but you will never make the mistakes he +made if you will listen to him. He has made many successes, perhaps; +but his successes are only the acorns to the oaks of your deeds, if +you will but take his words as seed for your future enterprises. + +And let me tell you this: Nothing makes a better impression upon the +world that is watching you--watching you very cunningly, young man--as +to be on good terms with your father. I have known more than one young +man to be discredited in business because it was generally understood +that he "could not get along with the old man." + +You see, the world thinks that it is the boy's fault when there is +friction between father and son--and ordinarily the world is right. +Sometimes, of course, the world itself "cannot get along with father"; +in such cases it does not blame the son for not getting along with +him either. But that is not your situation, you who read this paper. + +"How does ---- get along with his father?" was asked of a certain +young man of great distinction in letters. "Oh, they are great +friends!" was the answer. "Friends through duty or comradery?" +persisted the querist. "Comradery, affection, affinity. They are the +greatest chums in the world," was the answer. + +I wish I could give you the name of that man. It is known in every +civilized country. No wonder he became the great power into which he +has developed. His whole life is a blessing and a benediction to all +with whom he comes in contact--parents, wife, children, countrymen, +the world. No wonder his brain is canny with resourceful wisdom; no +wonder that good red human blood pours at full tide through artery and +vein. + +The man I have in mind, and whom I am describing, is a great man, and +his father before him was a great man too. His success has been +monumental. Yet his is no candy manhood. His is no smooth conduct. He +is "neither sugar nor salt, nor somebody's honey," to get down (or up) +to the picturesque phrase of the common household. + +He is the sort of man who would confound sharp practises of the +crafty; or "call the bluff" of financial gamester; or walk unconcerned +where physical danger calls for nerve of steel and lion's heart; or +fling at affected fop rapier sentences that cut deep through the very +quick of his pretenses. + +I cite this example merely to show you that you lose nothing of +independence or daring, or any of those qualities which young men so +prize (and properly prize), by being on terms of intellectual and +heart partnership with your father. + +Don't tell us that he won't let you be on such terms with him. Show +yourself willing and worth while, and your father would rather spend +his extra hours with you than at the theater. But you have got to show +yourself worth while. No whining willingness, no soft and pretended +desire, no affected making up to "the governor," will answer at all. + +You have got to "make good" with the American father, young man. + +He has "been through the mill," until the softness is pretty well +ground out and little remains but the granite-like muscle of manhood. +He is a pretty stern proposition; and if there is anything he won't +stand it is pretense, make-believe. But show yourself worthy of him +and willing for his comradeship, and you have begun life with the +best, readiest, bravest partner you will ever have. + +From all of this you have yourself deduced the fact that you do not +"know more than the old folks." If you have not, go ahead and deduce +it right now; for you do _not_ know more than they do. They have lived +so much longer than you have that the accretion of daily experience +has given them a variety of information beside which your book +knowledge is a sort of wooden learning, lifeless and artificial. + +The very fact that they have had you for a child and brought you along +safely thus far is proof enough of this. You have no right to +challenge the knowledge or judgment of either of your parents until +you demonstrate that you can do as well or better than they. And that +will be some years yet, will it not? No, decidedly, don't "get too +smart for father." + +Even if you really do know more than they, don't let either of the old +folks see that you think so. That attitude on your part is almost +indecent. Be grateful also. How singular that where young men have +everything to be thankful for, they are so seldom grateful. + +When parents surround them with every comfort, and make what are +luxuries to the millions necessities to their children; when the youth +is furnished clothes made by the tailor, and money to spend as he +will, and special schools and the most expensive university; when he +is given vacations at seashore, in mountains, on lake, or abroad, +instead of at good hard work, as the sons of the people must spend +their vacations; when a year or two of travel follows his day of easy +graduation; when all is his that thought, and love, and gold can give, +do we not frequently find the young man unappreciative of, and +ungrateful for, these blessings? + +Such a man usually takes it for granted that he ought to have all +these things, and a good deal more; that they are his as a matter of +course, and no thanks due to those who gave them; that they are not +much, after all, compared with what some other fellow with a richer +father, and a mother still more doting, has and spends. "Give a boy +too much money to spend and he won't do anything else." There are some +exceptions to this, notable and splendid exceptions, but they are so +few that they prove the rule. + +On the other hand, it is generally true that young fellows who, in +comparison with the class just described, have nothing to be thankful +for; who must earn their own bread and "help support the family"; who +"work their way through college," and during vacations put in a good +year's labor to get the money for the next college year; who, the day +after graduation, thin as a wolf and as hardy, must start right in +then and there to earn that very day's meals and that very night's +resting-place--such men, as a usual thing, develop the glorious +qualities of gratitude, consideration, and deference. + +There is "no place like home" to such men, "be it ever so humble." +They look upon life as a wonderful and splendid thing, for which they +are indebted to father and mother. Their manhood's morning is very +beautiful to them; but its light is not one-hundredth part as +beautiful as the radiance which beams upon them from the eyes of one +dear woman whom they call mother--a woman wrinkled and worn and wan, +perhaps, but to such sons exquisitely lovely, with something in her +beauty not quite of this earth. + +I don't quite understand the psychology of this phenomenon, and never +knew any one who did understand it; but every one of the scores of +observers with whom I have talked upon this subject have noted the +same fact--the too frequent ingratitude and lack of appreciation of +young fellows who have everything to be grateful for, and the fine +appreciation of life shown by young men who, in comparison, have +nothing to be grateful for. + +Perhaps it is a lack of thought, a want of analysis. If that is so in +your case, young man, get to thinking. Instead of comparing yourself +with some other man who has more things than you, compare yourself +with one who has fewer things than you; or, better still, with one who +hasn't anything at all. Then you will have a measure for the debt you +owe to the two beings who have given and are giving you all you have +or will have for a great many years to come. + +And this other thing, too: When you begin to be grateful for these +things, by going through some such intellectual process as I have +indicated, you will get so much more pleasure out of them than you did +before that you will hardly be able to realize that you are the same +man. + +Indeed, you will not be the same man--you will be another man, a +bigger-hearted, saner-minded, gentler, and manlier man. You will begin +to be the kind of a man you would like to be if you sat down by +yourself and went to work to make yourself over again. And what a +wonder you would be if you could make yourself over! Yes, no doubt! + +This final word: The day must come when you must leave the old home. +When that hour arrives, do not try to tarry. Go right out into the +world. Do not go mournfully. Give the little mother a smile of +courage, a word of cheer, that will be her guaranty that her boy is +going to be a "grand success," and then--_make good!_ + +You will hardly get away from the old home gate when you will stumble +over an obstacle and fall down. Don't turn back to the old home to be +comforted and helped. Get up, brush the dust off, forget your bruises, +and go ahead. Go ahead, and look where you are going. + +A man who cannot get up when he is knocked down is of no use in the +world. + +Let the messages that you send back to the old home be joyful--full of +faith. No matter how hard a time you are having, don't let "the folks +at home" know it. Besides, you are not having such a hard time, after +all. Hundreds of thousands of other men who have become splendidly +successful had a great deal harder time than you are having or ever +dreamed of having. Resolve to live up to what the home which reared +you expects of you, and work like mad on that resolve, and you will +find that you are becoming all that "the folks at home" expected of +you, and a great deal more. + +Go back to the old home as often as you can; but be sure that you go +back with words of cheer and a story of things done. "The folks at +home"--especially the mother--will want to hear all about it. There +may be wars whose high-leaping flames illumine all the heavens; there +may be political campaigns on hand where issues of fate are thrilling +the nerves of the millions; there may be strange tidings from the +council-board of the nations; there may be catastrophes and glories, +scourges and blessings, famine or opulence; but any and all of these +are of no interest to the mother, compared with what _you_ will have +to tell her of _your_ own puny little deeds. + +They are not puny deeds to her; they are quite the most considerable +performances given in all the universe of men. For _you_ did them, +you know, and that is enough. To his mother every man is a hero. + +So let your tale to her be boldly told and lovingly. And be sure that +it is a narrative of purity, things honorable and of good report. +Return to the habit of your youth, and at her knees establish again +the old confessional. And then, with your secrets handed over to her +and safely locked in her heart, with her hand of blessing on your +head, and her smile of confidence, pride, and approval glorifying her +face, resolve to again go out into the world where your place is, and +be worthy of this new baptism of manhood you have again received in +the sanctuary of the old home. + +These are all simple things, commonplace things, things easy to do. +They have nothing extraordinary about them. And yet, if you will do +them, the world will back you as a winner against men who are a great +deal smarter than you are, but who with all their smartness are not +smart enough to do these plain and kindly things. + + + + +III + +THE COLLEGE? + +_1. The Young Man who Goes_ + + +Collis P. Huntington was a notable practical success. He was wise with +the hard wisdom of the world, and he had the genius of the great +captain for choosing men. No business general ever selected his +lieutenants with more accurate judgment. His opinion on men and +affairs was always worth while. And he thought young men who meant to +do anything except in the learned professions wasted time by going to +college. + +So when, searching for my final answer to the question this moment +being asked by so many young Americans, "Shall I go to college," I +answer in the affirmative, I do so admitting that a negative answer +has been given by men whose opinions are entitled to the greatest +possible respect. + +I admit, too, that nearly every city--yes, almost every town--contains +conspicuous illustrations of men who learned how to "get there" by +attending the school of hard knocks. Certainly some of the most +distinguished business careers in New York have been made by young men +who never saw a college. + +You find the same thing in every town. I have a man in mind whose +performances in business have been as solid as they are astonishing. +Twenty years ago he was a street-car conductor; to-day he controls +large properties in which he is himself a heavy owner; and a dozen +graduates of the high-class universities of Europe and America beg the +crums that fall from the table of his affairs. + +In his Phi Beta Kappa Address Wendell Phillips cleverly argues that +the reformers of the world, and most of those whose memories are the +beloved and cherished treasures of the race, were men whose vitality +had not been reduced by college training, and whose kinship with the +people and oneness with the soil had not been divorced by the +artificial refinement of a college life. But Phillips was bitter--even +fanatical--on this subject; and was, in himself, a living denial of +his own doctrine. + +Remember, then, you who for any reason have not had those years of +mental discipline called "a college education," that this does not +excuse you from doing great work in the world. Do not whine, and +declare that you could have done so much better if you had "only had +a chance to go to college." You can be a success if you will, college +or no college. At least three of those famous masters of business +which Chicago, the commercial capital of the continent, has given to +the world, and whose legitimate operations in tangible merchandizing +are so vast that they are almost weird, had no college education, and +very little education of any kind. + +I think, indeed, that very few of America's kings of trade ever +attended college. There are the masters of railroad management, too. +Few of them have been college men, although the college man is now +appearing among them--witness President Cassatt, of the Pennsylvania +System, a real Napoleon of railroading, who, I hear, is a graduate of +the German universities and of American polytechnic schools. + +Burns did not go to college. Neither did Shakespeare. + +Some of our greatest lawyers "read law" in the unrefined but honest +and strengthening environment of the old-time law office. Lincoln was +not a college man; neither was Washington. So do not excuse yourself +to your family and the world upon the ground that you never had a +college education. That is not the reason why you fail. + +You can succeed--I repeat it--college or no college; all you have to +do in the latter case is to put on a little more steam. And remember +that some of the world's sages of the practical have closed their +life's wisdom with the deliberate opinion that a college education is +a waste of time, and an over-refinement of body and of mind. + +You see, I am trying to take into account every possible view of this +weighty question; for I know how desperate a matter it is to hundreds +of thousands of my young countrymen. I know how earnestly they are +searching for an answer; how hard it will be for hosts of them to obey +an affirmative answer; how intense is the desire of the great majority +of young Americans to decide this question wisely. For most of them +have no time to lose, little money to spend and none to waste, no +energy to spare, and yet are inspired with high resolve to make the +best and most of life. And I know how devoutly they pray that, in +deciding, they may choose the better part. + +Still, with all this in mind, my advice is this: Go to college. Go to +the best possible college for _you_. Patiently hold on through the +sternest discipline you can stand, until the course is completed. It +will not be fatal to your success if you do not go; but you will be +better prepared to meet the world if you do go. I do not mean that +your mind will be stored with much more knowledge that will be useful +to you if you go through college than if you do not go through +college. + +Probably the man who keeps at work at the business he is going to +follow through life, during the years when other men are studying in +college, acquires more information that will be "useful" to him in his +practical career. But the college man who has not thrown away his +college life comes from the training of his alma mater with a mind as +highly disciplined as are the wrist and eye of the skilled swordsman. + +Nobody contends that a college adds an ounce of brain power. But if +college opportunities are not wasted, such mind as the student does +have is developed up to the highest possible point of efficiency. The +college man who has not scorned his work will understand any given +situation a great deal quicker than his brother who, with equal +ability, has not had the training of the university. + +A man who has been instructed in boxing is more than a match for a +stronger and braver man unskilled in what is called the "manly art." +That is your college and non-college man over again with muscle +substituted for brain. + +Five years ago I saw the soldiers of Japan going through the most +careful training. They were taught how to march, how to charge, how to +do everything. I shall never forget the bayonet exercises which an +officer and myself chanced upon. They were conducted with all the +ferocity of a real fight; no point was neglected. + +With all their fatalism and the utter fearlessness thereof, the +Japanese could not have bested the Russians if to their courage and +devotion they had not added years of painstaking drill, which an +American soldier would have considered an unnecessary hardship. Very +well. A college education is precisely that kind of a preparation for +the warfare of life. + +But mind you, these Japanese soldiers and their officers were in +earnest. They meant to show the world that, small as they are in +stature and recent as their adoption of modern methods has been, they +nevertheless would try to be the highest type of soldier that ever +marched to a battle-field. If you go to college, young man, you have +got to be in earnest, too. You have got to say to yourself, "I am +going to make more out of what is in me than any man with like ability +ever did before." You cannot dawdle--remember that. + +Imagine every day, and every hour of every day, that you are in the +real world and in the real conflicts thereof, instead of in college +with its practise conflicts, and handle yourself precisely as you +would if your whole career depended upon each task set for you. If you +mean to go to college for the principal purpose of idling around, +wearing a small cap and good clothes, and being the adoration of your +mother and your sisters on your vacation, you had a good deal better +be at work at some gainful occupation. College is not helping you if +that is what you are doing. It is hurting you. + +Go to college, therefore, say I; but go to college for business. Those +drill years are the most important ones of your life. + +Be in earnest, therefore. I know I have said that before; yes, and I +am going to say it again. For if you are not going to be in earnest, +quit--get out. Resolve to get absolutely everything there is to be had +out of your college experience, and then _get it_. _Get it_, I say, +for that is what you will have to do. Nobody is going to give it to +you. + +The spirit with which you enter college is just as important as going +to college at all. It is more important. For if a man has the spirit +that will get for him all that a college education has to give, it +will also make him triumph in a contest with the world, even if he +does not get his college education. It will only be a little harder +for him, that is all. + +But if a man has not that mingled will and wish for a college +education flaming through his young veins that makes him capable of +any sacrifice to get through college, I do not see what good a college +education will do him--no, nor any other kind of an education. The +quicker such a man is compelled to make his own living without help +from any source, the better for him. + +So if you mean business, but have not decided whether it is better for +you to go to college or not to go to college, settle the question +to-day by deciding to go to college. Then pick your college. That is +as important a matter as choosing your occupation in life. One college +is not as good as another for _you_. A score of colleges may be +equally excellent in the ability of their faculties, in the +perfection of their equipment. + +But each has its own atmosphere and traditions; each has its +personality, if you may apply such a word to an institution. And you +want to select the place where your mental roots will strike in the +earth most readily, and take from the intellectual soil surrounding +you the greatest possible amount of mental force and vigor. + +Take plenty of time to find out which, out of a score of colleges, is +the best one for you. Study their "catalogues"; talk to men who have +been to these various institutions; read every reputable article you +can find about them. Keep this up long enough, and you will become +conscious of an unreasoned knowledge that such and such an institution +is not the place for _you_ to go. Finally, write to the president or +other proper officer of the colleges you are thinking of attending. + +You will get some sort of an answer from each of them; but if it is +only three lines, that answer will breathe something of the spirit of +the institution. Of course the great universities will answer you very +formally, or perhaps not at all. Their attitude is the impersonal one. +They say to the world, and to the youth thereof: "Here we are. We are +perfectly prepared. We have on hand a complete stock of education. +Take it, or leave it. It is not of the slightest concern to us." + +I have no quarrel with that attitude. These institutions are going on +the assumption that you already have character and purpose; that you +already know what you are about. They are ready for you if you are +ready for them. And if you are not ready for them, if you are only a +rich person or a mere stroller along the highways of life, what is +that to them? Why should it be anything to them? Why should it be +anything to anybody? The world is busy, young man; you have got to +make yourself worth while if it pays any attention to you. + +Making sure always that the college of your choice is well equipped, +select the one where you will feel the most at home. Other things +being equal, go where there are the most men in whose blood burns the +fire which is racing through your veins. Go to the college in whose +atmosphere you will find most of the ozone of earnestness. It may well +be that you will find this thing in one of the smaller colleges, of +which there are so many and such excellent ones scattered all over the +Nation. + +Certainly these little colleges have this advantage: their students +are usually very poor boys, who have to struggle and deny themselves +to go to college at all--young men whose determination to do their +part in the world is so great that hunger is a small price to pay for +that preparation which they think a college education gives them; men +whose resolve to "make something of themselves," as the common saying +goes, is so irresistible that they simply cannot endure to stay away +from college. + +Such men have hard muscles, made strong and tense by youthful toil; +great lungs, expanded by plow in field or ax in forest; nerves of +steel, tempered by days of labor in open air and nights of dreamless +slumber, which these hypnotics of Nature always induce. These men have +strong, firm mouths; clear, honest eyes, that look you straight and +fair; and a mental and moral constitution which fit these physical +manifestations of it. + +And these are just the kind of men among whom you ought to spend your +college life, if you are one of the same kind--and perhaps much more +if you are not. + +Fellows like these believe in the honor of men, the virtue of women, +the sacredness of home, and that the American people have a mission +in the world marked out for them by the Ruler of the Universe--though +this is not a fair distinction since all Americans believe in these +high, sweet things of life and destiny. It is a faith common to all +Americans and monopolized by no class. + +But you know what kind of a man you are, and therefore you will find +out, if you search with care, what college is the best for you. I +insist upon the importance of this selection. It is a real, practical +problem. You will never have a more important task set you in +class-room, or even throughout your entire life, than to select the +college which is going to do you the most good. So go about it with +all the care that you would plan a campaign if you were a general in +the field, or conduct an experiment if you were a scientist in the +laboratory. + +This one word of definite helpfulness on this subject: Do not choose +any particular college because you want to be known as a Yale man, a +Harvard man, a Princeton man, or any other kind of man. Remember that +the world cares less than the snap of its fingers what particular +_college_ man you are. + +What the world cares about it that you should _be_ a man--a real +_man_. + +It won't help you a bit in the business of your life to have it known +that you graduated from any particular college or university. If you +are in politics, it won't give you a vote; if a manufacturer, it will +not add a brick to your plant; if a merchant, it will not sell a +dollar's worth of your goods. + +Nobody cares what college you went to. Nobody cares whether you went +to college at all. + +But everybody cares whether you are a real force among men; and +everybody cares more and more as it becomes clearer and clearer that +you are not only a force, but a trained, disciplined force. That is +why you ought to go to college--to be a trained, disciplined force. +But how and where you got your power--the world of men and women is +far too interested in itself to be interested in that. + +When you do finally go to college, take care of yourself like a man. I +am told that there are men in college who have valets to attend them, +their rooms, and their clothes. Think of that! Don't do anything like +that, even if you are a hundred times a millionaire. Of course _you_ +won't--you who read this--because not one out of ten thousand young +Americans can afford to have a valet in college--thank heaven! + +Don't do any of the many things which belong to that life of +self-indulgence of which the keeping of a valet in college is a +flaring illustration. Don't let kind friends litter up your room with +a lot of cushions, and such stuff. The world for which you are +preparing is no "cushiony" place, let me tell you; and if you let +luxury relax your nerves and soften your brain tissues and make your +muscles mushy, a similar mental and moral condition will develop. And +then, when you go out into real life, you will find some sturdy young +barbarian, with a Spartan training and a merciless heart, elbowing you +clear off the earth. + +For, mark you, these strong, fearless, masterful young giants, who are +every day maturing among the common people of America, ask no quarter +and give none; and it is such fellows you must go up against. And when +you do go up against them there will be no appealing to father and +mother to help you. Father and mother cannot help you. Nobody can help +you but yourself. You will find that the cushion business, and the +mandolin business, and all that sort of thing, do not go in real +life. + +Consider West Point and Annapolis. My understanding is that the men +whom the Nation is training there for the skilled defense of the +Republic, and who therefore must be developed into the very highest +types of effective manhood, are taught to clean and polish their own +shoes, make their own beds, care for their own guns, and do everything +else for themselves. Do you think that is a good training for our +generals and admirals? Of course you do. + +Well, then, do you imagine that you are going to have an easier time +in your business or profession than the officers in our army and navy? +Don't you believe it for a minute. You are not going to have an easier +time than they. You are going to have a great deal harder time. And by +"hard time" I do not mean an unhappy time. Unhappy time! What greater +joy can there be for a man than the sheer felicity of doing real work +in the world? + +While I am on this subject I might as well say another thing: Do not +think that you have got to smoke in order to be or look like a college +man. A pipe in the mouth of a youth does not make him look like a +college man, or any other kind of man. It merely makes him look +absurd, that is all. And if there is ever a time on earth when you do +not need the stimulus of tobacco, it is while you are in college. + +Tobacco is a wonderful vegetable. It is, I believe, the only substance +in the world which is at the same time a stimulant and a narcotic, a +heart excitant and a nerve sedative. Very well. You are too young yet +to need a heart stimulant, too young to need anything to quiet your +nerves. + +If at your tender age your nerves are so inflamed that they must be +soothed, and if at the very sunrise of your life your heart is so +feeble that it must be forced with any stimulant, you had better quit +college. College is no place for you if you are such a decadent; yes, +and you will find the world a good deal harder place than college. + +Cut out tobacco, therefore. For a young fellow in college it is a +ridiculous affectation--nothing more. Why? Because you do not need +tobacco; that is why. At least you do not need it yet. The time may +come when you will find tobacco helpful, but it will not be until you +have been a long while out of college. As to whether tobacco is good +for a man at any stage of life the doctors disagree, and "where +doctors disagree, who shall decide?" + +Ruskin says that no really immortal work has been done in the world +since tobacco was introduced; but we know that this is not true. I +would not be understood as having a prejudice for or against the weed. +Whether a full-grown man shall use it or not is something for himself +to decide. Personally I liked it so well that I made up my mind a long +time ago to give it up altogether. + +But there is absolutely no excuse for a man young enough to still be +in college to use it at all. And it does not look right. For a boy to +use tobacco has something contemptible about it. I will not argue +whether this is justified or not. That is the way most people feel +about it. Whether their feeling is a prejudice or not, there is no use +of your needlessly offending their prejudice. And this is to be taken +into account. For you want to succeed, do you not? Very well. You +cannot mount a ladder of air; you must rise on the solid +stepping-stones of the people's deserved regard. + +And, of course, you will not disgrace yourself by drinking. There is +absolutely nothing in it. If you have your fling at it you will learn +how surely Intoxication's apples of gold turn to the bitterest ashes +in the eating. But when you do find how fruitless of everything but +regrets dissipation is, be honest with yourself and quit it. Be honest +with the mother who is at home praying for you, and quit it. But this +is weak advice. Be honest with that mother who is at home praying for +you, and _never begin it_. That's the thing--_never begin it!_ + +In a word, be a man; and you will be very little of a man, very little +indeed, if you have got to resort to tobacco and liquor to add to your +blood and conduct that touch of devilishness which you may think is a +necessary part of manliness. Indeed, between fifteen and thirty years +of age your veins will be quite full enough of the untamed and +desperate. I do not object in the least to this wild mustang period in +a man's life. + +Is a fellow to have no fun? you will say. Of course, have all the fun +you want; the more the better. But if you need stimulants and tobacco +to key you up to the capacity for fun, you are a solemn person +indeed--"solemn as cholera morbus" to appropriate an American +newspaper's description of one of our public men. What I mean is that +you shall do nothing that will destroy your effectiveness. Play, +sports, fun, do not do that; they increase your effectiveness. Go in +for athletics all you please; but do not forget that that is not why +you are going to college. + +Nobody cares how mad are the pranks you play. Take the curb and +snaffle off of the humors of your blood whenever you please; that is +all right. I never took much stock in the outcry against hazing. We +cannot change our sex, or the nature and habits of it. A young man is +a male animal after all, and those who object to his rioting like a +young bull are in a perpetual quarrel with Nature. + +One thing I must warn you against, and warn you supremely: the +critical habit of mind which somehow or other a college education does +seem to produce. This is especially true of the great universities of +our East. Nobody admires those splendid institutions more than I +do--the Nation is proud of them, and ought to be. The world of +learning admires them, and with reason. Neither the English, Scotch, +nor German universities surpass them. + +But has not every one of us many times heard their graduates declare +that a mischief had been done them while in those universities by the +cultivation of a sneering attitude toward everybody--especially toward +every other young man--whom they see doing anything actual, positive, +or constructive. One of the best of these men--a man with a superb +mind highly trained--said to me on this very subject: + +"I confess that I came out of college with my initiative atrophied. I +was afraid to do anything. I was afraid I would make a mistake if I +did anything; afraid I was not well enough equipped to do the things +that suggested themselves; afraid that if I did try to do anything +everybody would criticize what I did; afraid that my old college mates +would laugh at me. + +"And I confess in humility that I myself acquired the habit of +intellectual suspicion toward everybody who does try to do any real +thing. I find myself unconsciously sneering at young men who are +accomplishing things. Yes, and that is not the worst of it; I find +myself sneering at myself." That is pathos--a soul doubting, denying +itself. Pathos! yes, it is tragedy! + +Confirm this confession by dropping into a club where such men gather +and hearing the talk about the ones who are doing things in the world. +You will find that until the men who _are_ doing things have actually +_done_ them, done them well, and forced hostility itself to accept +what they have done as good, honest pieces of work, the talk in these +clubs will be that of harsh criticism, sneering contempt, and prophecy +of failure. Guard against that habit night and day. You would better +become an opium-eater than to permit this paralysis of mind and soul. + +Believe in things. _Believe in other young men._ When you see other +young men trying to do things in business, politics, art, the +professions, believe in the honesty of their purpose and their ability +to do well what they have started out to do. Assume that they will +succeed until they prove that they cannot. Do not discourage them. Do +not sneer at them. That will only weaken yourself. Believe in other +young men, and you will soon find yourself believing in yourself. + +That is the most important thing of all: Belief in yourself. Have +faith in yourself though the whole universe jeers. "Trust thyself; +every heart vibrates to that iron string," is the sentence from +Emerson we used to write endlessly in our copy-books when we went to +school. And what a glorious motto for Americans it is! + +Remember that the high places, now filled by men whom the years are +aging, must by and by be filled by men now young. Be in no haste +then--the years are your allies. Time will dispose of your rivals. +Just believe in yourself, and work and wait and dare--_and keep on_ +working, waiting, daring. _Never let up; and never doubt your ultimate +success._ Think of Columbus, Drake, Magellan--the story of every +master-mariner has in it food for your necessary egotism. + +Do not underestimate your strength. There are things you would like to +do; very well, sail in and do them. Do not be afraid of making a +mistake. Do not be afraid that you will fail. Suppose you do fail. +Millions have failed before you. I am repeating this thought and I +wish it would bear repetition on every page. + +But never admit to yourself that you have failed. Try it again. You +will win next time, sure! "If at first you don't succeed, try, try +again." How much sense there is in these common maxims of the common +people, proverbs not written by any one man, but axioms that spring +out of the combined intelligence of the millions, meditating through +the centuries. The sayings of the people are always simple and wise. + +What a fine thing it was that Grant said at Shiloh. The first day +closed in disaster. The enemy had all but driven the Union Army into +the river. Not a great distance from the banks of the stream they will +point out to you the tree under which Grant stood, cigar clinched +between his teeth, directing the disposition of his forces. Some one +reported to him a fresh disaster. + +With the calmness of the certainty that nobody could defeat _him_, so +the story runs, Grant replied, "Never mind; I will lick them +to-morrow." Very like Caesar, was it not? "_I_ came, _I_ saw, _I_ +conquered." Or that other audacity of the great Roman, when the ship +was actually sinking: "Fear not," said he; "fear not, you carry +_Caesar_ and _his_ fortunes." + +In the same battle it is credibly reported that Grant rode to an +important position held by a large number of his troops under one of +his most trusted generals. "What have you been doing?" asked Grant. +"Fighting," answered the commander in charge of that position, equally +laconic. For a while Grant surveyed the field, and, turning, was about +to ride away. "But what shall I do now, General?" asked his +subordinate. "Keep on fighting," answered Grant. + +Do not get into the habit of feeling that you are not sufficiently +well equipped. This comes of a very honest intellectual process--the +understanding, as we get more knowledge, of how very little we really +know; as we get more skill, of how very unskilled we really are; the +feeling that, high as our training is, there is some one else more +highly trained. Of course there is; but if that is any excuse why you +should do nothing--because there is some person who can do it +better--you will never do anything; and then what will happen when all +of the other fellows who "could do it better" die? + +You will by that time be too old to do anything at all. So sail in +yourself, and pat on the back every other young fellow that sails in. +If you learn the law, for example, understand that the way to acquire +the art of _practising_ law is to _practise_ it, and not merely watch +somebody else practise it. Suppose every young man with a scientific +mind had declined to make any experiment because there were abler +scientists than he: how many Pasteurs and Finsens and Marconis and +Edisons and Bells would the world have had? And I might go on for an +hour with similar illustrations. + +So go ahead and try to do things you would _like_ to do--things Nature +has fitted you to do. Believe that you can do these things. For you +_can_, you know. You will be amazed at your own powers. If you do not +believe in yourself, how do you expect the world to believe in you? +The world has no time to pet and coddle you, remember that. So get the +habit of faith in yourself and your fellow men. Cultivate a noble +intellectual generosity. It is a fine tonic for mind and soul--a fine +tonic even for the body. + +The doctors say that envy, malice, jealousy, produce a distinctly +depressing effect upon the nervous system. And some go so far as to +say that if intense enough these states of mind actually poison the +secretions. Don't, therefore, let these hyena passions abide with you. +Be generous. Have faith. Make mistakes or achieve success; fail or +win; but do things. Share the common lot. Be hearty. Be whole-souled. +Be a man. Never doubt for a moment that + + "God's in his heaven; + All's well with the world." + +This paper has been devoted to your mental and moral attitude toward +your college and your college life, rather than to what particular +things you will study there; for the way you look at your college and +the life you lead there--the spirit with which you enter upon these +golden years--is the main thing. The studies themselves are the +methods by which you apply that spirit and purpose. + +But most young men with whom I have talked want to know what "courses" +to take, what "studies" to specialize upon. No general counsel can be +given which will be very valuable to you upon this point. But I will +venture this: Do not choose entirely by yourself what things you will +study in college, or what "courses" you will "elect." + +You are so apt to pick the things that are easiest for you, and not +the things that are best for you. Even the strongest-willed men quite +unconsciously select those things that will mean the least work. You +do not think you are selecting certain courses or studies for this +reason, and perhaps you are not; but then, again, perhaps you are, and +you cannot yourself determine that. + +Therefore I suggest that you advise with four or five of the ablest +and most successful men you know. Let two of these be educators, and +the others professional or business men. Try to get them to interest +themselves enough in you to take the time to think the whole subject +over very carefully as applied to your particular case, and to take +further time to talk it over thoroughly with you. Then take the +consensus of their opinion, unless your own view is decided, clear, +and emphatic. + +When you have such an opinion of your own, such a command coming from +the sources of your own mentality, obey that, in choosing your studies +and course, rather than the counsel of any other man or number of men. +Yes, obey that voice in making such a choice, and in making every +choice throughout your whole life; for it is the voice of your real +self--that inward counselor which never fails those who are fortunate +enough to have it. + +Of course, what you study ought to be influenced by what you intend to +do in life. For example, the career of civil engineer requires a +special kind of preparation. So do the various occupations and +professions. But no matter what particular thing you intend to do +through life, it is the belief of most men who have given this subject +any thought that a young man ought to take a complete general college +course, and supplement this by special preparation for the particular +work to which he intends to devote his life. + +But there is one thing to which the attention of young Americans +should be directed as influencing their college life. Our country is +no longer isolated. We can no longer be called a provincial people. We +are decidedly a very intimate part of the world. Our relations with +other peoples grow closer and closer, and they will keep on growing +closer as the years pass by. A thousand Americans travel over sea +to-day where one went abroad fifty years ago. Our foreign commerce is +now greater in a single year than it used to be in an entire +decade--yes, and quite recently, too, so swift our increase. + +Other countries are several times nearer to us than they were even in +the last generation. It took Emerson almost a month to cross the +Atlantic. Now you go over in a week. You can send a cablegram to any +country in the world and have it delivered, translated into the +language of the person to whom it is sent, a great deal quicker than +the dawn can travel. Invention has made snail-like the speed of light. + +What does all this mean? It means that in our relations we have become +cosmopolitan. Therefore we Americans ought to know other languages +than our own. Charles Sumner said that if he had to go through college +again he would study nothing but modern languages and history. Of +course I do not presume to advise you who are reading this paper to do +that, although it is precisely what I should do if I were going +through college again. But I do advise you to do this: Acquire at +least two languages in addition to your own--French and German. + +Indeed, you ought to have three languages besides your own--French, +German, and Spanish. For, consider! Here is Mexico, our next-door +neighbor--its people speak Spanish; Cuba, a kind of national ward of +ours--its people speak Spanish. The people of our possessions in the +Pacific speak Spanish; of Porto Rico, Spanish; of the Central and +South American "Republics"--with all of whom we are destined, in spite +of ourselves, to have relations of ever-increasing intimacy--all speak +Spanish. + +And French? You can travel all over Europe intelligently if you speak +French. And German--the language that is going to make a good race +with English itself as the commercial language of the world is German. +For example, you can go all through _commercial_ Russia without a +guide if you speak German. You can get along in any port of the +Orient if you speak German. So you can if you speak English, it is +true. And think of how many millions of excellent people in our own +country are still German-speaking (although our German citizens are so +splendidly patriotic that they acquire English just as soon as they +possibly can). + +But the point is, that your usefulness in every direction will be +increased by a knowledge of the languages. The other things that you +study in college you will largely forget, anyhow; and, besides, you +study them principally for the mental discipline in them. But if you +get a language, and get it correctly, thoroughly, you can find enough +use for it to keep brushed up on it. And of course you can read it all +the time, whether you have a chance to talk it or not. + +It is impossible to use words sufficiently emphatic in urging the +study of history. _You cannot get too much history in college and out +of it._ Sir William Hamilton was right--history is the study of +studies. The man who occupies the chair of history in any college +ought to be not only an able man, he ought to be a great man. If ever +you find such a professor, make yourself agreeable to him, absorb him, +possess yourself of him. + +This final word: Mingle with your fellow students. Talk with people, +with real people; those who are living real lives, doing real things +under normal and natural conditions. Do all this in order that you may +keep human; for you must not get the habit of keeping to your room and +believing that all wisdom is confined to books. It is not. All wisdom +is not confined to any one place. Some of it is in books, and some of +it is in trees and the earth and the stars. + +But so far as _you_ are concerned most of it is in human touch with +your fellows; for it is _men_ with whom you must work. It is _men_ who +are to employ you. It is _men_ whom in your turn you are to employ. It +is the world of _men_ which in the end you are to serve. And it is +that you may serve it well that you are going to college at all, is it +not? + +Be _one_ of these _men_, therefore; and be sure that while you are +being one of them, you are one indeed. Be a man in college and out, +and clear down to the end. Be a man--that is the sum of all counsel. + + +_2. The Young Man who Cannot Go_ + +But what of the young man who stands without the college gates? What +of him upon whom Fate has locked the doors of this arsenal of power +and life's equipment? "Why does not some one give counsel and +encouragement to the boy who, for any one of a thousand reasons, +cannot take four years or four months from his life of continuous toil +in order to go to college?" asked a young man full of the vitality of +purpose, but to whom even the education of our high schools was an +absolute impossibility. + +After all, for most of our eighty millions, the college is practically +beyond their reach. Even among those young men who have the nerve, +ability, and ambition to "work their way through college," there are +tens of thousands who cannot do even that, no matter if they were +willing for four years to toil at sawbuck, live on gruel, and dress in +overalls and hickory shirt. + +I have in mind now a spirited young American of this class whose +father died when his son was still a boy, and on whose shoulders, +therefore, fell the duty of "supporting mother" and helping the girls, +even before his young manhood had begun. For that young man, college +or university might just as well be Jupiter, or Saturn, or Arcturus. + +Very well. What of this young man? What of the myriads of young +Americans like him? What hope does our complex industrial +civilization, which every day grows more intense, hold out to these +children of hard circumstances, whose muscles daily strain at the +windlasses of necessary duty? + +I repeat the question, and multiply the forms in which I put it. It is +so pressingly important. It concerns the most abundant and valuable +material with which free institutions work--the neglected man, he whom +fortune overlooks. It is a strange weakness of human nature that makes +everybody interested in the man at the top, and nobody interested in +the man at the bottom. Yet it is the man at the bottom upon whom our +Republican institutions are established. It is the man at the bottom +whom Science tells us will, by the irresistible processes of nature, +produce the highest types after a while. + +The young Bonaparte proved himself a very wizard of human nature when +he exclaimed: "Every soldier of France carries a marshal's baton in +his knapsack." And did not the Master, with a wisdom wholly divine, +choose as the seed-bearers of our faith throughout the world the +neglected men? Only one of the apostles was what we would term to-day +a "college man"--St. Luke, the physician. What said the Teacher, "The +stone which was rejected to the builder, has become the chief of the +corner." + +Yes--the neglected man is the important man. We do not think so day by +day, we idle observers of our Vanity Fair, we curbstone watchers of +the street parade. We think it is the conspicuous man who counts. Our +attention is mostly for him who wears the epaulettes of prominence and +favorable condition. Therefore most articles, papers, and volumes on +young men consider only that lucky favorite-of-fortune-for-the-hour, +the college man. + +But this paper is addressed to the neglected man. I would have speech +with those young men with stout heart, true intention, and good +ability, who labor outside those college walls to which they look with +longing, but may not enter. + +"Every soldier of France carries a marshal's baton in his knapsack." +Ah, yes! Very well. But what was a soldier of France in Napoleon's +time to a young American to-day? If Joubert, from an ignorant private +who could not write his name, became one of the greatest generals of +the world's greatest commander, what may you not become! Joubert did +it by deserving. Use the same method, you. There is no magic but +merit. + +First, then, do not let the conditions that keep you out of college +discourage you. If such a little thing as that depresses you, it is +proof that you are not the character who would have succeeded if you +had a lifetime of college education. If you are discouraged because +you cannot go to college, what will happen to you when life hereafter +presents to you much harder situations? Remember that every strong man +who prevails in the merciless contest with events, faces conditions +which to weaker men seem inaccessible--are inaccessible. + +But it is the scaling of these heights, or the tunneling through them, +or the blasting of them out of their way and out of existence, which +makes these strong men strong. It is the overcoming of these obstacles +day after day and year after year, as long as life lasts, which gives +these mighty ones much of their power. + +What is it you so admire in men whom you think fortunate--what is it +but their mastery of adversity after adversity? What is that which you +call success but victory over untoward events? Do not, then, let your +resolution be softened by the hard luck that keeps you out of college. +If that bends you, you are not a Damascus blade of tempered steel; you +are a sword of lead, heavy, dull, and yielding. + +Next to Collis P. Huntington, the railroad man of the last generation, +whose ability rose to genius, was President Scott of the Pennsylvania +System. He thought, with Mr. Huntington, that a college training was +unnecessary; and his own life demonstrated that the very ultimate of +achieving, the very crest of effort and reward may be reached by men +who know neither Greek nor Latin, nor Science as taught in schools, +nor mental philosophy as set down in books. + +Colonel Scott was a messenger-boy--just such a messenger-boy as you +may see any day running errands, carrying parcels, doing the humble +duties of one who serves and waits. From a messenger-boy with bundle +in his hand, to the general of an industrial army of thousands of men, +and the directing mind planning the expenditure of scores of millions +of dollars belonging to great capitalists--such was the career of +Thomas Scott. + +Very well, why should you not do as well? "Because my competitors have +college education and I have not," do you answer? But, man, Colonel +Scott had no college education. "Because the other fellows have +friends and influence and I have none," do you protest? But neither +President Scott nor most monumental successes had friends or influence +to start with. Don't excuse yourself, then. Come! Buck up! Be a man! + +"I am greatly troubled," said to me the general superintendent of one of +the most extensive railroad systems in the world as we rode from Des +Moines, Iowa, to Chicago. "I am greatly troubled," said he, "to find an +assistant superintendent. There are now under me seven young engineers, +every man a graduate of a college; four of them with uncommon ability, +and all of them relatives of men heavily interested in this network of +railroads. But not one of them will do. Three nights ago all of them +happened to meet in Chicago. While there all of them went out to have +what they called 'a good time' together--drinking, etc. + +"That, in itself, is enough to blacklist every man for the position of +my assistant and my successor. This road will not entrust its +operating management to a man who wilfully makes himself less than his +best every day and every night. Besides this, each of them has some +defect. One is brilliant, but not steady; another is steady, but not +resourceful--not inventive--and so forth and so on. We are looking all +over the United States for the young man who has the ability, +character, health, and habits which my assistant must have." + +This general superintendent, under whose orders more than ten thousand +men daily performed their complex and delicately adjusted functions, +is fifty-five years of age. Now listen to this, you who cannot go to +college: This man started thirty-eight years ago as a freight-handler +in Chicago at one dollar per day for this same railroad company, which +was then a comparatively small and obscure line. Ah! but you say, +"That was thirty-eight years ago." Yes, and that is the trouble with +you, is it not? You want to _start in_ as superintendent of a great +system or the head of a mighty business, do you not? Very well--get +that out of your head. It cannot--it ought not--to be done. + +If you are willing to work as hard as this man worked, as hard as +President Scott of the Pennsylvania System worked; if you are willing +to stay right by your job, year in, year out, through the weary +decades, instead of changing every thirty minutes; if you are willing +to wait as long as they; if you are willing to plant the seed of +success in the soil of good hard work, and then water it with good +hard work, and attend its growth with good hard work, and wait its +flowering and fruitage with patience, its flowering and fruitage will +come. Doubt it not. + +For, mark you, this man at the time he told me that his System was +looking all over the United States for a young man capable of being +his assistant, had seven high-grade college men on his hands at that +very moment. He would have been more than delighted to have taken any +one of them. + +Also, he would have taken a man who had not seen a college just as +quickly if he could have found such a one who knew enough about +operating a railroad, and had the qualities of leadership, the gift of +organizing ability. It did not matter to this superintendent whether +the assistant he sought had been to college or not, whether he was +rich or poor. + +He cared no more about that than he cared whether the man for whom +this place was seeking was a blond or a brunette. The only question +that he was asking was, "Where is the man who is equal to the job?" + +And that, my young friend, is the question which all industry is +asking in every field of human effort; that is the question your Fate +is putting to you who are anxious to do big work, "Are you equal to +the job?" If you are not, then be honest enough to step out of the +contest. Be honest enough not to envy the other young men who are +equal to the job. + +Yes, be honest enough to applaud the man who is equal to the job and +who goes bravely to his task. Don't find fault with him. Don't swear +that "There is no chance for a young man any more." That's not true, +you know. And remember always that if you do all you are fitted for, +you do as well as your abler brother, and better than he if you do +your best and he does not. + +A young man whom fortune had kept from college, but who is too +stout-hearted to let that discourage him, said to me the other day: "I +don't think that a college education confers, or the absence of it +prevents, success. But I do think that where there are two men of +equal health, ability, and character, that one will be chosen who has +been to college, and to this extent the college man has a better +chance." This is true for the ordinary man--the man who is willing to +put forth no more than the ordinary effort. + +But you who read--you are willing to put forth extraordinary effort, +are you not? You are willing to show these favored sons of cap and +gown that you will run as fast and as far as they, with all their +training, will you not? You are willing--yes, and determined, to use +every extra hour which your college brother, _thinking he has the +advantage of you_, will probably waste. + +Very well. If you do, biography (that most inspiring of all +literature) demonstrates that your reward will be as rich as the +college man's reward. Yes, richer, for the gold which your refinery +purges from the dross of your disadvantages will be doubly refined by +the fires of your intenser effort. + +In 1847 two men were born who have blessed mankind with productive +work which, rich as are now its benefits to the race, will create a +new wealth of human helpfulness with each succeeding year as long as +time endures. Both these men have lived, almost to a day, the same +number of years; both of them are still alive; both of them have +labored in neighboring sections of the same field. They are alike, +too, in character, almost duplicates in ability. Here, then, is +material for a perfect comparison. + +Mark, now, the parallel. One of them was a college man, the son of a +noted educator and himself a professor in the University of Boston. He +used the gifts which God gave him for that purpose, and as long as the +transmission of human speech continues among men, the name of +Alexander Graham Bell will be rightly honored by all the world. + +The other of these men could no more have gone to college than he +could have crossed the Atlantic on a sheet of paper. You who read this +never had to work half so hard as this man worked when he was a boy. +Your patience will never be so taxed and tested as his patience was +and is. But who can say that your efforts and your persistence will +not be as richly rewarded according to your ability as his +ceaselessness has been repaid, if you will try as hard as he has +tried, and use every ounce of yourself as effectively as he has used +himself? + +At twelve years of age he was a newsboy on the Grand Trunk Railway. +That didn't satisfy him. The mystery of the telegraph (and what is +more mysterious?) constantly called him. The click of the instrument +was a voice from an unknown world speaking to him words far different +from those recorded in the messages that instrument was transmitting. + +And so Thomas A. Edison, without a dollar or a friend, set himself to +work to master the telegraph and to explore the mysteries behind it. +Result: the duplex telegraph and the developments from that; the +phonograph, the incandescent electric light, and those numerous +inventions which, one after another, have confounded the bigotry and +ignorance of the world. + +Edison and Bell, Bell and Edison, one a college man and the other a +laborer without the gates, unlike in preparation but similar in +character, devotion, and ability, and equal winners of honor and +reward at the hands of a just if doubting world. + +Of course I might go on all day with illustrations like this. History +is brilliant with the names of those who have wrought gloriously +without a college training. These men, too, have succeeded in every +possible line of work. They are among the living, too, as well as +among those whose earthly careers have ended. + +The men who never went to college have not only built great railroads, +but also have written immortal words; not only have they been great +editors, but also they have created vast industries, and piled +mountain high their golden fortunes; not only have they made +epoch-making discoveries in science, but they have set down in words +of music a poetry whose truth and sweetness makes nobler human +character and finer the life's work of all who read those sentences of +light. + +Among the fathers who established this Government, the greatest never +went to college. Hamilton was not a college man. Washington, to this +day the first of Americans, never even attended school after he was +sixteen years old. Of the great founders of modern journalism--the +four extraordinary men whom their profession to this day refers to as +the great journalists--only one was a college graduate--Raymond, who +established the New York _Times_. Charles A. Dana, who made the New +York _Sun_ the most quoted newspaper of his generation, was not a +college graduate. William Cullen Bryant, who gave to the New York +_Evening Post_ a peculiar distinction and preeminence, went to college +only one year. + +Samuel Bowles, who founded the Springfield _Republican_ and made its +influence felt for righteousness throughout the Nation, attended a +private institution for a while. James Gordon Bennett, the editor +whose resourceful mind sent Stanley to the heart of African jungles to +find Livingstone, was never a college student. + +Horace Greeley, that amazing mind and character, who created the New +York _Tribune_, and who, through it, for many years exercised more +power over public opinion than any other single influence in the +Republic, never went to college; and Greeley's famous saying, "Of all +horned cattle, deliver me from the college graduate," remained for a +quarter of a century a standing maxim in the editorial rooms of all +the big newspapers of the country. + +Stevenson, who invented the steam-engine, was not a college man. He +was the son of a fireman in one of the English collieries. As a boy, +he was himself a laborer in the mines. Undoubtedly the greatest +engineer America has yet produced was Captain Eades, whose fame was +world wide; yet this Indiana boy, who constructed the jetties of the +Mississippi, built the ship railroad across the Isthmus of Panama and +other like wonders, never had a day's instruction in any higher +institution of learning than the common schools of Dearborn County. +Ericsson, who invented the _Monitor_, and whose creative genius +revolutionized naval warfare, was a Swedish immigrant. Robert Fulton, +who invented the steamboat, never went to college. + +And take literature: John Bunyan was not only uneducated, but actually +ignorant. If Milton went to college, I repeat that Shakespeare had no +other alma mater than the university of human nature, and that Robert +Burns was not a college man. Our own Washington Irving never saw the +inside of any higher institution of learning. I have already noted +that the author of "Thanatopsis" went to college for only a single +year. + +Among the writers, Lew Wallace, soldier, diplomat, and author, was +self-educated. John Stuart Mill, who is distinguished as a +philosopher, is innocent of a college training. James Whitcomb Riley, +our American Burns, is not a "college man." Hugh Miller, the +Scotchman, whose fame as a geologist is known to all the world of +science, did not go to college. + +Take statesmanship. Henry Clay wrested his education from books, +experience, and downright hard thinking; and we Americans still like +to tell of the immortal Lincoln poring over the pages of his few and +hard-won volumes before the glare of the wood-fire on the hearth, or +the uncertain light of the tallow dip. Benjamin Franklin got his +education in a print-shop. + +In American productive industry, the most conspicuous name, +undoubtedly, is that of Andrew Carnegie; yet this great ironmaster, +and master of gold as well, who has written as vigorously as he has +wrought, was a Scotch immigrant. George Peabody, the philanthropist, +never was inside a college as a student. He was a clerk when he was +eleven years old. + +At least three of the most astonishing though legitimate business +successes which have been made in the last decade in New York were +made by men not yet forty-five years old, none of whom had any other +education than our common schools. I am not sure, but I will hazard +the guess that a majority of the great business men of Chicago never +saw a college. + +These illustrations occur to the mind as I write, and without special +selection. Doubtless, the entire space of this paper might be occupied +by nothing more than the names of men who have blessed the race and +become historic successes in every possible department of human +industry, none of whom ever saw the inside of either college or +university. + +But all of these do not prove that you ought not to go to college if +you can. Certainly you ought to go to college if it is possible. But +the lives of these men do prove that no matter how hard the conditions +that you think surround you, success is yours in spite of them, _if +you are willing to pay the price of success_--if you are willing to +work and wait; if you are willing to be patient, to keep sweet, to +maintain fresh and strong your faith in God, your fellow men, and in +yourself. + +The life of any one of the men whom I have mentioned is not only an +inspiration but an instruction to you who, like these men, cannot go +to college. Consider, for example, how Samuel B. Raymond established +the New York _Times_. He wrote his own editorials; he did his own +reporting; he set his own type; he distributed his own papers. That +was the beginning. + +One of the most successful merchants that I know opened a little store +in the midst of large and pretentious mercantile establishments. He +bought his own goods; he was his own clerk; he swept and dusted his +own storeroom, and polished his own show-cases. He was up at five in +the morning, and he worked to twelve and one at night, and then slept +on the counter. That was less than thirty years ago. To-day he is at +the head of the largest department store in one of the considerable +cities of this country, _and he owns his store_. + +This is an illustration so common that every country town, as well as +London, Paris, and New York, can show examples like it. And, mark you, +most of these men were weighted down with responsibilities as great as +yours can possibly be, and hindered by obstacles as numerous and +difficult as those which you have confronting you. + +Yet they succeeded brilliantly. The world rewarded them as richly as +any graduate of any university who went to his life's work from the +very head of his class. For you know this, don't you, that the world +hands down success to any man who pays the price. Very well, the price +is not a college education. The price is effectiveness, and the +college is valuable only as it helps you to be effective. + +Here is a true picture of our earthly work and its rewards: Behind a +counter stands the salesman, Fortune, with just but merciless scales. +On the shelves this Merchant of Destiny has both failure and success, +in measure large and small. Every man steps up to this counter and +purchases what he receives and receives what he purchases. And when he +buys success he pays for it in the crimson coin of his life's blood. + +This is a sinister illustration, I know, but it is the truth, and the +truth is what you are after, is it not? You can do about what you will +within the compass of your abilities; but you accomplish all your +achievings with heart-beats. This is a rule which has no exceptions, +and applies with equal force to the man who goes to college and to him +who cannot go. What is that that some poet says about the successful +man: + + "... Who while others slept + Was climbing upward through the night." + +So do not let the fact that you cannot go to college excuse yourself +to yourself for being a failure. Do not say, "I have no chance because +I am not a college man," and blame the world for its injustice. What +Cassius exclaimed to Brutus is exactly applicable to you: + + "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, + But in ourselves, that we are underlings." + +So do not whine as to your hard fate; do not go to pitying yourself. +No whimper should come from a masculine throat. + +A man who does either of these things thereby proves that he ought not +to succeed--and he will not succeed. Indeed, how do you know that +these fires of misfortune through which you are passing are not heat +designed by Fate to temper the steel of your real character. Certainly +that ought to be true if you have the stuff in you. And if you have +not the stuff in you, Yale, Harvard, Princeton, Cambridge, Oxford, and +all the universities of Germany cannot lift you an inch above your +normal level. "You cannot make a silk purse out of a sow's ear" is our +pithy and brutally truthful folk-saying. + +"What do you raise on these shaly hills?" I asked one time of that +ideal American statesman, Senator Orville H. Platt, of Connecticut. +"Manhood," answered this great New Englander, and then he went on to +point out the seemingly contradictory facts that a poor soil +universally produces stern and upright character, solid and productive +ability, and dauntless courage. + +The very effort required to live in these ungenerous surroundings, the +absolute necessity to make every blow tell, to preserve every fragment +of value; the perpetual exercise of the inventive faculty, thus making +the intellect more productive by the continuous and creative use of +it--all these develop those powers of mind and heart which through all +history have distinguished the inhabitants of such countries as +Switzerland and New England. "And so," said Connecticut's great +senator, "these rocky hills produce manhood." + +Apply this to your own circumstance, you who cannot go to college +because you must "support the family," or have inherited a debt which +your honor compels you to pay, or any one of those unhappy conditions +which fortune has laid on your young shoulders. + +Most men with wealth, friends, and influence accept them as a matter +of course. Not many young men who are happily situated at the +beginning, employ the opportunities which are at their hand. They +don't understand their value. Having "influence" to help them, they +usually rely on this artificial aid--seldom upon themselves. Having +friends, they depend upon these allies rather than upon the ordered, +drilled, disciplined troops of their own powers and capabilities. +Having money, they do not see as vividly the necessity of toiling to +make more. + +"What's the use of my working; father did enough of that for our +family," wittily said one of these young men. Having the training of +the best universities very much as they have their food and clothing, +these men are too apt to be blind to the greater skill this equipment +gives them, and thus to neglect the using of it. + +And so, young man--you who cannot go to college, you who are without +friends and "influence"--your brother born with a silver spoon in his +mouth, and trained by tutors, finished by professors, and clothed with +all the "advantages," has not such a great start of you after all. For +you are without friends to begin with. You have not inherited comrades +and kindred hearts. You have inherited aloneness and solitude. + +Very well, you must depend on yourself, then. If you have the right +kind of stuff in you, you will make every ohm of your force do +something for you. You will see to it that there is no wasted energy. +You will economize every instant of your time, for you will +understand, in the wise language of the common people, that "time is +money"; and that is something, mind you, which the heir of wealth with +whom you are competing does not understand at all. You know what an +advantage your competitor, who is a college man, has of you; and this +knowledge of yours, coupled with your college competitor's possible +lack of it, turns his advantage over you into your advantage over him. + +It is like a man who has a dozen shots for his rifle against another +who has a hundred. The first will make every shot bring down his game, +because he knows he _must_ make every shot tell; he cannot waste a +cartridge. But he of abundant ammunition fires without certain aim, +and so wastes his treasure of shells until for the actual purposes of +fruitful marksmanship he has not as many cartridges left as the man +who started with fewer. Also his aim is not so accurate. + +Or use an illustration taken from the earth. I well remember when a +boy upon the fat alluvium of the Illinois prairie, how recklessly the +farmers then exhausted the resources of their fields. So opulent was +the black soil that little care was taken save to sow the seed and +crudely cultivate it; and the simple prudences, such as rotation of +crops, differential fertilizing, and the like, would have been laughed +at by the farmer, heedless in the richness of his acres. + +But the German farmer on his sandy soil could take no such risks. +Every vestige of fertility that skill, science, and economy could win +from the reluctant German field was secured. The German farmer had to +woo his land like a lover. And so the unyielding fields of Germany +returned richer harvests thirty years ago than a like area of the +prodigally vital silt of the Mississippi Valley. + +So what you have got to do, young man who cannot go to college, is to +develop yourself with the most vigorous care. Take your reading, for +example. Choose your books with an eye single to their helpfulness. +Let all your reading be for the strengthening of your understanding, +the increase of your knowledge. + +Your more fortunate competitor who has gone to college will, perhaps, +not be doing this. He will probably be "resting his mind" with an +ephemeral novel or the discursive hop-skip-and-jump reading of current +periodicals. Thus he will day by day be weakening his strength, +diminishing his resources. At the very same time you, by the other +method, will hourly be adding to your powers, daily accumulating +useful material. + +And when you read, make what you read yours. Think about it. Absorb +it. Make it a part of your mental being. Far more important than this, +make every thought you read in books, every fact which the author +furnishes you, the seed for new thoughts of your own. Remember that no +fact in the universe stands by itself, but that every fact is related +to every other fact. Trace out the connection of truth with truth, and +you will soon confront that most amazing and important of all truths, +the correlation of all force, all thought, all matter. + +And thus, too will your mind acquire a trained and systematic strength +which is the chief purpose of all the training which college and +university give. For, mind you, the principal purpose of going to +college is not to acquire knowledge. That is only secondary. The chief +reason for a college education is the making of a trained mind and the +building of a sound character. + +These suggestions as to reading apply to everything else: to men, +business, society, life. Because you must compete with the college +men, you cannot be careless with books--in the selection of books, or +in the use of them. For the same reason, you cannot be indifferent +with men and your relationship with them. If other men are loose and +inaccurate in reading the character of their fellows, most certainly +you cannot be. + +If the men who have battalions of friends to start with become +negligent of their associations, welcoming all fish that come to their +net, and frogs, too, you dare not take the risk of a dissolute +companionship, or any other companionship that will weaken the daily +discipline of yourself, or lower you in the esteem of the people. + +Thus you become a careful student of human nature. And never forget +that he who has mastered this, the most abstruse of sciences, has a +better equipment for practical success than all the abstract learning +from the days of Socrates till now could give him. + +Conscious from day to day of your limited resources, and understanding +by the severe tuition of your daily life that the world now demands +effectiveness, you will nurture your physical and nervous powers where +the rich young man with a college training is apt to waste his. He may +smoke, but you dare not. You cannot afford it, for one thing. + +For another thing, it is a long race that you are running before you +reach the point from which your fellow runner starts; so you have got +to save your wind. You need all your nerve. You have got to keep +"clean to the bone," as Jack London expresses it. + +You have got to take thought of the morrow. You have got to do all +those things which your employer, and all observers of you, will, +consciously or unconsciously, approve; and refrain from doing anything +that your employer, or his wife, or the world, or anybody who is +watching you, will disapprove of, even subconsciously. + +Thus your profound understanding that effectiveness is what counts +will cut out every questionable habit, every association of idleness +and sloth. No social club for you; that institution is for the man of +dollars and of Greek. No evenings with gay parties for you; you must +use those precious hours for reading, planning, sleep. + +You cannot dally with brilliant indirectness; you must make every man +and woman understand that you are goldenly sincere, forcefully +earnest, earnestly honest, high of intention, sound of purpose, direct +of method. Out of all these you will finally wring everything which +the college is designed to give: skilled intellect, mind equipped with +systematized knowledge, simple, earnest, upright character. + +And to crown it all, you will discover in this hard discipline of your +faculties and of your soul a happiness whose steady felicity is +unknown to the lounger of the club or the frequenter of the ballroom. +For remember this--you who in your heart cherish a secret envy of +those other young men whom you believe, by reason of family, wealth, +or any favorable circumstance, are getting more of the joy of living +than you get--remember this, that this world knows only one higher +degree of happiness than that which comes from discipline, only one +pleasure nobler than the pleasure of achieving. + +Let me close with two illustrations within my own personal +observation. In one of the most charming inland cities of the United +States, or of the world, for that matter, I met some fifteen years ago +a young man of German parentage. His father was poor. The son simply +_had_ to help support the family by his daily work. He never got +nearer college than in his dreams. + +He knew something of printing, and was employed by a vigorous new +house at an humble salary. By processes such as I have analyzed above, +he made himself the best man in technical work in the firm's employ. +The next step was to demonstrate his ability as a manager and +financier as well as a skilled workman. There was a nut to crack, was +it not? But see, now, how simply he broke the shell of that problem. + +With some other sound young men of like quality, he established a +building and loan association, one of those banks of the people which +flourished in those days. He had no capital behind him. His +acquaintance was small. Never mind, he made acquaintances among people +of his own class. So did his fellow directors. Those common people +from which this young man sprang furnished from their earnings the +necessary money. + +The little institution was conducted with all our American dash, with +all his German caution. Of course it prospered. How could it help +prospering? While other building and loan associations undertook +alluring but hazardous experiments, this little concern rejected them +with all the calm and haughty disfavor of the most conservative old +bank. + +After a while people began to take notice of this small institution. +Its depositors were satisfied, its customers pleased. One day the +attorney of this association, also a young man, called his fellow +directors together, and resigned, upon the ground that he thought the +movement of gold abroad and other financial phenomena indicated a +panic within the next two or three years. + +Did this dismay the young German-American? Not much. "This is just +what I am looking for," said he. "I have been able to manage this +institution in prosperous times; now if I can only have a chance to +close it up so that no man loses a dollar, when big banks around me +are falling, I will accomplish all I have started to accomplish." + +Sure enough, the panic of 1893 arrived, and the young man's +opportunity came. Bank after bank went down; old institutions whose +venerable names had been their sufficient guarantee collapsed in a +day. Most building and loan associations, taking advantage of certain +provisions of the law, and of their charters, refused to pay their +depositors on demand. The men and women who had put their money in +found that they could not "withdraw" for some time, and then only at a +loss. + +But not so with the model experiment of my young friend, by which he +proposed to demonstrate his ability to organize, manage, and support a +difficult business, and to properly handle complex financial +questions. He closed his institution up amid the appreciation and +praise of everybody who knew about it. + +In the mean time he had worked a little harder than ever for the firm +that employed him. He took part in politics, too. His acquaintance +grew slowly but steadily, and then with ever-increasing rapidity, as +each new-made friend enthusiastically described him to others. + +It soon got on the tongues of the people that even in his politics +this young man didn't drink, smoke, nor swear. More marvelous than +all, it was said that he was even religious. And the saying was true. +During all these years when he had no time for anything else, he also +had no time to stay away from Sunday-school and church. He had certain +convictions and spoke them out. + +He had no time for "society"; not a moment for parties; not an hour +for the clubs. But he did have time for one girl, and for her he did +not have time enough. All this was not so very long ago. To-day this +young man is a member of the firm for which he began as a common +workman, and which has since grown to be one of the largest concerns +of its kind in the entire country. Successful banks have made him a +director. On all hands his judgment is sought and taken by old and +able men in business, politics, and finance. + +And to crown all these achievings, he has builded him a home where all +the righteous joys abound, and over which presides the "girl he went +to see" in the hard days of his beginnings, when he had no time for +"society" except that which he found in her presence. As he was then, +so he is now--"clean to the bone," strong, upright, faithful, joyous +in the unsullied happiness of the manly living of a manly life. + +Very well, I tell you over again that this man did not go to college +because he _could not_ go to college; that he had no opportunities, no +friends, few acquaintances. But he did have right principles, good +health, and an understanding that every drop of his blood must be +wrought into a deed, every minute of his time compounded into power. +And this young man is not yet forty years of age. + +I will venture to say that his example can be repeated in every town +in the United States, in every city of the Republic. Certainly I +personally know of a score of such successes in my own home city. I +personally know of many such examples in other States. You ask for the +inspiration of example, young man who cannot go to college. Look +around you--they are on every hand. + +Can you not find them in your own town? Or, if you live on a farm, do +you not see them in your own county? I personally know of country boys +who started out as farm hands at sixteen dollars per month and board, +who to-day own the farms on which they were employed, and yet who are +not now much past middle life. They have done it by the simple rules +that are as old as human industry. + +Come, then, don't mope. Sleep eight hours. Then three hours for your +meals, and a chance for your stomach to begin digesting them after you +have eaten them. That makes eleven hours, and leaves you thirteen +hours remaining. Take one of these for getting to and from your +business. _Then work the other twelve._ Every highly successful man +whom I know worked even longer during the years of his beginnings. + +What, no recreation? say you. Certainly I say recreation, and I say +pleasure, too. But remember that you have got to overcome the college +man's advantage over you--and that can only be done by hard work. But +what of that? For a young man like you, full of that boundless vigor +of youth, what higher pleasure can there be than the doing of your +work better than anybody else does the same kind of work? + +And what finer happiness can there be than the certainty that such a +life as that will make realities of your dreams? For sure it is that +this is the road by which you can walk to unfailing success, even over +the bodies of your rivals who, with greater "advantages" than yours, +neglect them and fall upon the steep ascent up which, with harder +muscles, steadier nerves, and stouter heart, you climb with ease, +gaining strength with every step you take instead of losing power as +you advance, as did your flabbier fibered competitor. + +Now for the other illustration: Three years ago a certain young man +came to me from New York, the son of a friend who occupied a +Government position. He was studying law. He was "quivering" with +ambition. But his lungs were getting weak. Would it be possible to get +him a place on some ranch for six or eight months? Yes, it was +possible. An acquaintance was glad to take him. + +At the end of his time he returned, still "quivering" with ambition. +He was going to make a lawyer, that's what he was going to make--the +very best lawyer that ever mastered Blackstone. He already had a +clerkship promised in one of the great legal establishments in the +metropolis. This clerkship paid him enough to live on, and gave him +the chance to do the very work which is necessary to the making of a +lawyer. + +Splendid thus far. But observe the next step. In about twelve months +this young man came to me again. Would I help to get a certain man who +held a Government position paying him $150 a month promoted? This last +man's record was admirable; he deserved promotion on his own account. +But why the interest of the would-be lawyer, who was "quivering" with +ambition? + +It developed that if the other fellow was promoted, this embryo +Erskine could, with the aid of influential political friends, be +appointed in his place. But why did he want this position? Well, +answered the young man, it would enable him to take his law course at +one of the law schools of the Capitol and get his degree, and all that +sort of thing. Also, it would enable him to live at home with mother, +would it not? Yes, that was a consideration, he admitted. + +But did he think that that was as good a training for his profession, +and would give him the chance of a business acquaintance while he was +getting that training, as well as the clerkship in the New York office +would? Perhaps not, but, after all, he didn't get very much salary in +the New York law office. Why, how much did he get? Only twenty dollars +a week. + +But was not that enough to live on at a modest boarding-house, and get +a room with bed, table, one chair, and a washstand, and buy him the +necessary clothing? Oh, yes! of course he could scratch along on it, +but it was hardly what a young man of his standing and family ought to +have. + +Oh! it didn't enable him to get out into society, was that it? Well, +yes, he must admit there was something in that. Washington had social +advantages, to be sure, and $150 a month would enable him to have some +of that life which a young man was entitled to and at the very same +time be getting his legal education. _Well!_ That young man did _not_ +get what he wanted. + +That young man had the wrong notion of life. Of course, no man would +do anything for him. Until he changed his point of view utterly, +success was absolutely impossible for him. What that young man needed +was the experience of going back to New York and having to apply for +position after position until his shoe soles wore out, and he felt +the pangs of hunger. He needed iron in his blood, that is what he +needed. All the colleges in the world would not enable that man to do +anything worth doing until he mastered the sound principles of living +and of working. + +Right before him in New York was an illustration of this. One of the +most notable successes at the bar which that city or this country has +witnessed in the last fifteen years has been made by a young man who +had neither college education, money, nor friends. He was, I am told, +a stenographer in one of New York's great legal establishments. But +that young man had done precisely what I have been pounding at over +and over again in this paper. Very well. To-day he is one among half a +dozen of the most notable lawyers in the greatest city of the greatest +nation in the world. + +It is all in the using of what you have. Let me repeat again what I +have said in a previous paper--the inscription which Doc Peets +inscribed on the headboard of Jack King, whose previousness furnished +"Wolfville" with its first funeral: + + "JACK KING, DECEASED. + Life ain't the holding of a good hand, + But + The playing of a poor hand well." + +And this is nothing more than our frontier statement of the parable of +the talents. After all, it is not what we have, but what we make out +of what we have that counts in this world of work. And, what's more, +that is the only thing that ought to count. + + + + +IV + +THE NEW HOME + + +Your father made the old home. Prove yourself worthy of him by making +the new home. He built the roof-tree which sheltered you. Build you a +roof-tree that may in its turn shelter others. What abnormal egotism +the attitude of him who says, "This planet, and all the uncounted +centuries of the past, were made for _me_ and nobody else, and I will +live accordingly. I will go it alone." + +"I wish John had not married so young," said a woman of wealth, +fashion, and brilliant talents in speaking of her son. "Why, how old +was he?" asked her friend. "Twenty-five," said she; "he ought to have +waited ten years longer." "I think not," was the response of the +world-wise man with whom she was conversing. "If he got a good wife he +was in great luck that he did not wait longer." "No," persisted the +mother, "he ought to have taken more time 'to look around.' These +early marriages interfere with a young man's career." + +This fragment of a real conversation, which is typical of numberless +others like it, reveals the false and shallow philosophy which, if it +becomes our code of national living, will make the lives of our young +people abnormal and our twentieth century civilization artificial and +neurotic. Even now too many people are thinking about a "career." +Mothers are talking about "careers" for their sons. Young men are +dreaming of their "careers." + +It is assumed that a young man can "carve out his career" if his +attention is not distracted and his powers are not diminished by a +wife and children whom he must feed, clothe, and consider. The icy +selfishness of this hypothesis of life ought to be enough to reject it +without argument. Who is any man, that he should have a "career"? and +what does a "career" amount to, anyway? What is it for? Fame? Surely +not, because + + "Imperious Caesar dead and turned to clay, + Might stop a hole to keep the wind away," + +says Shakespeare. And Shakespeare ought to know; he is not quite three +centuries dead, and even now the world is sadly confused as to +whether he wrote Shakespeare. "Career!" Let your "career" grow out of +the right living of your life--not the living of your life grow out of +your "career." "Don't get the cart before the horse." + +Is it to accomplish some good thing for humanity that you want this +"career," which is to keep you single until you are too old to be +interesting? Very well. Just what is it that you expect to do with +these self-centered and single years during which you intend so to +help the race? If you cannot tell, you are "down and out" on that +score. + +And, besides, you will find that the enormous majority of men who by +their service have uplifted or enriched humanity have been men enough +to lead the natural life. They have been men who have founded homes. +And how can you better benefit mankind than by founding a home among +your fellow men, a pure, normal, sweet, and beautiful home? + +That would be getting down to business. That would be doing something +definite, something "you can put your finger on." It would be "getting +down to earth," as the saying is. You would be "benefiting humanity" +sure enough and in real earnest by taking care of some actual human +being among this great indefinite mass called mankind. The making of +a home is the beginning of human usefulness. + +The Boers were a splendid type of the human animal. It took all the +power of the greatest empire on earth to crush a handful of them; and +even then Great Britain was able to subdue them only at astonishing +loss of men and money, and irreparable impairment of prestige. They +were glorious fighting men, these Boers. The blood that flowed in +their veins was unadulterated Dutch--the only unconquered blood in +history; for you will remember that even Caesar could not overcome +them, and, with the genius of the statesman-soldier that he was, he +made terms with them. + +But these Boers were a good deal more than mere fighting animals; they +were perhaps the most religious people on earth. If they were mighty +creatures physically, they were also exalted beings spiritually. They +knew how to pray as well as to fight. They made their living, too, and +asked no favors. Also they builded them a state. It was a fine thing +in the English to acknowledge the high qualities of these African +Dutchmen, after the war with them was over. + +It is said that there was not an unmarried man above twenty-one years +of age among them. Very generally the same thing was true of "The +Fathers" who founded this republic. Indeed, all great constructive +periods and peoples have lived in harmony with the laws of Nature. It +has been the races of marrying men that have made the heroic epochs in +human history. The point is that the man who is not enough of a man to +make a home, need not be counted. He is a "negligible quantity," as +the scientists put it. + +So if your arm is not strong enough to protect a wife, and your +shoulders are not broad enough to carry aloft your children in a sort +of grand gladness, you are really not worth while. For it will take a +man with veins and arteries swollen with masculine blood pumped by a +great, big, strong heart, working as easily and joyfully as a Corliss +engine; with thews of steel wire and step as light as a tiger's and +masterful as an old-time warrior's; with brain so fertile and vision +so clear that he fears not the future, and knows that what to weaker +ones seem dangers are in reality nothing but shadows--it will take +this kind of a man to make any "career" that is going to be made. + +Very well. Such a man will be searching for his mate and finding her, +planning a home and building it before he is twenty-five; and the man +who does not, is either too weak or too selfish to do it. In either +case you need not fear him. "He will never set the world afire." + +I am assuming that you are man enough to be a man--not a mere machine +of selfishness on the one hand, or an anemic imitation of masculinity +on the other hand. I am assuming that you think--and, what is more +important, feel--that Nature knows what she is about; that "God is not +mocked"; and that therefore you propose to live in harmony with +universal law. + +Therefore, I am assuming that you have established, or will establish, +the new home in place of the old home. I am assuming that you will do +this before there is a gray hair in your head or a wrinkle under your +eye. These new homes which young Americans are building will be the +sources of all the power and righteousness of this Republic to-morrow, +just as the lack of them will be the source of such weakness as our +future develops. + +Within these new homes which young Americans are to build, the altar +must be raised again on which the sacred fire of American ideals must +be kept burning, just as it was kept burning in the old homes which +these young Americans have left. And precisely to the extent that +these new homes are not erected will American ideals pale, and finally +perish. + +It is a question, you see, which travels quite to the horizon of our +vision and beyond it, and which searches the very heart of our +national purity and power. No wonder that Bismarck considered the +perpetuation of the German home, with its elemental and joyous +productivity, as the source of all imperial puissance on the one hand, +and the purpose and end of all statesmanship on the other hand. + +It would be far better for America if our public men were more +interested in these simple, vital, elemental matters than in "great +problems of statesmanship," many of which, on analysis, are found to +be imaginary and supposititious. Yes, and it would be better for the +country if our literary men would describe the healthful life of the +Nation's plain people, than tell unsavory stories of artificial +careers and abnormal affections, and all that sort of thing. + +They would sell more books, too. I never yet heard that anybody got +tired of "The Cotter's Saturday Night." I think it quite likely that +the Book of Ruth will outlast all the short stories that will be +written during the present decade. Yes, decidedly, our public men, and +our writers, too, ought to "get down to earth." There is where the +people live. The people walk upon the brown soil and the green grass. +They dwell beneath the apple-blossoms. How fine a thing it is that our +American President is preaching the doctrine of the American home so +forcefully that he impresses the Nation and the world with these basic +truths of living and of life. + +It is a good deal more important that the institution of the American +home shall not decay, than that the Panama Canal be built or our +foreign trade increase. So, in considering the young man and the new +home, we are dealing with an immediate and permanent and an absolutely +vital question, not only from the view-point of the young man himself, +but from that of the Nation as well. + +Of course nobody means that young men should hurl themselves into +matrimony. The fact that it is advisable for you to learn to swim does +not mean that you should jump into the first stream you come to, with +your clothes and shoes on. Undoubtedly you ought first to get +"settled"; that is, you ought to prepare for what you are going to do +in life and begin the doing of it. Don't take this step while you are +in college. If you mean to be a lawyer, you ought to get your legal +education and open your office; if a business man, you should "get +started"; if an artizan, you should acquire your trade, etc. But it is +inadvisable to wait longer. + +It is not necessary for you to "build up a practise" in the +profession, or make a lot of money in business, or secure unusual +wages as a skilled laborer. Begin at the beginning, and live your +lives together, win your successes together, share your hardships +together, and let your fortune, good or ill, be of your joint making. +It will help you, too, in a business way. + +Everybody else is, or was, situated nearly as you are, and there is a +sort of fellow-feeling in the hearts of other men and women who once +had to "hoe the same row" you are hoeing; and it is among these men +and women you must win your success. It is largely through their favor +and confidence that you will get on at all. If you are making a new +home you are in harmony with the world about you, and the very earth +itself exhales a vital and sustaining sympathy. + +It is not at all necessary that you should be able to provide as good +a house and the furnishings thereof as that from which your wife +comes. Nobody expects you to be as successful in the very beginning of +your life as her father was at the close of his. Least of all does she +herself expect it. And even if this were possible, it is not from such +continuous luxury that the best character is made. The absolute +necessity to economize compels the ordinary young American couple to +learn the value of things--the value of a dollar and the value of +life. + +They learn to "know how it comes," again to employ one of the wise +sayings of the common people. And the numberless experiences of their +first few years of comparative hardship are the very things necessary +to bring out in them sweetness, self-sacrifice, and uplifting +hardihood of character. In these sharp experiences, too, there is +greatest happiness. How many hundreds of times have you heard men and +women say of their early married years, "Those were the happiest days +of my life." + +As a matter of good business on the one hand, and of sheer felicity on +the other hand, make the ideals of this new home of yours as high as +you possibly can. Don't make them so high that neither you nor any +other human being can live up to them, of course; but if you can put +them a notch beyond those even of the exalted standard of the old +home, by all means do it. Do it, that is, if you can live up to them. + +It is remarkable what individual power grows out of clean living. It +is profitable also. The mere business value of a reputation for a high +quality of home life will be one of the best assets that you can +accumulate. "They are attending strictly to business and will make +their mark," said a wise old banker to a group of friends in +discussing a fine type of young business man, and the equally fine +type of the young American woman who was his wife. + +I do not know whether that young man was borrowing money for his +business from that particular bank or not, but I do know that he could +borrow it if he wanted it. And one reason why his credit was +established with the money-wise old financier was the ideal home life +which he and his wife were leading. + +For, mark you, they were not "living beyond their means." That was the +first thing. That is one of the best rules you can follow. Who has not +known of the premature withering of young business men and lawyers +(yes, and sometimes men not so young, alas!) who have suddenly +blossomed out with houses and clothes and horses, and a lot of other +things which their business or practise ought not reasonably to stand. + +On the other hand, do not begin your life as a miser. Do not let the +new home proclaim by its barrenness that it is the abode of a poor +young man asking sympathy and aid of his friends. "Yes, rent a piano, +by all means. Do not economize on your wife and your home," advised an +old Methodist preacher noted for his horse-sense. And he was right. + +After all, what is the purpose and end of all your labor? If it is not +that very home, I do not know what it is. Put on a little more steam, +therefore, and earn enough extra to buy a picture. And get a good one +while you are at it. It will not break you up to buy a really good +etching. A fine "print" is infinitely better than a poor painting. +Anything is better than a poor painting. If she has good taste, your +wife will make the walls of that new home most attractive with an +astonishingly small amount of money. + +It is the new _home_ you and she are making, remember that. Very well; +you cannot make it in a flat. "Apartments" cannot by any magic be +converted into a home. For the purposes of a _home_, better a separate +dwelling with dry-goods box for table and camp-stools for chairs than +tapestried walls, mosaic floors, and all luxuriousness in those modern +structures where human beings hive. + +These buildings have their indispensable uses, but home-making is not +one of them. "Apartments" are not cheaper for you and easier for her +than a house to yourselves--no, not if you got the finest apartments +for nothing, not even if you were paid to live in gilded rooms. For +the making of a home is priceless. And that cannot be done in flats or +hotels or other walled and roofed herding places. Every man would like +to have a picture of "the house he was born in"; but who would choose +a hotel for a birthplace? Boniface himself would not "admire" (to use +one of our Westernisms) to have you select his hostelry for that +purpose. + +Of course you will spend all of your extra time at home. That is what +home is for. Live in your home; do not merely eat and sleep there. It +is not a boarding-house, remember that. Books are there, and music and +a human sympathy and a marvelous care for you, under whose influence +alone the soul of a young man grows into real grandeur, power, and +beauty. And be sure that you let each day have its play-hour. + +"I would not care to live," said one of the very ablest and most +eminent members of the American Catholic priesthood--"I would not care +to live," said he, "if I could not have my play-hour, music, and +flowers. They are God's gifts and my necessity. Every young man who +has a home commits a crime if he does not each day bring one hour of +joy into his household." + +The man who said that is not only brilliant and wise, but one of the +most exalted souls it has ever been my fortune to know. And his words +have good sense in them, have they not? Make that good sense yours, +then. Make a play-hour each day for yourself and wife and children. I +say children, for I assume, of course, that when you are making a new +home you are making a _home_ indeed. + +Very well. The absence of children is either unfortunate or immoral. A +purposely childless marriage is no marriage at all; it is merely an +arrangement. Robert Louis Stevenson calls it "a friendship recognized +by the police." A house undisturbed and unglorified by the wailings +and laughter of little ones is not a home--it is a habitation. + +There is in children a certain immortality for you. Most of us believe +in life after death; and that belief is a priceless possession of +every human being who has it. But even the man who has not this faith +beholds his own immortality in his children. "Why of course I am +immortal," said a scientist who believed that death ends all. "Of +course I am immortal," said he, "there goes my reincarnation"; and he +pointed to his little son, glorious with the promise of an exhaustless +vitality. + +There is no doubt at all that association with infancy and youth puts +back the clock of time for each of us. Besides all this, it is the +natural life, and that is the only thing worth while. The "simple +life" is all right, and the "strenuous life" excellent. The "artistic +life" is charming, no doubt, and all the other kinds of "lives" have +their places, I suppose. I am interested in all of them. But I am much +more interested in the natural life. That alone is truthful. And, +after all, only the truthful is important. + +Get into the habit of happiness. It is positively amazing how you can +turn every little incident into a sunbeam. And, mark you, it is quite +as easy to take the other course. But what a coward a man is who +releases in his home all the pent-up irritability and disappointment +of the day. + +There is no sense in it, either. It does not make you less black of +spirit to fill your home with gloom. You ought not to do it, even from +the view-point of good health. If you eat your meal in a sour silence +which almost curdles the cream and scares your wife half to death, you +do not and cannot digest your food. If you have had a hard day, say to +yourself, "Well, that was a hard day. Now for some rest and some fun." + +Get into the habit of being happy, I tell you. You can do it. Practise +saying to yourself, when you waken in the morning, "Everything is all +right," and keep on saying it. You will be surprised to find how +nearly "all right" the mere saying of it at the beginning of the day +will really make everything, after all. This is true of business as +well as of the new home. Prophets of gloom are never popular, and +ought not to be. + +Then, too, a quiet cheeriness of heart makes you treat your fellow man +better; and this is important in your dealings with other human male +animals. They will make it unpleasant for you if you don't. But it is +far more important in your new home than it is out in the world of +men. That is what the new home is for--to exercise and multiply the +beauties of character and conduct. + +Returning again to the view-point of business wisdom, you cannot treat +your wife too well, as a mere matter of policy--though you will never +treat her well, nor anybody else, from that low motive. I am merely +calling the attention of your commercial mind to the fact that there +are actually dollars and cents in a reputation for chivalrous bearing +in your new home. + +You know yourself how you feel toward a man of whom everybody says, +"He is good to his wife." Everybody wants to help that kind of a +fellow. If he is a strong man, his community glories in his strength +and increases it by their admiration and support. If he is not a +strong man, everybody wishes that he were, and tries in a thousand +ways, which a general kindly disposition toward him suggests, to +supply his deficiencies. + +And this is no jug-handled rule either. The same thing is true of the +wife. When her acquaintances declare of any woman, "She is lovely in +her home," they have placed upon her brow the crown of their ultimate +tribute and regard. It depends upon both, of course, whether these +domestic beatitudes will exist in the new home. + +Undoubtedly, however, it depends upon the young man more than the +young woman. He is a _man_--and that is everything. And being a man, +he should have a large and kindly forbearance, a sort of soothing +strength and calming serenity. And to all this the rule of smile and +cheeriness is helpful, if not essential. + +When I was a boy in the logging-camps, I read in some stray newspaper +an article about the influence which the pleasant countenance +exercises over groups of men. The idea was that men work willingly +under the control of a strong man who is strong enough to carry in his +daily look the suggestion of a smile. It worked splendidly. It has +never been satisfactorily explained why it is next to impossible for a +man "to be down on his luck" if he will only keep the corners of his +mouth turned up. Perhaps it is the mental effort of forcing this +mechanism of a smile which brings a really happy state of mind. + +Whatever the cause, it is literally true that you cannot look blackly +on the world and your own fortunes if the lines of your face are +ascending instead of drooping. This muscular state of your countenance +is connected in some strange way with that mysterious thing called the +mind; for you will find, if you try it, that a sort of serenity of +soul comes to you, and a strong confidence that "everything will come +out right in the end." When we Americans are older we shall pay more +attention to these things. + +The Japanese neglect none of these deep psychological truths in +warfare. It is said that they are taught to smile in action, and +especially when they charge. Doubtless this report is true. It has at +bottom the same reason that music in battle has. What could be more +terrifying than the approach of an enemy determined on your death, and +who looks upon your execution as so pleasant and easy a thing that he +smiles about it or who regards his own possible extinction as no +unhappy consummation? + +Also it is interesting to note how a pleasant expression begets its +like. I have observed this even in Manchuria, and other parts of +China--a smile unfailingly won a return smile from children who were +watching you from the fields, whereas a frown would instantly becloud +the little face with a kindred expression of disfavor. I am spending a +good deal of time upon this item of good cheer in the new home, +because I think that as long as happiness surrounds the American +fireside all is well with the Republic. + +There is no investment which yields such dividends as the society you +will find in your home. The company, the talk, the silent sympathy of +that sagacious and congenial person who is your wife yield a return in +spirit, wisdom, moral tone, and pure pleasure to be found in like +measure nowhere else on earth. + +It is said that Charles James Fox, the most resourceful debater the +British Parliament has ever seen, was so fond of his home and his wife +that he would actually absent himself from Parliament for the sheer +pleasure of her presence and conversation. Lord Beaconsfield, who, we +are told, married for the mere purpose of ambition, afterward fell +deeply in love with his wife and spent every moment he could in her +society. She proved, too, to be his shrewdest counselor. + +Bismarck's boundless love for his princess increased with the years; +yet she was chiefly, and perhaps only, a German "hausfrau"--an ideal +housewife. The German people particularly loved the wife of Bismarck +because of these exclusively domestic traits. Perhaps that was why he +adored her more and more as the years went by. Gladstone, who was a +very surly and irritable person, declared that his wife had made his +life "cushiony." + +Of course it is taken for granted in this paper that the young +American wife is this kind of a woman--wise and gentle and +good-natured--above all things good-natured. For says the Bible, "It +is better to dwell in the wilderness than with a contentious and an +angry woman." But read what is written in the Book of the right kind +of a woman--one "in whose tongue is the law of kindness," as the +Scriptures' exquisite phraseology has it. + +I don't like the tone of the common comment of the American medical +profession about the neurotic condition of our American women. Our +physicians are saying that there is not one American woman in a +hundred who is nervously normal. The profession declares that they are +excitable, irritable, peevish, and that this unfortunate state is +produced by the unnatural and absurd tension they are under all the +time. + +Their so-called "social duties"; the minute and nerve-destroying +precision of their housekeeping; their unnecessary overloading of +themselves with tasks futile and fictitious; the determination to +"appear" a little better than their neighbors, and, above all, to have +their children (their _one_ or _two_ children) particularly spick and +span; the long catalogue of folly into which our high-geared, modern +civilization has led our women, and through no fault of theirs--"all +these," said an eminent neurologist, in talking of this absorbing +topic, "are impairing the agreeableness and curtailing the usefulness +of our women, and will in the end destroy our women themselves." + +I hope it is not true. If it is true, we had better find the cause of +it and apply the remedy, or we are a lost people; for that nation is +doomed whose women have ceased to be vital, good-tempered, and +home-loving. + +May not the too heavy early education of young girls have something to +do with this later desperation of their nerves? Is not the blood taken +from vital centers where Nature meant it to go for the upbuilding of +womanhood and forced into the brain at a period when Nature meant that +brain to be the very paradise of joyous dreams and happy imaginings? +While we may thus gain a staccato smartness, a jerky and inconsequent +brilliancy, do we not lose something of the natural woman and the +delicious heartiness, spontaneous wit and instinctive wisdom of her? I +venture no opinion here--I merely suggest the query. Why don't the +doctors begin a crusade about this? It is their business. + +The keen, practical sense of women in purely business affairs has been +noted in other papers, and the causes of it. The young man who +neglects this helpfulness simply throws away wisdom. Not to counsel +with your wife on business matters that affect your mutual fortune is +sheer stupidity. Also, it is morally wrong. From the very nature of +her she is more interested than you in strengthening the walls of your +new home, in making your joint experiment in the living of life a +beautiful success. Her words are the counsel of instinct, and +therefore of Nature. And Nature is wise. + +Of course there are some things you cannot tell her. If you are a +lawyer, or a doctor, you are dishonorable if you tell your wife or any +other human being any secret of client or patient. Not that she is not +to be trusted--for she is. She will carry to her grave any secret that +affects you. But the disclosures of client or patient are not _your_ +secrets. If they were, she would be entitled to know them--ought to +know them. But no woman of sense will permit you to tell her any +professional confidences. Don't expect her to be helpful to you in +your profession or occupation except by counsel. + +Of course there is the great and inestimable help that comes from the +mere fact that she is your wife. After all, that is the very greatest +help any woman can be to any man. The care of home, the upbringing of +children, the strengthening of a husband's character here and there, +the detection of those thousand little vices of manner and speech and +thought which develop in every man--in short, the living of a natural +woman's life--is the only method of real helpfulness of a woman to a +man. And it is a priceless helpfulness. + +Particularly is this true of political life and career. A man who must +be lifted to distinction by his wife's apron-strings, does not deserve +distinction. In the end, he does not get it--the apron-strings usually +break, and they ought to break. It may be stated as a general truth +that a man is never helped by the active participation of the wife in +his political affairs. + +There are notable exceptions, just as there are to every rule. But as +a generalization this statement is accurate. Men resent that kind of +thing in politics. They want a man who aspires to anything to be +worthy of that thing on his own account. They want their leader to be +a leader; and no leader is "managed" in politics by his wife. They are +right about it, too. But whether they are right or wrong, that is the +way they feel. + +So the only help which a woman can be to a man in politics is just to +be a wife in all that that term implies. And what greater help than +that could there be? She who impresses the American millions with the +fact that she is the ideal wife and mother has made the strongest, +subtlest appeal to the nation. But she cannot do this by "mixing up in +politics," by trying to plan and manage her husband's campaigns, and +so forth. For the people's instinct is unerring. We Americans are a +home-making and a home-loving people; and as a people we adore the +American wife and mother--the maker and keeper of the American home. + +So you attend to your politics or your business and let your wife +attend to hers; and she will be happy and glad to make your home the +exclusive scene of her activities if you will only be man enough to do +a man's full part in the world and leave no room for a woman of spirit +to see that you are not doing a man's full part, and, therefore, to +try to help you out. + +I sometimes think that the propaganda that woman is the equal of man, +and that it is all right for her to take on man's work in business and +the professions, is due not so much to an abnormal development in her +character as it is to a decadence in our manhood. At least I have +always observed that the wife of a really masterful man finds her +greatest happiness in being merely his wife, and never attempts to +take any of his tasks upon her. And why should she assume his labor? +Her natural work in the world is as much harder than his as it is +nobler and finer. + +Speaking of politics, I have always thought men, young and old, ought +to consult their wives and families about how they cast their ballot. +What right has any man to vote as he individually thinks best? He is +the head of the family, it is true, but he is only one of the family, +after all. This Republic is not made up of individuals; it is made up +of families. Its unit is not the boarding-house, but the home. + +The Senate of the United States is the greatest forum of free debate +on earth; but the counsel of the American fireside is far more +powerful. Wife and children have a vital interest in every ballot +deposited by father and husband--an interest as definite and tangible +as his own. Every voter, therefore, ought to discuss with wife and +children, with parents, brothers, and sisters, all public questions, +and vote according to the composite family conviction. + +No greater method of public safety can be imagined than for the +American family to "size up" the American public man, and then have +the voters of that family sustain or reject him at the polls, +according to the verdict of the household. If such were the rule, only +those men who are of the people when they are first placed in public +office, and who keep close to the people ever after, would be elected +to anything. + +Such a method, too, would insure a steadier current of national +policy, subject to fewer variations. There would not be so many fads +to deflect sound and sane statesmanship. So by all means, young man, +begin your career as a citizen by making your wife a partner in every +vote you cast. + +Nobody denies that men and women should have equality of privilege and +equality of rights; but equality of duties and similarity of work is +absurd. The contrary idea was beautifully satirized in the now famous +toast: + +"Here's to our women: God bless them! Once our superiors, now our +equals." + +The truth is that it is impossible to compare men and women. They are +not the same beings. They have different characteristics, different +methods, different capacities, and different view-points of life. Each +supplements the other. Doubtless the woman has the choicer lot. Surely +this is true abstractly speaking. Suppose we should all stand +disembodied souls, or rather unembodied souls, on the edge of the +forming universe; and suppose that, to these abstract intelligences, +the Creator should say: + +"I am forming the universe. I am creating a wonderful place called +Earth. I am going to clothe you each in human form, marvelously and +beautifully made, the highest work of my hands. Some of you shall be +men. To these men I will give the task of labor in the fields, of +warfare with wild beasts. It shall be your duty to subdue +wildernesses, and to construct and defend a dwelling-place for this +other one whom I am going to make a woman. Therefore I shall give you +men large bones to deal strong blows, and a heavy skull to withstand +the like. I shall give you courage and physical power and audacity and +daring. + +"The woman's mission shall be different. _It shall be for her to +create and preserve human happiness._ She shall do this in the +dwelling-place which the man constructs for her, and which will be +called home. There shall she bind up his wounds and give him rest and +comfort. I will give into her keeping also the making of the race, and +thus the control of the destiny of the world. And so this woman shall +be given delicate bones and a deft touch and voice of music and eye of +peace and heart of tenderness and mind of beautiful wisdom." + +Does this comparison not make it clear that woman has by far a more +exalted mission than man? But the mission of both man and woman is +sufficiently grand and noble if each performs it, and within its +limitations is content. + +Have plenty of friends. Cultivate them. You cultivate your business. +You cultivate vegetables. But friends are more precious than either +business or vegetables. Cultivate friends, therefore. Call on them and +let them call on you. And do it in the good old-fashioned, hearty, +American way. + +But be sure you make your friends for the sake of the relation itself. +Do not misuse that sacred relation for your personal advantage. Do not +make friends for the purposes of success. Make friends for the +purposes of friendship. Be true to them, therefore. Don't neglect them +when they can no longer serve you. And serve you them. And let your +service to your friends be a glad service, a service which is its own +reward. + +He who seeks another's friendship because he needs it in his politics +or business, will throw that friendship away like a worn-out glove +when his ends have been accomplished. Make friends and nourish +friendship because friends and friendships are life itself. Remember +that you do not live in order to achieve success; you achieve success +in order to live. + +It is the twentieth century you are living in--don't forget that. Keep +up, therefore; keep abreast of things. Keep in the current of the +world's thought and feeling. Newspapers are literally indispensable to +you; and you should take two of them--the morning paper and the +evening paper. Get up fifteen minutes earlier in the morning, so that +you may have time to look over the morning paper carefully. + +Do not read it idly. Read it with discrimination. And do not read it +without discussing it with your little family. The war in Manchuria, +the character of a public man, the policy of an administration, the +state of the Nation's business--all these are mental food which you +need as much as you need your breakfast. One thoroughly up-to-date +magazine also is helpful. Build you a library also. You do not want +the new home to be a mere physical habitation. You want it to be a +home for the mind as well as the body, do you not? + +I heard of a young lawyer who put aside a little of every fee as a +sinking-fund for a library. He and his wife bought books with +that--not books for the office, but books for their home. He +succeeded--"won out"--"won out" with his cases, which was his +profession's business, and "won out" with his happiness and hers, +which was his life's business. + +The theater is the highest form of combined education, amusement, and +repose which human intelligence has yet invented. It was so in Greece, +and it is so now. The theater occasionally is good for you. But let +the play you go to see be high-grade. Inferior performances on the +stage will destroy your taste as surely as will the continued +propinquity of poor pictures. The same is true of music. + +Music has a mysterious quality which exalts. It has been noted that +soldiers gladly go to their death under its influence, who otherwise +would fight unwillingly. It is a great producer of thought also. Some +men can write well only under its inspiration. Educate yourself _up_ +in it, therefore. Do not be content with the simple melodies and old +songs. They will never lose their charm, and ought not; but they are +not the best which music has for you. + +What I am now insisting upon is a constant and careful nourishment of +the mind and soul within you, so that the new home may each day be +more and more the dwelling-place of beauty and the abode of real +happiness. You cannot think of the old home without thinking of your +mother; and you cannot think of your mother without thinking of the +Bible. + +A young man and a young woman who are making a new home make an +irreparable mistake if they leave out the religious influence. Both +ought to belong to church, and to the same church. This is a matter of +prudence as well as of righteousness; for get it into your +consciousness that you must be in harmony with the people of whom you +two are one. Your new home must be in accord with the millions of +other homes which make up this Nation; and the American people at +bottom are a religious people. + +Also, you will find that nothing will please your wife so much as to +resolve upon regular church attendance, and then to reduce that +resolve to a habit. It is good for you, too; you feel as though you +had taken a moral bath after you get home from service every Sunday. + +Of course, being an American and a gentleman, you will have the +American gentleman's conception of all womanhood, and his adoring +reverence for the one woman who has blessed him with her life's +companionship. You will cherish her, therefore, in that way which none +but the American gentleman quite understands. You will be gentle with +her, and watchful of her health and happiness. + +You will be ever brave and kind, wise and strong, deserving that +respect which she is so anxious to accord you; earning that devotion +which by the very nature of her being she must bestow on you; winning +that admiration which it is the crowning pride of her life to yield +to you; and, finally, receiving that care which only her hands can +give, and a life-long joy which, increasing with the years, is fullest +and most perfect when both your heads are white and your mutual steps +no longer wander from the threshold of that "new home" which you built +in the beginning of your lives, and which is now the "old home" to +your children, who beneath its roof "rise up and call you blessed." + + + + +V + +THE YOUNG LAWYER AND HIS BEGINNINGS + + +It used to be a part of the creed of a certain denomination that a man +should not be admitted to the ministry who had not received his +"call." It was necessary that he should hear the Voice speaking with +his tongue, and saying, "Woe is unto me, if I preach not the Gospel." + +This is true of the profession of law. So, at the beginning of your +beginnings, do not begin at all unless you see a certainty of misery +if you do not. Unless you are convinced that you would rather work, +toil, nay, slave for years to secure recognition in the law, than to +be honored and enriched in some other occupation, do not enter this +profession of supreme ardor. + +And above all things, do not enter it if you expect to practise law +principally for the purpose of making money. It is not a money-making +profession. The same effort, acumen, and enthusiasm expended in almost +any other occupation will bring you financial returns tremendously +out of proportion to your most successful compensation in the law, +measured by mere money. The money-making conception of our profession +is not only erroneous, but ruinous; for you must remember, to begin +with, that you are practising the science of justice. + +If possible, get a thorough college education before you touch a law +book. If you can get a college education, do not "read law" while you +are at college. If you go to college, do not take what is known as the +"scientific" course, or "physical" course. Take the classical course. +Next to geometry and logarithms and the Bible, the best discipline +preparatory to making you a lawyer is the translation of Latin. Latin +is the most logical language the world has ever seen, or is likely +ever to see. + +After you get your college course, then go to a thoroughly first-class +law school. After this, spend two or three years in active work in the +office of some successful lawyer who has lots of practise, and who +will load off on your shoulders as much work as possible. + +If you cannot go to a law school, your training in the law office will +do you nearly as well. You can get along without your law school, but +you can never get along without your training in the law office. The +way to learn to swim is to swim. + +But if you cannot get a college education, do not get discouraged. It +is possible that you are an Abraham Lincoln, or a John Marshall, or +some person like that; and if you are you will succeed anyhow. Even if +you are not so highly gifted you can win in the law without a college +education if you are naturally a lawyer _and will work hard enough_. +If you have to choose between a law school and a college education, +take the latter. But the training afforded by a clerkship in an active +lawyer's office is more helpful than either. + +If you can be so fortunate as to get the firm or attorney with whom +you are studying to let you draft pleadings, take depositions, examine +witnesses, make arguments to court and jury, get out transcripts for +appeal, write briefs, petitions, motions, and all the rest of that +careful and painstaking work which makes the daily life of the lawyer, +you will equip yourself for actual practise better than in any other +way I know of. + +The firm will gladly let you do this work if you show yourself +competent. But this does not mean that you are merely to sit around +the office and say "bright things." There is nothing in "bright +things"--there is everything in good judgment and downright hard work. + +In active practise never forget that you are a sworn officer of +justice quite as much as is the judge on the bench. It is impossible +for you to put your ideals of your profession too high or to attach +yourself to them too firmly. I am no admirer of the acidulous +character of John Adams (not that he was not both great and good, +however, for he was--but he was too sour), yet he announced a great +thing, and lived up to it, when he declared that he was practising law +for the purposes of justice first and a living afterward. (But, then, +John Adams announced many great things; and what he announced he lived +up to. He was supremely honest.) + +"Never take a case," said Horace Mann, "unless you believe your client +is right and his cause is just." On the contrary, Lord Brougham +declared that "the conscientious lawyer must be at the service of the +criminal as well as of the state." And this great lawyer proceeds to +argue with characteristic ability that it is as much the duty of the +lawyer to work for the cause he knows to be wrong as for the cause he +knows to be right. + +Briefly, the reason is that it is the very essence of justice that +every man shall have his day in court; that the attorney is but the +trained and educated mouthpiece of his client; and that to refuse the +cause of a client in which the attorney does not believe is to +relegate all the controversies to the judge in the first instance, +which, of course, would render the administration of practical justice +impossible. + +This is the prevailing practise of our profession, and it is a serious +thing to question its correctness. Its ethics are as wide as they are +ingenious, and when one beholds them through the medium of the great +Englishman's wonderful argument they seem radiant with aggressive +truth. Nevertheless, I am almost of opinion that Horace Mann was +right. It is certain that in his beginnings the young lawyer ought to +lean to that view. + +If you consider it your duty to take any side of any case that offers, +right or wrong, it is no far cry to considering it your duty to make +the cause you have espoused a good one before the court. And when that +conception has shot its cancerous roots and filaments through your +brain and conscience, the suggestion to your unscrupulous client of +facts that do not exist, and all the alluring infamies of sharp +practise, are possible. + +It is said that burglary exercises such a fascination that, once the +delirium of its danger is tasted, a man can never put that fatal wine +away. An old and distinguished lawyer once told me that one of the +most brilliant young lawyers he ever knew said to him, at the +conclusion of a legal duel in which he had resorted to the sharpest +practise and won, "That was the most delicious experience of my life." + +Yes, and it was the most fatal. He became, and is, an attorney of +uncommon resource, ability, and success, with many cases and heavy +fees; nevertheless his life is a failure, for his profession and even +his clients know him for a dealer in tricks. Senator McDonald, an +ideal lawyer in the ethics, learning, and practise of his profession, +told me that one of the justices of the Supreme Court once said to him +of a certain great corporation lawyer of acknowledged power and almost +unrivaled learning: + +"Mr. ---- would be the greatest lawyer in the world if he were not a +scoundrel. As it is, I brace myself to resist him every time he +appears before me." One of the ablest Circuit Court judges of the +Federal bench said almost precisely the same thing to me of the same +man. + +So you perceive it does not pay to be understood to be capable, or +even great, in the wrong. In time it means ruin; and therefore I +think, on the whole, that it would be wise for you never to take a +cause which, after you have a full statement from your client, you +believe to be wrong. + +Many of the most excellent men of our profession will dissent from +this view. Their argument is usually that of Lord Brougham, summarized +above. Also they will declare that a lawyer may be quite wrong in his +first impression that his client has not the right of an impending +controversy. They will cite you instances where they have entered into +the conduct of a case with much doubt in their hearts as to the +rightfulness of their client's position; but that this doubt became an +affirmative certainty before they were half through with it--they +_knew_ their client was right. + +The answer to this is that any man can work himself into an +enthusiastic belief in almost anything if he goes upon the theory that +the thing is true, and gives all his energy and ability to proving +its truthfulness to others and to himself. This is peculiarly the case +with the most sincere and genuine men. I repeat, therefore, that upon +a point so vital, and about which there are such sharp differences of +opinion by equally good and wise men, it is better for you to incline +to the stricter view of legal ethics. + +So if you believe your client to be in the wrong, frankly tell him so; +show him why; induce him to compromise and to settle, if he ought. If +he will not because he is obstinate, he will probably lose his case +anyhow, and of course blame his lawyer for the loss. So that if you do +not have that case you have lost nothing. On the other hand, you have +gained. The client will say: "If I had followed his advice I should +not have had the expense and humiliation of defeat." + +In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred the honest client will respect +you for your position. If the client persists in his course because he +is a scoundrel, then, doubly, you cannot afford to take his unjust +case. After a few years of such practise you will have acquired a +moral influence with court, jury, and people which will be, even from +a money point of view, the most valuable item in your equipment. +Public confidence is the young man's best asset. And you will be +surprised to find how little you will lose, in the way of fees, by +this course. + +Of course there is a large class of cases in which the correct +application of the law is very doubtful, with lines of decisions on +both sides; as, for example, in cases of the distribution of funds of +an insolvent corporation, constitutional questions, and the relative +equities of conflicting interests. These are fair examples of +controversies where a lawyer may rightfully and righteously accept a +retainer upon any of half-a-dozen sides. But in the ordinary course of +practise perhaps it is better to stick to Horace Mann rather than to +Lord Brougham, and reject employment in a case you believe to be +wrong. + +While the law is not a money-making profession, either in theory or +practise, the young lawyer should begin by charging every cent his +services are worth. It is not only degrading, but reveals a base +attitude of mind and character, to charge a little fee in the +beginning as a bait for a bigger one in future cases. Maintain the +dignity of your effort. + +I am assuming that Nature began the work of making you a lawyer before +you were born; that you have been preparing yourself, with the +enthusiasm of the artist and the passion of professional devotion, for +the work of your great calling, by years and years of discipline and +study such as no other calling requires; that, with your natural +qualification and your general equipment, you are bringing to your +client's particular case an industry that knows no limit in his +immediate service. + +This being true, tell him frankly that you propose to give him the +best that is in you (and that best is your very life--no less--for you +write "victory" at the end of every one of your cases with your +heart's blood; or "defeat," if you do not win), and that for this best +which is in you you will charge the highest professional fee justified +by your services and the magnitude and difficulty of his case. + +At the same time, never turn a poor client away from your office door +because that client comes with no gold in his hand. When a lawyer is +too busy to give counsel without fee and without charge to a poor man +or woman, that lawyer has too much business. I know--we all know--of +very eminent lawyers constantly engaged in causes involving large +interests, who nevertheless find leisure, many times each year, to +serve by advice and counsel, and sometimes even by the active conduct +of cases, numbers of the children of poverty, and to serve them +without a penny of compensation. + +Be very careful of the class of business you accept at first. I knew a +young lawyer who had just opened his office, and within a month, by +one of those accidents that occur to every attorney, he was offered a +case on a contingent fee in which the probability of considerable +reward amounted almost to a certainty. + +He needed the money--was nearly penniless. He was newly married, had +no clients and few acquaintances; but it was not the quality of +practise to which he wished to devote his career. He courteously +declined the case as though he had been a millionaire, and directed +his would-be client to an attorney who would care for it properly. + +Out of that case the latter attorney, by a compromise, in two weeks +made fifteen hundred dollars. Nevertheless, the young man was right, +and acted with a far-seeing wisdom as rare as the courage which +accompanied it. Of course, I assume that you are going into the +profession for the purpose of becoming a lawyer, and not a mere +conductor of legal strifes. If you are, you must deny yourself. + +Self-denial is the price of strength, as any college athlete will +tell you. Self-denial is the road to wealth, as any banker will tell +you. Self-denial is the method of all excellencies, as all human +experience will tell you. But this is moralizing. + +I do not mean that you should decline small cases. By no means. Take a +five-dollar case, and work with the same sincerity that you would on a +fifty-thousand-dollar case. "Despise not the day of small things." In +selecting your business, I refer to the quality, and not the +magnitude, of cases. Again, again, and still again, this counsel: Care +for your small case with the same painstaking labor you bestow upon a +large one. + +Never lose sight of the fact that your greatest reward is not your +fee, but the doing of a perfect piece of work. The same fervor and +ideality should govern your labors in a lawsuit that inspire and +control the great artist and inventor. A distinguished sculptor said +to me one evening: + +"I wish the matter of compensation could be wiped out of my +consideration. I must give it attention for obvious reasons, but it is +the matter of least moment to me, and has absolutely no influence upon +my work." + +It is no wonder that that man achieved an immortal renown at +thirty-seven. Doctor Barker, the recent occupant of the Chair of +Anatomy in the University of Chicago, recently elected to an even more +notable position in the Johns Hopkins University, who has won for +himself a permanent place in the high seats of his profession by his +work on neurology, was in a company one evening. Said one of his +admirers: + +"Why don't you go into practise? You could easily make a great fortune +before you are forty." + +Listen to the answer: "Money does not interest me." + +We all remember Agassiz's famous reply to a proposition to deliver one +lecture for a large fee: "I must decline, gentlemen; I have no time to +make money." That was why he was Agassiz. + +Quite as lofty ideals should inspire the work of those who make their +vows to the greatest of all sciences, the science of justice, and the +greatest of all arts, the art of adjusting the rights of men. No +lawyer can become great who does not resolve, at the beginning of each +case, to make his conduct of it a perfect piece of work, regardless of +compensation. + +John M. Butler, the partner of Senator McDonald, and one of the best +lawyers the Central Western states ever produced, was so careful of +pleadings and briefs that he would not endure a blurred or broken +letter, and bad punctuation was a source of real irritation to him. +Many times have I, as his clerk, required his printer to take out an +indistinct letter. It was Mr. Butler's ideal to achieve perfection as +nearly as possible. + +The most perfect legal argument I ever heard occupied less than an +hour. Not a word was wasted. Not a single digression weakened the +force of the reasoning. Not a decision was read from. It was assumed +that the learned judges before whom the cause was being heard knew +something of the law and the decisions themselves. + +You see the same thing in its highest form in Marshall's decisions. I +once advised a class of law students to commit to memory half a dozen +of Marshall's greatest opinions. After years of reflection I think I +shall stand by that advice. + +In making an argument before a court or jury, remember that the most +important thing is the statement of your case. A case properly stated +is a case nearly won. Beware of digression. It calls attention from +your main idea. It is a fault, too, which is well-nigh universal. I +advise every young lawyer, as a practise in accurate thought, to +demonstrate a theorem of geometry every morning. + +There is no such remorseless logic as that of logarithms. It will +produce a habit of definiteness, directness, and concentration +invaluable to you. The young gallants of a century ago used to +practise fencing for an hour each morning. Why should not you do the +same thing in intellectual fencing--you, the devotee of the noblest +swordsmanship known to man, the swordsmanship of the law? + +Do not waste too much time quoting precedents to a court; it produces +weariness rather than conviction on the part of the judge, who himself +is a daily maker of decisions and knows their value. He knows the +stifling mass of precedents, and sighs under them. It is rare that +more than two cases should be cited in oral argument on any given +point. Those cases ought to be the most controlling you can find--not +necessarily the latest. They should be cases decided upon reason +rather than upon authority. Your true judge likes to syllogize. + +Do not, however, go into a court without having thoroughly reviewed +and mastered all the precedents bearing on every phase of your +proposition. It requires desperate labor to do this and will shorten +your life; but such is the hard fate of the profession you choose, and +such is the condition of our absurd system of multiplying reports. + +Do not be what is known as a "case lawyer"--an attorney who does not +know the law as a science, but merely looks up precedents and texts +concerning a particular case. You may prevail in your "lawsuit," but +you will not be a lawyer. Stick close to the elemental Blackstone. You +can never get along without Blackstone. Do not read a condensed +edition of that great commentator; it is like reading expurgated +Shakespeare. + +I understand that one of the Justices of the Supreme Court still reads +Blackstone once each year. This may be a fable, but I hope it is not. +You cannot do a better thing. Thirty minutes each day will give you +Blackstone from cover to cover in less than a year, with many +holidays. Few modern "text-books" are of permanent value. Pomeroy's +"Equity Jurisprudence" is an exception. + +But, of course, I cannot give here a list of those books which should +be your daily food; any really educated lawyer will mention them to +you. The great mass of text-books are nothing more than digests. But +don't miss the introduction to Stephens' "Pleading," and also the +introduction to Stephens' "Digest of the Law of Evidence." Both are +classics and give you the reason and the spirit of our law in +fascinating form. + +Let your reading in the law be mainly upon the general principles of +the common law. The study of the civil law will also be +helpful--although English jurisprudence developed of and by itself +with only moderate help from the Romans. Reading statutes is +unprofitable. You should never answer a question or proceed in a case +on the presumption that you remember the statute. The rule of Sir +Edwin Coke ought to be your rule. + +"I should," said Coke, "feel that I ought to be put out of my +profession if I could not answer a question in the common law without +referring to the books. I should feel that I ought to be put out of my +profession if I would answer a question in the statute law without +referring to the statute." + +_Do not confine yourself to law-books._ A man who does so is like the +farmer who persists in planting the same soil with the same crop; +exhaustion, barrenness, and unprofitableness are the results in each +case. Read generously, widely. It is impossible for a man to be a +great lawyer, so far as the learning of his profession is concerned, +who has not saturated himself with the Bible. He may be a great +practitioner, but not a great lawyer. It illuminates all our law--is +the source of much of it. There is no more curious and fascinating +study than a comparison of the ordinances of the Hebrews with what we +think our modern statutes. + +Read deeply in science. Read widely the _great_ novelists. They are +scientists of human nature, and you are dealing with human nature in +your profession. Read profoundly in history. A comprehensive knowledge +of history is absolutely indispensable to an understanding of our +Constitution. The _Federalist_, the constitutional debates, and all +the discussions that preceded and accompanied the adoption of our +organic law are bewilderingly full of historical references. If you +were to study every decision on constitutional questions made by every +court in this country, you could not understand the Constitution. + +You must go back to the roots of it. Trace out the growth of our +institutions in Holland. Work out the modifications by these upon +institutions adopted from England. Follow the indigenous development +of both of these from the old Crown Charters, and finally up to the +Constitution itself. + +Then take Bancroft's "History of the United States"; then that great +monument of intellectual achievement in the realm of historical +criticism, Von Holtz's "Constitutional History of the United States." +Books like Douglass Campbell's remarkable production, Fisher's +convincing yet novel essay, and other like serious and original works, +too numerous to properly mention here, are helpful. + +Nothing is more disgusting to an informed court than to hear a surface +argument on constitutional law by an advocate who thinks he has +mastered that tremendous subject by studying all the decisions upon +any given point. + +You will say this is a heavy task I am assigning you. It is, indeed. +But have you not chosen the profession of the law? And, if so, do you +dare to be less than a lawyer? How dare you not shoulder your glorious +burden with patience, fortitude, and determination? Do not be as if +you were to enlist as a soldier, and end as a camp-follower. + +I am told that the leader of the American bar has a standing order +with his booksellers to send him every new book of approved merit in +all the departments of literature. The result is that when he comes +before the court his mind is fresh and sparkling with clear ideas and +varied knowledge poured into his brain from every mountain-peak of +inspiration in all the world of human thought. He brings to the +service of his client not only a study of his case and an +understanding of the grand science of the law, but the vivifying, +vitalizing power of all the great minds in all the realms of +intellect. + +If you say you have no time for all this, the answer is: If that is +true, you have no time to be a great lawyer. You have the time, if you +will use it. A little less lingering at the club, an economy of hours +here and there--this will give you time, and to spare. Of course if +you would rather "loaf" than be great, if you hunger rather after the +flesh-pots than the lawyer's wreaths, this advice is not for you. + +Do not use intoxicants. Even beware of coffee; it is one of the most +powerful nerve and brain stimulants. The coffee habit is as easily +formed, and as remorseless, as the alcohol habit. After a while, if +excessively used, it produces its sure result; your faculties have +been sharpened by this intellectual emery-wheel until the edges begin +to crumble. Your mind becomes dull; you pass your hand wearily over +your eyes; you don't know what is the matter with you and say so. +Overwork, over-stimulation, and the worry these produce are what is +the matter with you. + +There are lawyers in every town who day by day and year by year find +that they have to work harder to understand a case or master a +precedent than they did the year before. Whereas formerly they could +get the point of a precedent by reading it over once, they must now +read it over four or five times. You usually find them the victims of +ceaseless toil without rest, of that destroying fretfulness which +brain-fag brings, and of some flogger of exhausted nerves, such as +coffee in excess. + +Do not work late at night. It is a fictitious clearness of mind that +comes to the midnight toiler. This also grows into a habit. Conform to +Nature. Go to bed early. Get up early, and do your fine and original +work in the morning. It will be hard for you to form the habit, but +after you have done it you will be amazed at the comparatively immense +nervous power you possess in the morning hours. + +In trying a case before a jury, never be trivial. Do not bandy gibes, +no matter how witty you may know yourself to be in repartee. The jury, +and even the court, may laugh, but they are not impressed, and you +have not helped your case; _and you are there to win your case_. As in +your argument, so in your examination of witnesses, _keep to the +point_. + +In arguing a case, no matter what its nature, before a court or jury, +never rage or rave. Get to the point. Speak with great earnestness, +but not with violence or volume of sound. Remember that even the most +terrible emotions of the human heart in their most intense expression +are comparatively quiet. Be earnest. Be sincere. Be the master of your +case, and the result must be satisfactory. + +It sometimes becomes necessary for an attorney to assert his rights +and privileges to the judge himself. Do not shrink from it. It is your +duty to your client, your profession, and the cause of justice. Never +cringe to a court. Never cringe to any one. He will despise you for +it, and properly so. Remember the dignity of your profession. Erskine, +in his first case, rebuked a prejudiced and perhaps an unjust judge +with such vigor that England rang with it. + +Cultivate lucidity of style. You will do that at some risk at first. +When a young lawyer is extremely clear, he is apt to be regarded as +not deep. Abstruseness in expression is very frequently regarded as an +indication of profundity. Nevertheless, persist in a clear and simple +style. Make the statement of your case and the argument in support of +your propositions so lucid and plain that the judge or jury will say: +"Why, of course, that is so. What is the use of the young man stating +that?" + +The study of Abraham Lincoln's speeches will be very helpful. Two or +three of Roscoe Conkling's arguments after he left the Senate are +models of perspicuity. Mr. Potter's argument in the legal tender cases +is a model--it is Euclid stated in terms of the law. Webster's +arguments you will study, of course. Blackstone is one of the clearest +writers who ever illustrated the great science to which you and I are +devoted. Perhaps as great a logician as ever lived was the Apostle +Paul; read him as a master of logical utterance. + +Never be ponderous; never be florid. At the same time, never be dry. +Be clear; be pointed; be luminous. I remember having heard both sides +of a case argued before an eminent Federal Judge. One of the lawyers +made a long, turgid, "profound"--and musty--argument; proceeding like +a draft-horse from mile-post to mile-post, until the alert mind of the +judge was almost frantic with impatience. + +The lawyer on the other side is one of the most eminent members of our +profession. He is as lithe as a panther, physically and mentally, +sharp as a serpent's tooth, as lucid as the atmosphere on a cloudless +day, and yet as suggestive as a hickory-wood fire in the old home +fireplace on a wintry night. He paced the floor in impatience while +Mr. Turgidity blew the clouds of dust from precedent after precedent. + +When it came his time to reply, he did so with a clearness and wealth +of expression, an appropriateness of illustration, and a simplicity of +reasoning that made one feel that the other man had committed an +impertinence in presenting his side at all. Of course he won his case. + +Respect yourself. A man may lose his money, his reputation--may even +lose everything; and yet he has not lost everything if he retains his +self-respect. Be a gentleman at the outset of your career and forever. +Do not move among men like a beggar for favors. Do not wear poor +clothes. Apparel yourself like a gentleman. + +No client worth having respects you for advertising your poverty. Do +not fear that your community will not know that you are poor. They +know it, and sympathize with you. But every one of our race likes to +see a man "game." Therefore, dress well. Bear yourself like a man who +has prosperous potentialities if not prosperous assets. + +Keep your office in as perfect condition as yourself. Remember that it +is your workshop. Put all your extra money into books. There is no +adornment of an office equal to a library, just as there is no +adornment of a mechanic's shop equal to his tools. You know what you +think of a doctor when you find his office equipped with the latest +appliances. + +Do not permit your office to be a loafing place, even for your fellow +lawyers. You cannot afford to cultivate professional courtesy at the +expense of the discipline of your office. It is nothing to your client +that your friends find your society so charming that they seek the +felicity of your conversation even in your office. Or, rather, it _is_ +something to your client--he wants his case won and he thinks _that_ +will take all your time. And so it will. + +Be very careful of the places you frequent. Remember that Pericles was +never seen except upon the street leading to the Senate House. Don't +imitate anybody--be yourself. Still, if you must have the stimulus of +imitation, pick out a man like Pericles for your model. + +Depend upon yourself; do not call into council another attorney. This +is a point on which most lawyers will disagree with me. Nevertheless, +if you are not competent to handle your case, you have done wrong to +open an independent office. If you call in another attorney, every +probability is that you will suggest all the solutions yourself and in +reality win the case; but your old and distinguished associate will +get all the credit. But you need all the credit for work which you +really do. + +See well to your evidence before you go into the trial of a cause. Be +very cautious on cross-examination. It is the most powerful but most +delicate and dangerous instrument known to the surgery of the law. Do +not bluster, "bull-doze," or browbeat a witness; there is nothing in +it. You only make the jury sympathize with the person abused. Remember +that an American loves nothing so much as fair play. When on a jury, +he is apt to regard you and the witness as adversaries, you the +stronger and with immense advantage. + +Ask few questions on cross-examination. Employ the Socratic method +always. Ask only those questions the logical conclusion of which is +irresistible, and _stop there_. Don't press the _conclusion_ on the +witness. It is your province to show that in your argument. + +A timid witness, whom you know to be telling the truth, may often be +confused by cross-examination and made to make a false statement; but +this you have no right, as an honorable attorney, to make him do. A +just judge ought to stop you if you try it. To confuse a witness whom +you know to be telling the truth is not skill; it is a trick, and a +very miserable trick, whose performance requires neither real ability +nor learning. + +Think what a tremendous intellectual effort the properly conducted +lawsuit is. You must know your case; you must know your evidence; you +must know each witness as a person and each item of his testimony; you +must know the law applicable to your general proposition, and the +general law upon its various ramifications; you must study the +witnesses of the other side; and, almost more important than any of +these, you must study that wonderful combination of intellect, +prejudice, and passion called the jury. + +When the time comes for you to address that jury you must thoroughly +understand each man. This is not that you may influence him, or "play +upon" him, or resort to any of the devices of the baser sort. It is +that you may know how best to get the truth of your case to him. How +to get your theory, your cause, before each juror should be your only +concern. + +Never try to be "eloquent." Never be funny. Wit may cause laughter, it +never produces conviction. A joke may divert, it never persuades. It +is unnecessary even to arouse a jury's sympathies. _Forget everything +except making the juror understand your case._ The result will be that +he will understand your case, and if he understands it, and it is a +case you ought to win, his understanding of it means that you will win +it. + +Take at least one excellent legal periodical. There are four or five +"law" magazines published in America, some of them very good indeed. +Do not pay any attention to the digests of cases with which some of +these periodicals burden their pages, except to see if there is a +recent decision on some case you are trying. You cannot remember them, +and the effort to do so will only confuse. But you will usually find +in each number one serious and profitable article, and possibly more, +on matters of real interest to the profession. Read such articles very +carefully. + +The methods of scientific scholarship are now invading the law, and +many of these legal essays are superb pieces of work. Now and then you +will find a monograph of monumental worth. Such is the remarkable +introduction to Stephens' admirable work on "Pleading," to which I +have already called your attention. + +That author's demonstration of the value of forms, and his comparison +of the Roman civil law with the English common law, is the most +carefully thought out and learned piece of legal writing I can think +of at this moment. It is as great as it is brief. + +Take part in politics. I know that it is an ordinary saying that a +lawyer should leave politics alone. It is not true. What right have +you, a member of the great profession which, more than all other +forces combined, has established and defended liberty, to withdraw +yourself from active participation in the sacred function of +self-government? You have no such right. + +Of course you should not make politics your profession. That is fatal +to your success in the profession of the law. It is one profession or +the other, one love or the other. But take part in your party's +primaries. Make yourself so wise and useful that you will be an +indispensable party counselor. By all means be a "factor" in your +party. + +As you value life itself, do not permit yourself ever to be made a +lobbyist under the guise of general employment by a corporation or any +other interest concerned in legislation. It is no doubt proper for a +lawyer to make a legal argument before a legislative committee in +behalf of clients. Nevertheless, I advise you not to do it. It is the +first step toward the disreputable form of lobbying. There is, of +course, perfectly proper and even necessary lobbying. But then _you_ +are a lawyer, are you not? + +We all know instances of brilliant lawyers and powerful men who have +thus sold their birthrights for messes of pottage. No matter how much +you need money, never accept a retainer or fee of any kind from any +corporation, person, or "interest" which really does not want your +active service, but in that manner is purchasing your silence. + +Accept no employment except real, genuine employment for actual, +tangible, and honest work. Money obtained from any other kind of +employment is a loss to you in every way, even financially. + +Think daily of the nobility and dignity of your profession. Remember +the great men that have adorned it and established the pillars of its +glory. They were gentlemen, men of learning, of breeding, of honor as +delicate as a woman's blush. Be you such, or leave the profession. + +Keep in mind the lords of the bar. Resolve each morning when you awake +that, to the utmost of your efforts, you will strive to be one of +them--in learning full and thorough, in courtesy delicate, in courage +fearless, in character spotless, in all things and at all seasons the +true knight of Justice. + +Finally, preserve your health, preserve your health, preserve your +health. Work, work, work. Cling to the loftiest ideals of your +profession which your mind can conceive. Do these; keep up your nerve; +never despair; and success is certain, distinction probable, and +greatness possible, according to your natural abilities. + + + + +VI + +PUBLIC SPEAKING + + +"And the common people heard him gladly," for "he taught them as one +having authority." These sentences reveal the very heart of effective +speaking. Considered from the human view-point alone, the Son of Mary +was the prince of speakers. He alone has delivered a perfect +address--the Sermon on the Mount. + +The two other speeches that approach it are Paul's appeal to the +Athenians on Mars Hill, and the speech of Abraham Lincoln at +Gettysburg. These have no tricks, no devices, no tinsel gilt. They do +not attempt to "split the ears of the groundlings," and yet they are +addressed to the commonest of the world's common people. + +Imagination, reason, and that peculiar human quality in speech which +defies analysis as much as the perfume of the rose, but which touches +the heart and reaches the mind, are blended in each of these +utterances in perfect proportion. + +But, above all, each of these model speeches which the world has thus +far produced teaches. They instruct. And, in doing this, they assert. +The men who spoke them did not weaken them by suggesting a doubt of +what they said. This is common to all great speeches. + +Not one immortal utterance can be produced which contains such +expressions as, "I may be wrong," or, "In my humble opinion," or, "In +my judgment." The great speakers, in their highest moments, have +always been so charged with aggressive conviction that they have +announced their conclusions as ultimate truths. They have spoken as +persons "having authority," and therefore "the common people have +heard them gladly." + +All of this means that the two indispensable requisites of speaking +are, first, to have something to say, and, second, to say it as though +you mean it. Of course one cannot have something really to say--a +lesson to teach, a message to deliver--every fifteen minutes. Very +well, then; until one does have something to say, let one hold one's +peace. + +Carlyle's idea is correct. He thought that no man has the right to +speak until what he has to say is so ripe with meaning, and the season +for his saying it is so compelling, that what he says will result in +a deed--a thing accomplished now or afterwhile. In the prophetic old +Scotchman's iron philosophy there was no room for anything but deeds. + +If such instruction is needed; if a great movement requires the +forming and constructive word to interpret it and give it direction; +if a movement in a wrong direction needs halting and turning to its +proper course; if a cause needs pleading; if a law needs +interpretation; if anything really _needs to be said_--the occasion +for the orator, in the large sense of that word, has arrived. +Therefore when he speaks "the common people will hear him gladly"; +they will hear him because he teaches, and does it "as one having +authority." + +Whenever a speaker fails to make his audience forget voice, gesture, +and even the speaker himself; whenever he fails to make the listeners +conscious only of the living truth he utters, he has failed in his +speech itself, which then has no other reason for having been +delivered than a play or any other form of entertainment. + +Very few of the great orators have had loud voices, or, if they did +have them, they did not employ them. I am told that Wendell Phillips +always spoke in a conversational tone, and yet he was able to make an +audience of many thousands hear distinctly; and Phillips was one of +the greatest speakers America has produced. + +It is probable that no man ever lived who had a more sensuous effect +upon his hearers than Ingersoll. In a literal and a physical sense he +charmed them. I never heard him talk in a loud voice. There was no +"bell-like" quality. It was not an "organ-like" voice. + +The greatest feat of modern speech, in its immediate effect, was Henry +Ward Beecher's speech to the Liverpool mob. A gentleman who heard that +speech told me that, notwithstanding the pandemonium that reigned +around him, Beecher did not shout, nor speak at the top of his voice, +a single time during that terrible four hours. + +It is true that AEschines spoke of Demosthenes' delivery of his +"Oration on the Crown" as having the ferocity of a wild beast. I do +not see how that can be, however, because Demosthenes selected Isaeus +as his teacher for the reason that Isaeus was "business-like" in +method. + +This, however, is common to the voices of nearly all great speakers; +they have a peculiar power of penetration that carries them much +farther than the shout and halloo of the loudest-voiced person. They +have, too, a singularly touching and tender quality, which, in a +sensuous way, captivates and holds the hearers. James Whitcomb Riley +has this quality in his voice when reciting. Edwin Booth had it. All +great actors have it. Every true orator has it. It touches you +strangely, thrills you, affects you much as music does. + +It is a remarkable thing that there _is neither wit nor humor in any +of the immortal speeches_ that have fallen from the lips of man. To +find a joke in Webster would be an offense. The only things which +Ingersoll wrote that will live are his oration at his brother's grave +and his famous "The Past Rises before Me like a Dream." But in neither +of these productions of this genius of jesters is there a single trace +of wit. + +There is not a funny sally in all Burke's speeches. Lincoln's +Gettysburg address, his first and second inaugurals, his speech +beginning the Douglas campaign, and his Cooper Union address in New +York, are perhaps the only utterances of his that will endure. + +Yet this greatest of story-tellers since AEsop did not deface one of +these great deliverances with story or any form of humor. + +The reason for this is found in the whole tendency of human thought +and feeling--in the whole melancholy history of the race--where tears +and grief, the hard seriousness of life and the terrible and speedy +certainty of our common fate of suffering and of death, make somber +the master-cord of existence. And the great orator must reflect the +deeper soul of his hearers. + +So all the immortal things are serious, even sad. + +It is so with speech--I mean the speech that affects the convictions +and understanding of men. I am excluding now that form of speech which +belongs to the same class, though not of so high an order, as the +theatrical exhibition. + +Excepting only Lincoln, the Middle West has produced no greater man +than Oliver P. Morton; and few men in our history have had greater +power upon an audience both in the immediate and permanent effect of +his speeches than did Indiana's great Senator. It is related of him +that while a very young man he made a speech so rich in humor and +scintillant of wit that it attracted the attention of the whole +commonwealth. + +Morton, however, was not pleased or flattered. He was alarmed. He +feared that what he knew to be his weighty abilities would be held +lightly by his fellow citizens. From that time on this Cromwell of the +forum never "told a story" or attempted to amuse his hearers in any +way. + +Of course, if your mental armory is naturally heavily stocked with the +various forms of fun, you are not to be blamed for employing the +weapons with which Nature has equipped you and which Nature has +peculiarly fitted you to use--although Morton deliberately let them +rust. But, generally speaking, it is a distinct descent from the high +plane of your address to excite the laughter of your audience. When +you do so, you confess that you are not able to hold the attention of +your hearers by the sustained and unbroken strength of your argument. +You admit that you are either so dull in your thought or indifferent +in your convictions that you know you are wearying your auditors and +must rest them by some mental diversion. + +Where there is an earnestness of thought (and earnestness is only +another name for seriousness) there will always be the same quality in +manner--an impressiveness in bearing and delivery. This is +inconsistent with merriment of delivery, which robs speech of a +certain weight and intrinsic worth. It is also inconsistent with the +voice of storm and the hurricane manner. + +And men in deadly earnest do not talk loudly. It has been my fortune +to see men angry and aroused to the point of killing; they were +intense, but quiet. I have also seen that bravado and drunken +boisterousness which thought it imitated, and meant to imitate, +genuine rage; it was always strident and violent, never dangerous, +never sincere. The same thing is true in speech. + +There have only been two or three roarers in effective +oratory--Mirabeau, by all accounts (though anything can be forgiven a +man who can make such speeches as the great Frenchman made), and +Demosthenes, if AEschines is to be believed, which I think he is not to +be in this particular. He was only excusing his own defeat, and he had +to attribute it to delivery. (I think any unprejudiced mind will agree +that AEschines made the better argument.) All the other great speakers +have, even in their most intense passages, and in situations where +life and death were involved, been comparatively quiet so far as mere +volume of sound is concerned. + +I remember, as if it were yesterday, the first great speaker I ever +heard. It was Robert G. Ingersoll, delivering a lecture in Des Moines, +Iowa, in 1884. He had an audience which would have inspired eloquence +in almost any breast. He came on the stage alone, and was very +carefully, even elegantly attired, to the smallest item of his +grooming. + +His address was in manuscript, and imperfectly committed to memory. He +laid it down on a little table at the back of the stage (returning to +it occasionally to refresh his memory), and then, in a very natural +and matter-of-fact way, walked to the footlights, and, looking the +audience frankly in the eyes, began without an instant's hesitation, +and in a voice precisely as if he were talking to a friend. + +But he was as dramatic at his climaxes as Edwin Booth ever was in +Hamlet. His face paled, or seemed to pale; his hands clinched with a +desperate energy, and the whole attitude of the man was that of one in +awful wrath. Yet his voice was not raised above the common current of +the evening's address--if anything, it was lower. While the mature +mind cannot endure Ingersoll's rhetoric, it must be acknowledged that +his manner of delivery (except when his levity made him coarse) was +nearly equal to that of Wendell Phillips. Still, in his intense +passages Ingersoll was almost fiercely earnest. And Plutarch tells us +that Cicero's friends feared he would kill himself by bursting a +blood-vessel, with such intense energy did he speak. + +Both of these men had that instinctive taste of the great speaker +which Shakespeare has described better than any one else in +literature, when he makes Hamlet tell the players not to "mouth it, as +many of your players do, I had as lief the town-crier spoke my lines. +Nor do not saw the air too much--your hand thus: but use all gently: +for in the very torrent, tempest, and (as I may say) the whirlwind of +passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance, that may give it +smoothness. O, it offends me to the soul to hear a robustious, periwig +pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the +ears of the groundlings; who, for the most part, are capable of +nothing but inexplicable dumb shows and noise: I could have such a +fellow whipped for o'erdoing Termagant; it out-herods Herod: pray you, +avoid it." + +When I was a very young boy I saw a fist-fight which impressed me as +powerfully as any lesson I ever learned at school. An overtall and +powerful man, about forty years old, had become angry at a +medium-sized but very compact man of about the same age. As his +passion increased his violence grew, until finally he was shouting his +denunciations. The little man stood quietly alert. + +Finally, with a great volume of sound, the big man rushed upon the +little one with arms swinging in the air, and I looked with interest +and curiosity to see the smaller man either run or be demolished. He +did neither. His fists were raised quickly but intensely before him, +and when the big man was almost upon him, it seemed to me that his +right hand did not shoot out farther than ten or twelve inches; but it +did shoot out, and the result was as if the big man had been shot, +sure enough. + +He fell like a slaughtered ox, but rose and came on again, only again +to be knocked down. This continued for three or four times, for the +giant was "game"; but finally he was "thrashed to a standstill," as +the expression has it. + +It was a great lesson in life and a great lesson in speaking, which is +only a phase of life. The victor came to the point. He did not +dissipate his energies. It is so in the manner of speaking. The +greatest contrast to the perfect method of Ingersoll which I ever +beheld in a man of equal eminence was in the delivery of a lecture by +Joseph Cook. + +He came on the stage with ostentatious impressiveness. He sat some +time before he was introduced, seeming vast and overpowering--a very +Matterhorn of consequence. After introduction he stood with one hand +thrust in the breast of his tightly buttoned frock coat, and looked +tremendously all over the audience for perhaps an entire minute. +Everybody was awed; he looked so great. We all said to ourselves, +"What a mighty man this is!" + +And when that effect had been produced upon us, the first and great +point of effectiveness had been destroyed: the speaker had made us +think about himself, his manner, his appearance, his personality. All +the evening we had to wade through that slough, trying to follow his +thought. And this reminds me of a saying of one of the most astute +politicians and most capable public men of recent development: + +"The surest sign that a man is not great is that he strives to look +great." + +I think that the best speech I ever heard for obedience to the rules +of art was an address of about ten minutes by a young Salvation Army +officer on the streets of Chicago. I listened with amazement. He was +perhaps twenty-three years of age, with delicate, clear-cut features, +sensitive mouth, and marvelously intelligent eyes. I was just passing +the group as he stepped into the circle that always surrounds these +noisy but sincere enthusiasts. + +He took off his cap, and in a low, perfectly natural, and very sweet +voice, speaking exactly as though he were having a conversation with +his most confidential friend, he began: "You will admit, my friends, +that human happiness is the problem of human life." And from this +striking sentence he went on to another equally moving, showing, of +course, that happiness could not be secured by traveling any of the +usual roads, but only the straight and narrow path which the Master +has marked out. + +It was as simple as it was sincere. And it was as conversational as it +was quiet. Before he had finished, his audience had gathered into +itself every pedestrian who passed during his discourse--business man, +professional man, working man, or what not. + +The fight above described suggests the key to the matter as well as +the manner of speaking. The American audience properly demands, above +everything else, that the speaker get to the point. Our lives are so +rapid; the telephone, telegraph, and all the instantaneous agencies of +our neurotically swift civilization have made us so quick in seeing +through propositions; a hundred years of universal education have +produced a mentality so electric in its rapidity, that effective +oratory has been revolutionized within a decade. + +Burke would not be tolerated now. It is doubtful, even, if Webster +would. The public has already tired of the lilt of Ingersoll's +redundant rhetoric, pleasing as was its music. The effective speech +to-day is a statement of conclusions. + +The listeners, with a celerity inconceivable, sum up the argument on +either side of the proposition you announce, and accept or reject it +by a process of unconscious mental cerebration. + +The most successful speech of to-day would be one of Emerson's essays +rearranged in logical order--if such a thing were possible. Therefore, +in matter, the statement is the form of address now most effective. +Recall the opinion of Senator McDonald--the greatest natural lawyer I +ever knew--that the best argument in a case always is the statement of +the case. + +In form, the sentences should be short; in language, the words should +be as largely as possible Anglo-Saxon. These are the words of the +people you address, therefore they are most influential with them. +Also, therefore, your best method of getting Anglo-Saxon is to mingle +with and talk with the common people. The next best method is to read +the Bible, the King James translation of which is undoubtedly the +purest fountain of English that flows in all the world of our +literature. + +What nonsense the repeated statement that public speaking has had its +day, that the newspaper has taken its place, and all the rest of that +kind of talk. Public speaking will never decline until men cease to +have ears to hear. How hard it is to read a speech; how delightful to +listen! + +Speaking is Nature's choicest method of instruction. + +It begins with mother to child; it continues with teacher to pupil; it +continues still in lecturer or professor to his student (for the +universities are all going back to the old oral method of +instruction); and it still continues in all the forms of effective +human communication. + +The newspapers are a marvelous influence, but they are not +everything, and they do not supply everything. For example, it is +commonly supposed that they, absolutely and exclusively, mold and +control public opinion. But they do not. When all has been said, the +most powerful public opinion, after all, is that from-mouth-to-mouth +public opinion--that living, moving opinion--which spreads from +neighbor to neighbor, and has fused into it the vitality of the +personality of nearly every man--yes, and woman; don't forget that--in +the whole community. + +And the philosophy which underlies this is what makes public speaking +immortal. The Master understood this very well, and that is why He +chose to speak by word of mouth rather than by writing epistles. The +Saviour never wrote a single epistle--no, not even a single word. He +_spoke_ His message. + +Think of a gospel announced to the world in cold type! Absurd, is it +not? It may be repeated in that form, but its initial power must come +from the spoken word and vital personality of its author. But Christ's +addresses were not "extemporaneous." All His life He had been +preparing His few sermons--lessons. + +The great speakers to whom I have listened have confirmed certain +conclusions upon the subject of speaking at which I arrived while in +college. It seemed to me that the college method of speaking was wrong +because it was irrational--that the studied gestures, the "cultivated" +voice, the staccato impressiveness, were all artificial devices to +attract the attention of an audience to these things, instead of to +the thought of the address. + +Analysis of the problem convinced me that an audience is only a larger +person--a great collective individuality--and therefore that whatever, +in manner and matter, will please, persuade, and convince a person, +will have the same effect upon an audience. Hence one readily deduces +that a simple, quiet, but direct, earnest address; a straightforward, +unartificial honest manner, without tricks of oratory, is the most +effective method of lodging truth in the minds of one's hearers. + +Any affectation, any mannerism, detracts from the thought because it +calls the attention of the listener to the mannerism or affectation, +when his whole attention should be monopolized by the thought. Read +Herbert Spencer on the "Philosophy of Style," and apply his reasoning +to the delivery of an address, and you have the rationale of the art +of speaking, as well as of speech, put with that wonderful thinker's +unerringness. + +The method commonly employed in preparing speeches is incorrect. That +method is, to read all the books one can get on the subject, take all +the opinions that can be procured, make exhaustive notes, and then +write the speech. + +Such a speech is nothing but a compilation. It is merely an +arrangement of second-hand thoughts and observations and of other +people's ideas. It never has the power of living and original +thinking. + +The true way is to take the elements of the problem in hand, and, +without consulting a book or an opinion, reason out from these very +elements of the problem itself your solution of it, and then prepare +your speech. + +After this, read, read, read--read comprehensively, omnivorously, in +order to see whether your solution was not exploded a hundred years +ago--aye, a thousand--and, if it was not, to fortify and make accurate +your own thought. Read Matthew Arnold on "Literature and Dogma," and +you will discover why it is necessary for you to read exhaustively on +any subject about which you would think or write or speak. + +But, as you value your independence of mind--yes, even your vigor of +mind--do not read other men's opinions upon the subject before you +have clearly thought out your own conclusions from the premises of the +elemental facts. + +As to style, seek only to be clear. Nothing else is important. Never +try to be elegant or striking. + +Consider the method of the Saviour in His addresses to the people. +Next to Him, those perfect specimens of the art of putting things are +the speeches and epistles of St. Paul. I know of nothing in literature +so clear, convincing, and logical. + +The words of the Master astonish one with their absolute unity with +all the rules of effective address. + +Especially His method of driving home a truth by repeating it, and +that, too, in exactly the same words, is noticeable and very +effective. He did not fear that He would be tiresome; He was concerned +only in being clear. Take the following examples--Matthew vii: + + 24. Therefore, whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and + doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his + house upon a rock: + + 25. And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the + winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it + was founded upon a rock. + + 26. And every one that _heareth these sayings of mine, and + doeth them_ not, shall be _likened unto a_ foolish _man, which + built his house upon_ the sand: + + 27. _And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the + winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell:_ and great + was the fall of it. + +Or study this--Matthew v: + + 29. And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out and cast it + from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy + members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be + cast into hell. + + 30. _And if thy right_ hand _offend thee_, cut _it_ off, _and + cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of + thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should + be cast into hell_. + +Or this--Matthew xxv: + + 34. Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, + ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you + from the foundation of the world: + + 35. For I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, + and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: + + 36. Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I + was in prison, and ye came unto me. + + 37. Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when + saw we _thee an hungered, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave + thee drink_? + + 38. When saw we thee _a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, + and clothed thee_? + + 39. Or when saw we thee _sick, or in prison, and came unto + thee_? + + 40. And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say + unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of + these my brethren, ye have done it unto me. + + 41. Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart + from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the + devil and his angels: + + 42. For _I was an hungered, and ye gave me_ no _meat: I was + thirsty, and ye gave me_ no _drink_: + + 43. _I was a stranger, and ye took me_ not _in: naked, and ye + clothed me_ not: _sick, and in prison, and ye visited me_ not. + + 44. Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we + thee _an hungered, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or + sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee?_ + + 45. _Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, + Inasmuch as ye did it_ not _to one of the least of these, ye + did it_ not _to me_. + +_Observe the exact repetition of entire sentences._ Consider Antony's +funeral oration over the dead body of Caesar, and note the same mastery +of the art of repetition. + +But, like all powerful weapons, it is dangerous to one who is not a +natural speaker. It might easily be fatal, for remember that we are +advised to "use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do, for they +think that they shall be heard for their much speaking." + +Do not be epigrammatic. Never "coin a phrase." Never make a sentence +for the purpose of having the newspaper quote it next day. Usually +such sentences are not quoted. Even if they are, these artificial +arrangements of words never live. The reason is that they _are_ +artificial--they do not have the vitality of sincerity. Let your +striking expressions come naturally as the climax and flowering of +your thought. Then they will live. They will live because they will be +truthful--natural. Nothing but the sincere endures. + +In political speaking, seldom be harsh, seldom denounce, seldom "pour +hot shot into the enemy" as our newspaper head-liners put it. Men in +other parties are not your enemies or the country's--they are fellow +Americans to whom you are trying to show the truth as you see it. I +like to believe that all Americans are patriots, inspired by sincere +concern for the common good and the welfare of the Republic. + +There is nothing in denunciation--nothing in abuse--nothing but bad +taste. "There is no particular argument in slander," exclaimed +Ingersoll in one of our fervid campaigns. The man who "pours hot shot +into the enemy" is using an obsolete method. Don't you use it, young +man. _You_ be reasonable, considerate, earnest only to show your +hearer that you are in the right. This rule is unvarying except, of +course, when great crises occur, when treason is afoot, the Nation's +honor in danger, and the like. But such seasons of peril are rare. + +In all speaking be moderate in statement. Over statement is very +dangerous; under statement subtly powerful. Moderation! I know but two +words so potent--honor and industry. Honor, industry, moderation! What +can prevail against this trinity! And in young men moderation is +peculiarly beautiful. + +I doubt if any man can be a great speaker who does not have in him the +religious element. I do not mean that he shall be good (one may be +good and not religious, or religious and not be good, as any professor +of mental and moral philosophy will tell you), but that he shall have +in him that mysticism, that elemental and instinctive conviction of +the higher power and its providence, which makes him in sympathy with +the great mass of humanity. I think Ingersoll had this element in him, +notwithstanding his attacks upon religion. + +Emerson has pointed out that the great speaker--yes, and the great +man--is he who best interprets the common feeling and tendency of the +masses. + +Very well; the profoundest feeling among the masses, the most +influential element in their character, is the religious element. It +is as instinctive and elemental as the law of self-preservation. It +informs the whole intellect and personality of the people. + +Therefore he who would greatly influence the people by uttering their +unformed thought must have this great invisible and unanalyzable bond +of sympathy with them. I will let your preacher work this out more +elaborately for you. + +One word more; and to this word listen and hearken and bind it on the +tablets of your understanding. + +Insincerity cuts the heart out of all oratory. + +You may marshal your arguments and concoct your pretty devices of +words, and work yourself into a great heat in the speaking of them; +but if you do not believe what you say you are only a play-actor after +all--a poor mummer reciting your own lines. + +You had far better be a professional actor; that will, at least, +insure you excellent lines to declaim. The dramatic profession is +devoted to the interpretation of art in one of its highest forms. A +true actor is a true artist--painter and sculptor no more so. + +If Polus stands on a lower pedestal than Praxiteles in mankind's +esteem it is because his genius was not so brilliant and not because +the art of acting is less noble than that of sculpture. Talma was more +eminent than David. Bernhardt is as noted and notable as Millet, +Irving as distinguished as Millais; while in our own country not more +than two men in painting and sculpture deserve places beside Booth and +Forrest as high priests of Art. + +That your audience applauds you is nothing. The same audience would +applaud Paderewski or a great prestidigitator. You see, your audience +may applaud you because you have put your thought cleverly, or juggled +your words attractively, or thrown over them that magnetic spell which +all great personalities have. It may clap its hands because you have +entertained it. + +But what has all this to do with the truth? And why are you speaking +at all, unless it is that you, knowing the truth, are trying to show +the truth to others? So do not seek to arouse applause for its own +sake. If it comes naturally, spontaneously, it is a pleasant tribute +to your cause. But if you win it by your art, it is merely a tribute +to your powers. And you are not speaking for yourself--you are +speaking for your cause. + +The wife of one of the most effective of American speakers is reported +to have said to him: "I wish you would deliver a speech which no one +can possibly applaud." Of course what she meant was that she would +like to see him devote himself to getting the truth before the people +without resorting to any of the tricks of oratory. + +No matter how much a wizard of words Nature may have made him; no +matter that he has the dark art of making the worse appear the better +reason; no matter that his golden voice is like music, and his very +appearance pleasantly thrills you with the strange and subtle +magnetism of the man: if he have not sincerity, all these are nothing. + +And he cannot affect sincerity and fool the people very long. He may +fool them in one speech or in one campaign if he be a political +speaker, but ultimately the people will sense his moral quality and he +will be discredited. + +This very thing happened to a celebrated American speaker who may be +said to have been endowed with genius. There was no resisting the man +while he was speaking. But he never was honestly in earnest. He never +really cared for his cause. There was never a moment when he could not +have spoken as effectively for the other side. + +Finally this got through the consciousness of the people, and his +power over their convictions speedily dissolved. + +Many years ago a business friend of mine heard this man speak on a +notable occasion. His address was on a subject in which the people +were deeply interested, and was a masterpiece of mingled argument and +pathos; and his audience belonged to him. It had no mind but his, no +will but his. + +Afterward my friend said to me: "That man will not last; he is not +honest. At one climax so pure, so exalted, so tender, that I found +tears in my own eyes, I saw him wink at some intimate friends who were +sitting in a stage-box at his right. I was between them. They were +watching him as they would have watched a friend who was an actor. He, +on his part, was showing them what he could do. That wink said: 'See +how I did that. Now observe me closely! I will throw still another +ball of emotion into the air and juggle with it, too.'" + +And sure enough, he did not last. His tropical mind lasted, his +chameleon imagination lasted, his compelling personality, his grace, +charm, witchery of words--all these lasted; but all these were nothing +without that honesty which would make him die rather than speak for a +cause in which he did not believe, or be silent when a cause in which +he believed was at issue and in peril. + +The people went to hear him even after they had ceased to believe in +him. They applauded, laughed, or were silent as he pleased. But they +were being entertained--nothing more. His art was still perfect, but +his power over the minds and souls of men which made men believe and +do was gone forever. + +Believe what you say, therefore. Say what you believe. Say it simply, +earnestly, as though you were pleading for all that is dearest to you +on earth. For, after all, that is what you are speaking for--truth. +And if the truth for which you are speaking is not dear to you, go +about your other business and remain silent. + +Let your brother who has "the call" utter that message which your +faith is not strong enough to voice; for he, having "the call," will +"speak as one having authority," and therefore "the common people will +hear him gladly." + +To effect anything; to achieve a result; to make your words deeds, as +the old Scotch thinker declared they should be or else not be uttered, +you must teach. And in your teaching you must teach "as one having +authority." + +To the Master we must go, after all, even for our methods of +utterance, and at His feet learn that oratory is the utterance of the +truth by one who knows it to be the truth. And so will your words be +words of fire, and your speech have weight among your fellow men. + + + + +VII + +THE YOUNG MAN AND THE PULPIT + + +All who do their best, and in doing their best do a good piece of +work, deserve equal credit whether the work be little or big. The +architect who builds a house has wrought for humanity as truly as the +statesman who builds a government. One man can make bricks well and +another lead armies to victory; yet each one has fulfilled his destiny +if his achievement was what he was fitted for and if he has done his +best. + +From one point of view all occupations that help one's fellow men are +important. Who shall say that the hod-carrier has not done as much for +humanity as orator or poet. The cook is as necessary as the +philosopher. Compare the blacksmith and the sculptor. The point is, +that all useful labor is equally noble. It all has its place. Each of +the workers of the world is required in the human cosmos. + +It may not be that the worker himself sees that he is essential. It +may not be that he understands the outcome of his striving. For that +matter we are each and all toiling as blindly as the coral insect, +and yet our labor is as much a part of a symmetrical structure as is +the life and perishing of that polyp. + +We are all pouring out our energies day by day without understanding +what effect our spent lives will have in the general result of human +effort. And some of us get heart-sick, no doubt, and weary; and +discouragement whispers, "What's the use," and many another wily +phrase of Satan. + +Very well; let every man, however humble or conspicuous his place +among men, understand that his work _does_ count and will become a +part of an harmonious whole. "All things work together for good." + +No matter that _we_ do not know what we are here for. _We_ may not +understand how our lives are to be woven into the great design of the +world's work any more than a single thread of some wonderful and +beautiful rug understands the pattern of which it is a part. + +No matter, I say. The Master-Weaver understands what we are here for +and what we are doing, and that is enough. He has uses for every sound +thread and doubtless one is as important as another. Vaunt not +yourself O thread of purple, over your fellow-thread of white! + +Asserting then that the man who quarries stone has served humanity as +well as he who writes a book, if quarrying stone is what he can do +best; asserting the equal value of all things done well and the equal +dignity of all sincere and honest work of hand and brain, I shall not +be misunderstood when I say that the present day has developed three +careers of usefulness which, while not more important, are more +continuously prominent than any others. + +These are statesmanship, journalism, and the pulpit. + +The Pulpit deals with faith. It has to do with religion. Religion +makes moral ideals vital. Moral ideals make individual life sweet and +satisfying, national life strong and pure. "Righteousness exalteth a +nation." The young man and the pulpit are therefore preeminent in +conspicuity. + +The American people at heart are a religious people. They are +practical and fearless, too. If you will listen to the chance +conversations of the ordinary American you will find that the laymen +of the Nation have some very decided views upon the Pulpit, the man +who fills it, and the work he ought to do. + +In the breast of the millions there is not only a great need but a +great yearning for certain things of the soul which it is for the +Pulpit to supply. This paper is an attempt to talk as one of these +millions to the young man who is about to mount to this sacred +station. + +"I have just come from church," said a friend one day, "and I am tired +and disappointed. I went to hear a sermon and I listened to a lecture. + +"I went to worship and I was merely entertained. + +"The preacher was a brilliant man and his address was an intellectual +treat; but I did not go to church to hear a professional lecturer. +When I want merely to be entertained I will go to the theater. + +"But I do not like to hear a preacher principally try to be either +orator or artist. I am pleased if he is both; but before everything +else I want him to bear _me_ the Master's message. I want the minister +to preach Christ and Him crucified." + +The man who said this was a journalist of ripe years, highly educated, +widely experienced, acquainted with men and life. He was world-weary +with that weariness which comes of the journalist's incessant contact +with every phase of human activity, good and bad, great and small. + +For no man touches life at so many points and is both so rich in and +worn by human experiences as the newspaper man in daily service. And I +have found that this expression of the wise old man of the press whom +I have quoted fairly reflects a general feeling among men of all other +classes. + +First, then, young man aspiring to the Pulpit, the world expects you +to be above all other things a minister of the Gospel. It does not +expect you to be, primarily, a brilliant man, or a learned man, or +witty, or eloquent, or any other thing that would put your name on the +tongues of men. The world will be glad if you are all of these, of +course; but it wants you to be a preacher of the Word before anything +else. It expects that all your talents will be consecrated to your +sacred calling. + +It expects you to speak to the heart, as well as to the understanding, +of men and women, of the high things of faith, of the deep things of +life and death. The great world of worn and weary humanity wants from +the Pulpit that word of helpfulness and power and peace which is +spoken only by him who has utterly forgotten all things except his +holy mission. Therefore merge all of your striking qualities into the +divine purpose of which you are the agent. Lose consciousness of +yourself in the burning consciousness of your cause. + +Very well; but if you do that you must be very sure of your own +belief. Any man who assumes to teach the Christian faith, who in his +own secret heart questions that faith himself, commits a sacrilege +every time he enters the pulpit. + +Can it be that the lack of living interest in certain church services +is caused by a sort of subconscious knowledge of the people, that the +minister himself is speaking from the head rather than from the heart; +that what he says comes from his intellect and not as the "spirit +gives him utterance"; and, to put it bluntly, that he himself "no more +than half believes what he says." + +"The man spoke as if he were bored with endless repetition of +sermons," said a close observer of a weary parson. + +Certain it is that even in political speaking the man who believes +what he says has power over his audience out of all comparison with a +far more eloquent man whom his hearers know to be speaking +perfunctorily. + +No matter how much the latter kind of speaker polishes his periods, no +matter how fruitful in thought his address, no matter how perfect the +art of his delivery, he fails in the ultimate effect wrought by a much +inferior speaker whose words are charged with conviction. + +He is like the chemist's grain of wheat, perfect in all its +constituent elements except the mysterious spark of life, without +which the wheat grain will not grow. + +If then you do not believe what you say and believe it with all your +soul, believe it in your heart of hearts, do not try to get other men +to believe it. You will not be honest if you do. The world expects you +to be sure of yourself. How do you expect to make other people sure of +themselves if you are not sure of yourself? + + "And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, + but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? + + "Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, let me pull out the mote + out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye? + + "Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; + and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of + thy brother's eye." + +The world is hungry for faith. Do not doubt this for a moment. More +men and women to-day would rather believe in the few fundamentals of +the Christian religion than have any other gift that lavish fortune +could bestow upon them. + +But these millions want to _believe_; they do not want to argue or be +argued at. + +They want to believe so utterly that their faith amounts to knowledge. +Doubtings are disquieting; pros and cons are monotonous. We want +certainty, we laymen. + +For years I have made it a point to get the opinion of the ablest and +most widely experienced men and women I met on the subject of +immortality. In all cases I found that the subject in which they were +more deeply interested than in all other subjects put together. + +"I would rather be sure that when a man dies he will live again with +his conscious identity, than to have all the wealth of the United +States, or to occupy any position of honor or power the world could +possibly give," said a man whose name is known to the railroad world +as one of the ablest transportation men in the United States. + +"Do you know when I am by myself I think about a lot of strange +things. Is the soul immortal and what is the soul anyhow?" It is a +politician who is talking now, and a ward politician at that, a man +whom few would suspect of thinking upon these subjects at all. + +So you see, young man, you who are being measured for the Cloth, that +all manner and conditions of men are thinking about the great problems +of which you are the expounder, and longing for the answer to those +problems which it is your business to give them. That is the condition +of the mind of the millions. + +Very well! What is the condition of the mind of the young minister? A +few years ago a certain man, with good opportunities for the +investigation and a probability of sincere answers, asked every young +preacher whom he met during a summer vacation these questions: + +"First, Yes or no, do you believe in God, the Father; God a person, +God a definite and tangible intelligence--not a congeries of laws +floating like a fog through the universe; but God a person in whose +image you were made? Don't argue; don't explain; but is your mind in a +condition where you can answer yes or no?" + +Not a man answered "Yes." Each man wanted to explain that the Deity +might be a definite intelligence or might not; that the "latest +thought" was much confused upon the matter, and so forth and so on. + +"Second, Yes or no, do you believe that Christ was the son of the +living God, sent by Him to save the world? I am not asking whether you +believe that He was inspired in the sense that the great moral +teachers are inspired--nobody has any difficulty about that. But do +you believe that Christ was God's very Son, with a divinely appointed +and definite mission, dying on the cross and raised from the dead--yes +or no?" + +Again not a single answer with an unequivocal, earnest "Yes." But +again explanations were offered and in at least half the instances the +sum of most of the answers was that Christ was the most perfect man +that the world had seen and humanity's greatest moral teacher. + +"Third, Do you believe that when you die you will live again as a +conscious intelligence, knowing who you are and who other people are?" + +Again, not one answer was unconditionally affirmative. "Of course they +were not sure as a matter of knowledge." "Of course that could not be +_known_ positively." "On the whole, they were inclined to think so, +but there were very stubborn, objections," and so forth and so on. + +The men to whom these questions were put were particularly high-grade +ministers. One of them had already won a distinguished reputation in +New York and the New England states for his eloquence and piety. Every +one of them had had unusual successes with fashionable congregations. + +But every one of them had noted an absence of real influence upon the +_hearts_ of their hearers and all thought that this same condition is +spreading throughout the modern pulpit. + +Yet not one of them suspected that the profound cause of what they +called "the decay of faith" was, not in the world of men and women, +but in themselves. How could such priests of ice warm the souls of +men? How could such apostles of interrogation convert a world? + +These were not examples, however; they were exceptions. Most preachers +believe that they actually know the truths they teach. By and large, +the twentieth century Christian ministry is sound and sure. The +missionary fire still burns in consecrated breasts. + +And that is a lucky thing for the Christian world. We Westerners--we +of America and Europe--would go all to pieces otherwise. You see we +Occidentals have not eons of fatalistic paganism to fall back on as +have the sons of the East. They endure without our religion. But +we--what would happen to us if Christianity did not unite, purify, and +exalt us. + +From the view-point of the layman then, yes and even far more from +your own view-point, be sure of your faith, preparer for the pulpit. +Faith is only another word for power. + +We see it in the small things of life. Note the influence on his +fellow citizens of a man who asserts something positively and heartily +believes what he asserts, even though that thing be untrue and unwise. + +We see it in the great things of history. Witness the inferior +mentality but the burning ardor of a Peter the Hermit, moving all +Europe to the most extraordinary war the world has seen. Consider +Napoleon crossing the Alps--an achievement all men said was +impossible. Impossible! That word is found only in the dictionary of +superstition. + +But your faith, young man, you who are about to go into the Pulpit, +does not deal with little things. It is not interested even in the +large affairs of statesmanship, as such. Yet it embraces all matters. +It involves concerns more important than all history. + +Limitless eternity is its field. Everlasting life is its subject. The +Ancient of Days is its awful familiar. It has to do with the righteous +conduct of individual men and women here on earth and of their eternal +felicity in the world to come. The Ineffable One whose crucifixion has +made the cross a symbol of all good and the emblem of our highest hope +is its divine and inspiring author. + +How noble the attitude of that intellect which is uplifted by a belief +so glorious. No wonder that he who possesses this faith works miracles +in human character more astounding than the dazzling wonders which +science wrings from reluctant matter. No, not he who _possesses_ this +faith, but him whom this _faith_ POSSESSES. The faith is the +reality--you are but the instrument through which that faith works out +the winning of the world. Look to your faith then, you who seek to +save the souls of men. + +For now as ever mankind awaits the magic voice of him whose faith in +God the Father, in Christ His son and in the life eternal is strong as +knowledge itself. Think of John Wesley, think of Ignatius Loyola, +think of the inspired young man who this very year has lifted all +Wales to spiritual heights as elevated as those to which Savonarola +led beautiful and dissolute Florence, and the fire of whose revival +promises to spread over the United Kingdom, purifying all it touches. + +What said they of the Master? "For He spake as one having authority +and the common people heard Him gladly." It was true of Him, too. And +it has been true of each of those princes of faith who, during two +thousand years, have followed the directions of their thorn-crowned +Lord. + +He declared to his disciples: "If ye have faith as a grain of mustard +seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; +and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you." + +If you have not an undoubting belief, you may carve out your sentences +as curiously as you will; deliver them with the voice of music, and +yet be nothing but an entertainer. Speaking as one of the "men of the +street," as one of the millions, I think that the best thing for you +to attend to is this question of faith. + +I have no respect for a lawyer who does not know certain fundamental +definitions by heart; and I have less respect for the preacher who +cannot repeat the eleventh chapter of Hebrews offhand. + +_Get your faith into your blood_; the brain is the place for your +reasonings and argumentations. + +You say that you are a soldier of heaven, battling with the +world--meaning that you represent righteousness as opposed to evil. +That is your attitude--your conception of your mission. Very well, the +secret of your strength has never been so well stated as in the words +of the Apostle, "_This_ is the victory that _overcometh the world_, +even our _faith_." + +Four of the most extraordinary doers of God's work in the world were +Luther, Loyola, Wesley, and Savonarola. Each of this company of +practical and militant Christianity has life instruction for you. But +in the art of preaching, as such, Savonarola has more than either of +the others, although Wesley is nearly his equal, and, as an organizer, +vastly his superior. He perfectly illustrates the miraculous power of +conviction in mere oratory. + +I would advise every young man who intends to enter the pulpit to read +carefully the best life of this wonderful preacher, reformer, and +statesman. And supplement your study of him and his methods by +reading George Eliot's historical novel, "Romola." + +The great Dominican was a Lombard, of harsh accent and strange face, +come to live in the most cultured city in the world. Florence was then +in the full flowering of literature and art; and in her overripe +perfections the poison was distilling of greed and cruelty and +lubricity and all loathsomeness. + +Over this capital of learning, genius, and sin ruled "The Magnificent" +Medici, sitting with easy power on his splendid throne and wielding +his scepter with the accurate skill of a perfect craft and the strong +decision of a fearless heart. + +But you know the story. It was not an inviting field for a preacher +who burned to utter the Word and at the same time hoped to enjoy the +smiles and favors of the great. It was not an encouraging prospect for +any one who wanted to restore the reign of righteousness, even though +he were willing to pay the price of martyrdom. + +But Savonarola accomplished all this and more; for he crowned the +renaissance of letters and art with the renaissance of Christian +morals and religion whose pure and beautiful influence reaches even +unto our day. + +And he did it by faith more than by all other things put together--a +faith so rapt that, to our less passionate natures, it seems to have +been the very insanity of fanaticism. But it did the work; and that is +the thing after all. + +His sermons do not seem to be more remarkable when you read them than +those of many another pulpiteer, although they are full of thought. We +are told, however, that his voice had in it a terrible earnestness, +and his manner was so impassioned that he sometimes seemed to forget +himself. + +But all agree that the magic with which he wrought his wonders from +the pulpit was the feeling that everybody had that Fra Girolamo +_believed what he said_, _knew_ what he said, _meant_ what he said. + +The immediate effect was astonishing--(the after effect still thrills +the world). Mrs. Oliphant quotes Burlamacchi's description of +Savonarola's influence over the people thus: "The people got up in the +middle of the night to get places for the sermon. They came to the +door of the cathedral waiting outside until it should be opened, +making no account of the inconvenience, neither of the cold nor the +wind nor the standing in winter with their feet on the marble." + +I emphasize the point that this effect was not exclusively oratorical, +nor merely magnetic. Chiefly it was what the world has always seen and +always will see when it beholds a strong man in deadly earnest for a +righteous cause. + +We know that this is so because "The Magnificent" induced the most +cultivated pulpiteer in all Italy to preach sermons in Florence so as +to divert attention from Savonarola; and this master of the pulpit, +whom Lorenzo won to his purpose, was better liked and more greatly +admired by the people of Florence than any other orator. + +His name was Fra Mariano, and it was admitted that he was a far better +speaker than Savonarola. Yet he failed utterly, unaccountably. He had +better elocution, a richer voice, more "magnetism," more attractive +qualities every way than Savonarola, and as much learning; _but he did +not have as much faith_. + +I am dwelling upon this because I am quite sure that the people are +more interested in acquiring faith than they are in all your +oratoricals; and because, too, I am quite sure that it is the only +certain method of your effectiveness. + +Faith is infectious. James Whitcomb Riley, whose sweetness of +character and upliftedness of soul equal his genius, gave me the best +recipe for faith in God, Christ, and Immortality I have ever heard: + +"Just believe," said he; "don't argue about it; don't question it; +simply say, 'I believe.' Next day you will find yourself believing a +little less feebly, and finally your faith will be absolute, certain, +and established." + +And why not--you of the schools who split hairs and dispute and come +to nothing in the end, and whose knowledge, after all, as Savonarola +so well said, comes to nothing--why not? For if you cannot _prove_ God +and Christ and Immortality, it is very sure you cannot _disprove_ +them; and it is safe--yes, and splendid--to believe in these three +marvelous realities; or conceptions, if you like that word better. + +The doctrine of _noblesse oblige_ was one of the most beautiful of +human conventions. It was based upon the proposition that a man being +noble and the son of a nobleman could not do a mean thing--it was not +good form. + +But if a man gets it into his consciousness that he is the child, not +of a nobleman, not of an earthly ruler, not of a great statesman, +warrior, scientist, or financier, _but of the living God_ who +presides over the universe, how large, how generous, how exalted, and +how fine his attitude toward life and all his conduct needs must be. + +Savonarola was not alone in the vast crowds he drew by the simple +method he followed. He was not original in that method either. Do we +not read that when "Philip went down to the city of Samaria and +_preached Christ_ unto them, the people ... _gave heed_ unto those +things which Philip spake." + +Of course they gave heed, just as they did to Savonarola. Recall the +expression of the old journalist at the beginning of this paper. He +would never have been bored by Philip or by the Lombard priest. + +Paul got the attention even of the _blase_ Athenians, who would not +listen to anybody or anything very long, "because he preached unto +them of Jesus and the resurrection." + +And you will remember the Master's experience at Capernaum: "And +straightway many were gathered together, _insomuch that there was no +room to receive them, no, not so much as about the door_: and he +PREACHED THE WORD unto them." + +That reads a good deal like the description of Savonarola's +congregations, or of Wesley's, or of the young revivalist in Wales. +No difficulty about _their_ audiences--or congregations, if you insist +on being technical. + +Of course, everybody understands that preaching and faith and all that +is not everything that the young minister must do for his fellow man. +"Faith without works is dead." Everybody who has read the Bible +understands that. + +But this paper is on "The Young Man and the Pulpit"--an attempt to +give him an idea of how the people he is going to preach to look at +this matter, how they regard him, and, above all else, what the people +to whom his life work is devoted really need and really want above +everything else in this world. + +Don't preach woe, punishment, and all mournfulness to the people all +the time. Where you find sin, go ahead and denounce it mercilessly; +but do it crisply, cuttingly, not dully and innocuously. Speak to +kill. Do not forget that the Master told the people of His day that +they "were a generation of vipers." + +But that was not the burden of His appeal. He knew that there were +other things in the world and human nature besides sin. Mostly He +spoke of "things lovely and of good report." Remember that His coming +was announced as a bringing of "good tidings of great joy." + +The Sermon on the Mount is the perfection of thought, feeling, and +expression. Make it your example. You will recall that it begins: +"Blessed are the poor in spirit." It is full of "blessed" and +blessings, of consolations and encouragements and loving promises of +beautiful certainties. "Ye are the light of the world," He said. The +Sermon on the Mount radiates sense and kindness and prayer. + +The One understood that most glorious truth of all truths--that there +is some good in each of us, and that if that good only could be +recognized and encouraged it would overcome the bad in us. You will +remember the saying: "A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump." + +So don't be an orator of melancholy. There is enough sadness in the +world without your adding to it by either visage, conduct, or sermon. +Besides, it is not what you are directed to do. The people would be +very glad if you could say with Isaiah that + +"The Lord hath anointed me to preach _good tidings_ unto the meek; ... +he hath sent me _to proclaim liberty_ to the captives, and the +opening of the prison to them that are bound; to proclaim _the +acceptable year_ of the Lord ... to _comfort_ all that mourn ... to +give unto them _beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the +garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness_." + +That is the kind of talk that will cheer the people, and it is the +kind of talk that will do the people good. There is nothing "blue" +about that. And it is what the Book bids you tell the people. The +people want it, too, and need it--they _need_ "beauty for ashes, the +oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of +heaviness." + +Ah! yes, indeed, that is worth while. Your pews will never be empty if +such be the fruit of your lips and the ripeness of your spirit. The +people want to hear about something better than they know or have +known. + +"How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth +good tidings." + +Nobody likes a scold. Of course, when it is necessary to scold, go +ahead and scold. But don't make scolding a practise. Your congregation +will not stand being abused; they will not stand it unless they +actually need it, and then they will stand it. Unconsciously they will +know that the stripes you lay upon them are medicine after all, and +for their healing. + +But ordinarily everybody has such a hard time that they would like to +hear about "a good time coming." Ordinarily everybody is so tired that +they would like to hear something like this: "Come unto me all ye that +labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest." + +The religion which you preach owes its vitality to the glorious +hopefulness of it. The people want to know that if they do well here +joy awaits them hereafter, and here, too, if possible. They want to +hear about the "Father's house" that has "many mansions," and about +Him who has "gone to prepare a place" for them. + +They demand happiness in some form, if only in talk. If they do not +get it in the assurances of religion, who can blame them if they say: +"Let us eat, drink, and be merry, for to-morrow we die." For sure +enough they _do_ die to-morrow, so far as their world goes. + +If you do not believe that religion means happiness, quit the pulpit +and raise potatoes. Potatoes feed the body at least. But unfaithful +words or speech of needless despair feed nothing at all. It is "east +wind." Put beauty, hope, joy, into your preaching, therefore. Make +your listeners thrill with gladness that they are Christians. Even the +men of the world have wisdom enough to make things profane as +attractive as possible. + +Note, for example, that most successful books are hopeful books that +tell of the beautiful things of human life and character. Especially +is this true of novels, the most widely read of all books of transient +modern literature. The hero always wins--virtue always triumphs. There +are remarkable exceptions no doubt--but they are exceptions. Now and +then there are remarkable novels which scourge with the whips of the +Furies, as indeed most of Savonarola's sermons flagellated. + +With all your faith and the fervor of it, be full of thought. Merely +to believe burningly is not enough. Nobody will listen to you declaim +the confession and then declaim it over and over again and nothing +more. Even pious monotony palls. Bread is the staff of life; and yet +too much bread eaten at one time will kill. Food, taken in excess, +becomes poison. + +I have emphasized the necessity for faith because it will always be +the very soul of your influence over your audience. It is the power +behind your ideas. Faith is the dynamics of truth. But do not forget +that you have got to _have_ ideas. You have got to _have_ truth. + +In every word you utter you must be a teacher. + +After all, teaching is the only oratory. Luke says of the Master that +"he _taught_ the people." In reporting the Sermon on the Mount, +Matthew says that "he opened his mouth and _taught_ them." Time and +again I have heard hard-headed business men and sturdy farmers say of +a particularly instructive sermon: "I like to hear that preacher; I +always _learn_ something from him." + +And let your discourse be full of "sweet reasonableness." Peter tells +you "to be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you +a reason for the hope that is within you," although Peter himself +seldom gave a reason for anything. + +You cannot do this without study. "After you have shot off a gun you +have got to load it before you can shoot it off again," said a wise +old preacher who retained the hold of his youth upon his +congregations. Never cease to renew yourself from every possible +source of thought and knowledge. + +Books, society, solitude, the woods, the crowded streets--all things +in this varied universe have in them replenishings for your mind. +Don't become burnt powder. Keep young. That is your problem and +life's. For mind and soul that is no hard problem, after all. + +Don't repeat your sermons if you can help it. That is hard advice, I +know; but to repeat your sermons is a phase of arrested development +and a method of bringing it about. It is unfortunate for you that +things are so ordered that you must preach a new sermon every Sunday. + +The Saviour did not do it, nor did any of his personal followers. They +taught when "the spirit moved them." I think none of the great +preachers ever spoke with machine-like periodicity--certainly +Savonarola did not. He preached only when occasion demanded it. + +But that is neither here nor there. Preaching every Sunday is our +custom and therefore preach every Sunday you must. I repeat that it is +hard on you, and we sympathize with you; but, as a practical matter, +it is all the more reason why you should ceaselessly fertilize your +intellect. Your audience will pity you, but they are not going to +listen to any twice-told tales, pity or no pity. + +The practise of having short sermons helps you out. I beseech you, as +you wish to hold your hearers, observe this practise. Please remember +that this is America and everybody is in a hurry. They ought not to +be, but they are. Make thirty minutes the limit of your time. Twenty +minutes is long enough. + +It was a very good sermon Paul preached on Mars Hill before the most +critical and cultured audience in the world. And still, allowing for +all deliberation of delivery and for portions of his speech which are +not reported, it could not have taken him longer than fifteen minutes. + +Even the Master, when expounding the whole of the Christian religion +in the Sermon on the Mount, could not have occupied more than half or +three-quarters of an hour; yet he was covering a multitude of +subjects, whereas Paul covered but one. Indeed, the Saviour also made +it a practise to speak upon only one subject at a time. + +The same is true of all great orators except, of course, political +stump speakers, who necessarily must cover all the "issues." The +political speaker is sorry enough that this is true--but there is no +help for it; "the questions of the day" must all be answered. But you, +Mr. Preacher, need not be so encyclopedic; and you ought to be +illuminating and uplifting on _one_ subject in half an hour--and no +longer. That light is brightest which is condensed. + +The Christian religion is a livable creed, is it not? It is a +day-by-day religion; a here-and-now religion. True, it comprehends +eternity, and its perfect flower is immortal life and peace. But that +is for the hereafter. This side of the grave, Christianity is a code +of conduct. So, peculiarly human subjects for your sermons are +endless--subjects of present interest. + +Think of the intimate and personal subjects of Christ's teachings. He +spoke of prayer and the fulfilment of the law, of master and servant +and of practical charity, of marriage, divorce, and the relation of +children to parents; of manners, serenity, and battlings; of working +and food and prophecy; of trade and usury, of sin and righteousness, +of repentance and salvation. Yet by means of all this he made noble +the daily living of our earthly lives and gloriously triumphant the +ending of them. + +Speak helpfully therefore. Remember that the great problem with each +of us is how to live day by day; and that is no easy task, say what +you will. This human talking with human beings is not only consistent +with the preaching of your religion--it _is_ the preaching of your +religion. Christ came to save sinners, but how? By faith? Yes. By +repentance? Yes. By these and by many other things; _but by conduct +also_. + +I do not think the ordinary layman cares to hear you preach about some +new thing. The common man prefers to hear the old truths retold. +Indeed, there can be nothing new in morals. "Our task," said a +clear-headed minister, "is to state the old truths in terms of the +present day." That is admirably put. In science progress means change; +in morals progress means stability. No man can be said to have uttered +the final word in science; but the Master uttered the final word in +morals. + +Many people greatly debate whether the minister of the Gospel should +"mix up in politics." There is a protest against ministers using their +pulpits to express views on our civic and National life. + +I have no sympathy with such views. Of course the preaching of his +holy religion is the minister's high calling; of course the spiritual +life practically applied should receive his exclusive attention. But +does not that include righteousness in the affairs of our popular +government? Does it not involve uprightness in public life? + +It seems to me that the Master took a considerable part in public +affairs. Did he not even scourge the money-changers from the Temple? +And John Knox, Wesley, and other great teachers of the Word profoundly +influenced the political life and movements of their time. Savonarola, +to whom I have so often referred, was a skilled politician, though of +so high a grade that he may be justly called a statesman. + +Upon this subject the views of the ordinary laymen of the country are +these: Whenever a civic _evil_ is to be eliminated it is not only +appropriate, but it is the office of the minister to help eliminate +it. Whenever the cause of light is struggling with the powers of +darkness the place of the Christian minister is in the ranks. + +But as a general proposition he can do most good by merely preaching +individual righteousness day after day without definitely interfering +with things political. For there is always the danger that if he takes +part in many political agitations he will become so monotonous that +all his power for good will be dissipated. + +But after all is said and done the millions want from the modern +pulpit the fruitful teaching of the Christian religion. They want the +fundamentals. They want decision and certainty. Their minds are to be +convinced, yes, but even more their hearts. + +This is the task that awaits you, young man, who, from that spiritual +tribune called the Pulpit, are soon to speak to us who sit beneath you +that Word which is for "the healing of the nations." How exalted +beyond understanding is this high place to which you are going. What a +hearing you will have if only you will utter words of power and light. +Believe me, the world with eagerness awaits your message. But be sure +it _is_ a message in very truth--no, not _a_ message but THE +message. + + + + +VIII + +GREAT THINGS YET TO BE DONE + + +Some four years ago a young man of uncommon ability, but lacking the +imagination of hope, said to me that it seemed to him as if everything +great had already been done. + +"Great battles," said he, "have been fought; there will be no more +wars of magnitude. The great principles of the law have all been +announced and applied to every conceivable form of human rights and +controversy. For example, in our own country there will be no more new +and great constitutional arguments. Everything, from now on, will be +only an application of what has already been said and decided. + +"In invention, there may be some improvements on old and present +devices, but there will be no more Edisons, no more Marconis. In +medicine, we are about at the top of the mountain. In literature, the +creative and fundamental things have all been done. There will be no +more Shakespeares, no Miltons, no Dantes, no Goethes. Even Hugo is +dead. From now on books will be mere second-hand talk. + +"In statesmanship, nothing is left except that common housekeeping +which we call administering government. In diplomacy, the same old +lies will continue to be told, and so on." + +This young man's profoundly melancholy view of life is that which I +have found crushing the _elan_ out of many young men; and particularly +college students. In their hearts they feel that progress is finished, +so far as individual effort _by them_ is concerned. They feel that +_for them_ there is nothing but to eat, sleep, laugh, grieve and go to +their graves. They feel that _for them_ there is no such thing as +leaving behind them a monument of their own constructive effort. Talk +to most young men in college or school, and you will find this +feeling, like a pathetic minor chord, running through their highest +and most daring boasts. + +Is not our college training responsible for some of this melancholy +negativeness of life? However it happens, the truth is that too few +young men come out of our great universities with the greater part of +the boldness of youth left in them. Somehow or other those fine, and, +if you will, absurd enthusiasms which nobody but young men and +geniuses are blessed with, have been educated out of the graduate. How +many seniors in our historic American universities would not have +sneered John Bunyan out of existence, or have told the young and +unripe Bonaparte how presumptuous he was to think of fighting the +trained generals of Europe? + +"Yes," says a certain type of young man, "all the great things have +been done. Nothing is left for me but the commonplaces." This is not +true. + +The great things have not all been done; scarcely have they been +commenced. "There is more before us than there is behind us," said my +old forest "guide," wise with the wisdom of the woods and their +thoughtful silences. And the purpose of this paper is to point out the +infinite number of practical possibilities immediately at hand; to +awaken each young man who reads these words to some one of the million +voices which from all the fields of human endeavor is calling him; and +so, by showing him things to do, make him a doer of things, if he +will. + +Let us take the law--that entrancing subject which exercises such an +empire over the minds of most young men. Our own constitutional law +is only a part of that universal body of jurisprudence with which all +real lawyers must deal. Very well; we have only begun the discussion +and settlement of our great constitutional questions. Marshall and +Hamilton, it is true, when they formulated the doctrine of implied +powers, seemed to unlock the door of all constitutional difficulties, +leaving nothing for future lawyers and jurists to do but to find their +way through the channels and passages thus opened. + +But it was only one great field to which they laid down the bars. +Others equally large--yes, larger--lie beyond it. It is generally +admitted now by all thorough students of the Constitution that there +is such a thing as constitutional progress--constitutional +development. The Constitution does and will grow as the American +people grow. + +Half a dozen questions are now in the public mind that measure, in +importance, up to the level of Marshall's elementary decisions. Beyond +these is still the application of institutional law to the +interpretation of the Constitution. There is no book so much needed in +the present, or that will be so much needed in the future, as a great +work on our institutional law--such a work as the world sees once in +a century. + +Consider this one phase of jurisprudence for only a moment, young man, +just to see what a world of thought it opens to the mind. +Institutional law is older, deeper, and even more vital than +constitutional law. Our Constitution is one of the concrete +manifestations of our institutions; our statutes are another; the +decisions of our courts are another; our habits, methods, and customs +as a people and a race are still another. + +Our institutional law is like the atmosphere--impalpable, +imperceptible, but all-pervading, and the source of life itself. Most +leading decisions of our courts of last resort, involving great +constitutional questions, refer to the spirit of our institutions as +interpreting our Constitution. It is our institutional law which, +flowing like our blood through the written Constitution, gives that +instrument vitality and power of development. + +Institutional law existed before the Constitution. Our institutions +had their beginnings well-nigh with the beginning of time. They have +developed through the ages. Magna Charta only marked a period in their +growth; the assertion of the rights of the Commons marked another; +our Revolution marked another; the adoption of our Constitution marked +another still. + +I have no respect for constitutional learning which deals alone with +the written words of the Constitution, or even with the intention of +its framers, and ignores the sources and spirit of that great +instrument. The Constitution did not give us free institutions; free +institutions gave us our Constitution. All our progress toward liberty +and popular government, made since the adoption of the Constitution, +has been the spirit of our institutions working out its sure results, +through the Constitution when possible, modifying it when necessary. + +Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence a denunciation of +slavery, and called it an "execrable commerce." It was stricken out at +the request of Georgia and South Carolina, and years afterward slavery +was recognized in our Constitution. + +But slavery was opposed to the spirit of our institutions, and while +legalized by our Constitution and defended by armies as brave as ever +marched to battle, constitutional slavery went down before +institutional liberty; and Appomattox was the capitulation of the word +of death in our Constitution to the spirit of life in our +institutions. Every amendment of our Constitution marks the progress +of our institutions. + +The Constitution contemplated and provided for the election of +Presidents by electors, who should select the best man to preside over +the Republic, irrespective of the people's choice. That was the +intention of the fathers. But in that they did not correctly interpret +the spirit and tendency of our institutions, which is toward getting +the Government as close to the people as possible. + +And so, in spite of the Constitution, in spite of the intention of the +fathers, in spite of the fact that this plan was pursued for several +elections, the spirit of our institutions prevailed over our +Constitution, and no presidential elector now dare cast his ballot +against the candidate for whom the people instruct him to vote. + +Even outside of the doctrine of implied powers by which our written +Constitution has been made to meet many of the emergencies of our +history, there are important things in our National life that have all +the force of organic law which are unprovided for by the Constitution. +For example, the Constitution does not say that a congressman must +live in the district which he represents. So far as constitutional +law is concerned, he might live anywhere. But no matter--our +institutional law settles that. The theory of local self-government +requires the representative of a locality to live in that locality. + +Wherever our Constitution has been weak and insufficient in its +apparent expressed powers, the spirit of our institutions has given it +life. Read Marshall's opinions; read most of our great constitutional +decisions; read the whole history of American constitutional progress, +if you would know the beneficent influence of our institutions on our +Constitution. + +Thus we see that our institutions are the preservers of our +Constitution. The doctrine of implied powers, which has saved the +country and the Constitution too, has been made possible only by +reading our Constitution by the light of our institutions, as Hamilton +and Marshall did. + +And so our security is not in the written word of the Constitution +alone; it is there, of course, but it is in our institutions also +which are the spirit of the Constitution, which illumine and emphasize +the meaning of that noble instrument. England has no written +constitution; certain other countries have had and have now ideal +written constitutions. + +And yet England has steady and continuous liberty and law, while those +others, even with written constitutions, frequently have had +bureaucracy and military absolutism. They had the _forms_ of liberty +and popular government in these written constitutions, but they did +not have free institutions, which alone make formal constitutions +living and vital things. + +England, without a written constitution, is almost as free a +government as ours. Law reigns supreme. The poorest gatherer of rags +has equal rights before the bar of justice with belted earl or +millionaire, and those equal rights are impartially enforced. Neither +wealth nor title are favored more than poverty or humble rank in the +courts of England; and even royalty appears as witness, the same as +his meanest subject. + +The Government itself is subject to the will of the people; and no +ministry remains in power in face of an adverse majority, or forces +into law an act of which the people disapprove. The English Parliament +goes to the people as often as the Government, in any of its proposed +measures, fails of a majority. The suffrage is constantly enlarging, +and the rights of labor are almost as carefully guarded by the laws +of England as by ours. + +England's treatment of Ireland has been harsh, severe, unjust; and yet +even there the spirit of a larger liberty in the interest of the Irish +tenant, approaching state socialism, compels the landlord to sell his +land whether he wants to or not, at a price fixed by others than +himself, and enables the tenant to buy the land by the payment of his +rent. Tolerance, justice, and individual liberty are daily developing +throughout the British Empire, instead of diminishing. + +And yet England has no written constitution. But she has institutions, +free institutions, institutions similar to those we have here in +America. It is the free institutions of England that preserve and +increase the liberty of Englishmen, and diminish and destroy the +authority of the monarch, who is now only the personification of the +nation, the emblem of the Empire. + +It is England's free institutions that, in Egypt, in Hongkong, in +Ceylon, in the Malay states, in India, have given the people of those +dark places some of the fruits of liberty to eat for the first time in +all the strange history of the oppressed and wasted Orient. And it is +our free institutions, as well as our Constitution, that in America +make kings impossible, and have, for a hundred years, wrought for a +larger liberty and a more popular government. + +And it is the spirit of our institutions, as well as our Constitution, +that will prevent the abuse of power by American authority in Porto +Rico, Hawaii, the Philippines, or any other spot blessed by the +protection of our flag. It is our free institutions, working now by +one method and now by another, after the fashion of our practical +race, that are establishing order, equal laws, free speech, +unpurchasable justice, and "life, liberty, and the pursuit of +happiness" throughout our ocean possessions. + +It is our institutional law, therefore, of which men should inquire +who would know the meaning and the life of our constitutional law. We +have heard from lawyer and orator of "the Constitution," "the letter +of the Constitution," etc.; we have listened for "our institutions," +and in vain. And yet, is it not written that "the letter killeth, but +the spirit giveth life"? + +Is it not written that "man shall not live by bread alone, but by +every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God"? I respect not +the expounders of constitutional law who have not learned the history +of our institutions, of which the Constitution is the richest fruit, +until that history is a part of their being. + +I respect not that constitutional charlatanism that fastens its eye on +the printed page alone, disdains our institutions as interpreting it, +and refuses to consider the sources of that Constitution--the +development of our present form of government for a century and a half +from the old crown charters; the English struggle for the rights of +man, regulated by equal laws which preceded that; the spirit of Dutch +independence, Dutch federation, and Dutch institutions working upon +that, and still back to the counsels of our Teuton fathers in the +German forests in the dim light of a far distant time. + +If a people adopt a written instrument, you must understand that +_people_ and their _institutions_ before you understand the writing. +You cannot separate a people and their history from a written +constitution which is only a part of that history. The same words by +one people may have a different meaning used by another people. Any +writing can only be an index to the institutions of a people. + +A people's _institutions_ are the soul of the written and unwritten +law. You must understand the French people, their history, and their +institutions, before you can understand their written constitution. +You must understand the American people, our history, and our +institutions, before you can understand our Constitution. + +I have thus enlarged upon our institutional law to give young men a +hint of its possibilities. Before this century closes, the greatest +law book in all the literature of jurisprudence will be produced upon +the subject of our institutional law. The materials are as plentiful +as the history of our race, the demand as insistent as our daily life. + +Great law books all written! Nonsense. As yet we have had only the +turgid descriptions of the toilsome and halting progress of justice +through the ages--that is all we have had, compared with the noble +volume that will be written, giving mankind the high, clear, and +simple thinking of a greater Blackstone and a wiser Kent. It may be +that this generation will produce this immortal judicial author; it +may be that you, young man, are he. At least one thing is sure--the +work is there waiting for the workman. + +But if you do not feel equipped for this monumental effort, there are +other phases of the law more imminent, if not so comprehensive, in +each of which there is opportunity and demand for original work. + +For example, it is clear to all that the laws of marriage and divorce +must be made rational and uniform throughout the Nation; that the laws +respecting corporations are inappropriate, inadequate, and unjust, +both to corporations and to the public--that they do not measure up to +the present complex conditions; that the laws respecting commercial +paper need to be systematized. + +It is absurd, too, that a farmer living on one side of an imaginary +state line which separates his farm and the state in which it is +located from that of his neighbor living on the other side of the +imaginary line in another state, should have to deal with his neighbor +as if he were a foreigner in a foreign land and under foreign laws. + +Again, the multiplication of decisions on all subjects has reached a +point where practise by precedent, to be exhaustive and thorough, has +become practically impossible; and so the problem that confronted the +Roman emperors, and terminated in the Pandects of Justinian, is now +demanding immediate solution at the hands of American legislators, +lawyers, and jurists. + +So, you see, my ambitious young friend, that by no means all has been +done in the law, and that what has been done is so bulky, unorganized, +and confused, that even to reduce, rationalize, and systematize it is +the greatest task of all. The trouble will therefore be with yourself, +and not with conditions, if you remain an underling in this great +profession. + +Take literature--take imaginative literature. More can be said on its +possibilities than on those of the law--and I enlarged upon the +unexplored fields of the law merely to outline the immensity of the +great things yet to be done in the law's domain. Is it not plain that +the great novel of modern society is yet to be written? The contest +between human nature and the complex machinery of our industrial +system, and the mastery of human nature over the latter, present a +theme such as Homer, or Vergil, or Dante never had. + +The world awaits this genius! If you are not he, but talented in that +direction, there are a thousand phases of American life that are of +permanent historic value, which are rapidly passing away forever, and +need to be perpetuated by literature and art. + +In poetry, the master singer of modern days has not yet appeared. +There have been faint signs of him, a suggestion of him, an indistinct +prophecy of him, in nearly all of the world's singers for a hundred +years. Some day he will come. It may be soon, and then he will sound +that note which shall again thrill the hearts and again turn +heavenward the eyes of men all round the world. + +The point I am making is that the great things in poetry have not all +been done. On the contrary, it is the same old cry the world has heard +since Homer. Until Shakespeare wrote, it appeared, to those who had no +vision, that the immortal things in literature had all been done. But +these immortal things and things not immortal, things permanent and +things temporary, were only food and material for Shakespeare. + +Literature, then, has only been furnishing the materials--the +timber--for the structure that is yet to be built. But the timber is +noble in dimension, and they must be giants who use it. If you are a +giant, your task awaits you. + +"It is nonsense to talk of any great war in which this country will +ever be engaged," said a wise and experienced public man to me one +day, in discussing our future. "There is no place in the world for +distinguished service by an American soldier. He can wear his uniform; +he can study his tactics; he can be a warrior of the ball-room; but, +after all, he is only a kind of policeman." + +This conversation occurred some years ago. The fallacy of this +conservative (shall we not say short-sighted, for sometimes they are +mistaken for one another) man's conclusion has been revealed by recent +events. And these events are only an index of similar possibilities. +Not that we want war; not that it is desirable; not that it should not +be avoided, if possible; but that the movement of the pawns by Events +on the great chess-board of the world and history may force us to war, +no matter how unwillingly. + +It may be that in the ultimate outcome, to use a double superlative, +"a parliament of man and federation of the world" will be established +which shall divide and distribute commerce as railroads are now said +to agree on division of business and equality of rates. + +But before such a noble condition arises there will surely be vast and +destructive conflicts, unless the temper, nature, and attitude of men +and nations change; and, if they do occur, no one but a fanatic of +reaction imagines for one instant that we shall be able to keep out of +them. + +So that not all the battles have been fought, not all the strategy +thought out. And if you are a soldier and mean business, you need not +despair of the possibility of winning one of the highest of honors +given man to win--the honor of fighting for your country and of dying +for your flag. + +The Russo-Japanese War has demonstrated that military science is as +much more complex and difficult to-day than during our Civil War, as +it was then more complicated than in the time of battle-ax and lance. +The recent conflict in Asia shows that it is as important to get +wounded men cured and back on the firing line as it is to punish the +other side. A nation that would now enter into armed conflict without +a general staff or some similar body of men would be hurling its +soldiers, however brave, to certain death. + +And yet Von Moltke, Germany's greatest captain, originated the modern +general staff; and the United States, with all of our American +progressiveness, had no general staff at all until Secretary Root +prevailed upon Congress to provide one. These general staffs plan, +during the long years of peace, every possible conflict. They map out +with absolute accuracy every imaginable field of operations in the +country of every possible enemy; they equip the general in the field +with information on all subjects, perfect to the smallest detail. + +Japan's general staff has been preparing day and night for the present +war for every month of every year of an entire decade. Oyama's +victories were ripening in the brain of this modern Attila for ten +long years. Von Moltke had thought out the conquest of France years +before fate blew the trumpet that set the tremendous enginery of his +plans in motion. Yes, but these men kept thinking, thinking. + +Nobody heard _them_ saying that all great wars had been fought. +Perhaps they did not know whether all wars had been fought or not; but +they knew this: That if any future wars were to be fought, those wars +would be bigger than any conflict that had gone before, and that their +armies would have to be handled with greater precision, and their +tactics would have to be more daring than even those of Napoleon, or +Hannibal, or Caesar. + +Very well, the Franco-Prussian War did come. The Russo-Japanese War +did come. And when the time for these dread duels between peoples +arrived, those men were in the saddle. Battles whose red desperation +have made the world's historic combats look small, have within a year +taught all men that the art of war requires as much original thinking +as it did when the Corsican overwhelmed the muddled military minds of +Europe, weakened and palsied by the belief that nothing more was to be +learned in warfare. + +Manchuria's awful lesson teaches you, young man, that the profession +of arms, dreadful as it is honorable, holds out to you all the +possibilities by which every great captain of history made his name +immortal. + +"I think the statesmanship of Joseph Chamberlain is the most +comprehensive and instructive since that of Bismarck," said a +passenger on an ocean steamer to an Englishman of considerable +distinction in the world of letters. + +"I fail to see the statesmanship," said the latter; "will you kindly +point it out?" + +"Why," said the admirer of Chamberlain, "the British Empire needed +unifying; it needed to be bound together by ties of sentiment, by all +those means which consolidate a nation. Its connections were too +loose. Chamberlain has, by the Boer War, begun its unification. +Canadians have fallen on the same field with England's soldiers. + +"Australians have poured out their blood as a common sacrifice for +England's flag. The empire has been knit together by a common heroism, +a common sacrifice, a common glory, and a common cause. It should not +be hard to induce all portions of the empire to unite on a great +scheme of parliamentary representation. I call that great +statesmanship." + +"Yes, indeed it is," said the English litterateur, "but Joseph +Chamberlain never had such a thought." + +The point of the conversation is that, whether Mr. Chamberlain had +this thought or not, the _materials for the thought existed_. The +conditions for this really constructive statesmanship were there. They +awaited the hand of the master. Conditions of equal magnitude exist in +half-a-dozen places in the world. Russian development of Siberia and +seizure of Manchuria are one. + +It had for several years appeared to me that Manchuria was the point +about which the international politics of the world would swirl for +the next quarter of a century. So certain did this seem, that I +hastened to this great future battle-field in the year 1901; and while +the diplomats of all the nations, including our own, scoffed at the +possibilities of war between Russia and Japan, the certainty of that +mighty contest could be read in the very stars that shone above +Manchuria, in the very Japanese barracks, on every Japanese +drill-ground. + +Settlement of this tremendous dispute will call for larger +statesmanship than the world has seen for half a century. The +movements of all the powers at the present crisis, and, indeed, their +entire Oriental policy, are of the most solemn concern to the Republic +not only for the immediate moment, but even more for the future. + +This is especially true of Japan; for, with cheap labor, rare aptitude +for manufacture, and propinquity of position, the Island Empire now +becomes the most formidable competitor for the trade of China. + +And China is the only--or at least the richest--unexploited market +where American factories and farms can, in the future, dispose of +their accumulating surplus. England almost monopolized China's coast +markets until, recently, Germany began rapidly to overhaul her. But +Japan will, in the near future, distance both. American interests in +the Far East are vital even now; and they are only in their beginning. +We cannot longer be indifferent to any statesmanship that involves the +commercial development of Asia. Solution of the great problems which +the Russo-Japanese war has stated, and the resultant steps thereafter +taken, are of keenest interest, and may be of most serious import, to +the American people. + +It is very possible, as I pointed out in "The Russian Advance," that +Japan will attempt the reorganization of China. Indeed, that +development is quite probable. That is certainly Japan's plan and +ideal. Any one of a half dozen courses may be adopted. And, I repeat +it, any one of them may present the gravest of situations to American +statesmanship. As I write it is quite sure that Russia is beaten on +the field. Think now, young man, of the immensity of the statesmanship +required right now, _which five years ago everybody would have +declared impossible and absurd_. + +Especially will Japanese dominance of the Orient, military and +commercial, upon which Japan is determined, bring us Americans face to +face with a new set of conditions, requiring the highest order of +careful thought, the clearest, firmest announcement of national +policy. Do not fear, young man, lest all of this be over before the +time has come for you to play your part on the stage of human affairs. +The new problems which the whole Orient will propose to the entire +world, and particularly to America, will last for a century at least. + +Indeed, it is probable that our relations with the East will become +and remain one of the leading subjects of American statesmanship as +long as the Republic endures. For that matter, you may go further, and +say that the great human question of modern times is the meeting face +to face of Oriental and Occidental ideals, of the white and yellow +theory of life and morals, and the gradual destruction of one by the +other, or their mutual modification and adjustment. + +But we are getting into deep waters now. That is the point I am +making. They show that, dive you ever so deep, young man, present-day +statesmanship has depths which not even the plummet of imagination has +yet been able to sound. And can we doubt that to-morrow's national and +world problems will be deeper still? + +There are three or four great international questions for this +Republic to solve on this Western hemisphere, the working out of any +one of which means immortality for the statesman who does it. + +Of course, the great industrial and sociological questions are the +profoundest of all. The world has been at work on these since men +arranged themselves into organized society. But the incredibly swift +evolution of modern business itself seems to be hastening the time +when some satisfactory solution of these master problems must at least +be begun. + +So that, if you really have the material of a statesman in you--the +stuff that thinks out the answer to great questions--there is a field +before you compared with which the opportunities of Hamilton and +Washington and Jefferson almost seem small, leviathan as those +opportunities were and masterfully as those great men improved them. + +The editor of one of our big modern newspapers gave it to me as his +opinion that the art of producing a newspaper is as much in its +infancy as is the science of electricity. "The yellow journal," said +he, "is an evolution, just as trusts in their deeper significance are +an evolution. We have had the didactic editor; he did his work and has +passed away. We are now having the editor who deals with facts--'cold +facts,' as Dickens would say--but, in his turn, he is only a part of +the general evolution. There is not an editor in this country, no +matter what his own views may be as to his own paper, who does not +know, and in his heart admit, that the ideal paper is yet to be +produced." + +Excellent and even wonderful as the public press of to-day is, the +above is the opinion held by the great mass of men; and it is the +correct opinion. I mean what I say when I use the words "excellent and +wonderful" as applied to newspapers. To me the newspaper is a daily +astonishment. What we are all in search of is fresh and vital thought +and suggestion; and no one can acquire the _art_ of newspaper reading +without getting, each day, one or many new points of view on the world +and its great human currents. + +Each one of our metropolitan papers is at enormous outlay to get +strong, capable men--young men with new minds and old men with wise +minds. It is simply out of the question for these men, working +together, to bring forth a product that does not have in it some +remarkable thing--some new point of view, some fact which your most +careful research has not disclosed to you. + +I remember an instance in my own experience. There was a subject to +which I had given some years of off-and-on study. I felt that at least +the facts had been accumulated. All that remained was to deduce the +truth from these facts. But an editorial on this subject in a notable +daily paper brought out a salient fact which none of the books had +mentioned, and yet which, when one's attention was called to it, was +so apparent that it really ought to have suggested itself. Yet all the +speeches of the specialists on this subject, and all of the volumes, +had failed to note it. + +Some vigorous young mind on that paper had discovered it in studying +the elementary factors of the problem itself. But this is digression. +I am simply calling your attention to the fact that there are +opportunities for you to be greater in the world of journalism than +Greeley, or Raymond, or Bennett, or Bowles, or Dana, or any of the +extraordinary men that have illumined the whole science of journalism +by their intellect, accomplishments, and character. + +Electricity is a mysterious force which excites not only all the +speculation but all the mysticism in man. I contemplate its +manifestations--equally deadly and vital--with feelings of wonder and +awe. I always search for an electrician and listen to his stories of +the mysterious power with which he deals. One of the greatest of them +said to me last year: + +"No, we really know nothing about it, after all. We have managed to do +a great many things with it. We have learned some of its properties, +but it holds fast its inner secrets. The great universe of electrical +discovery has hardly been entered." But electricity is not the only +modern mystery. + +Take photography, that wizard-like science. The man who, fifty years +ago, would have predicted the moving picture which has already become +commonplace to us, would have been rejected as a madman. +Tele-photography is almost as remarkable as the moving picture. +Color-photography will yet be reduced to perfection. The chemists are +constantly astounding us with suggestions so remarkable that they are +weird. + +Luther Burbank creating new species of plant life, Max Standfuss doing +the like with insects, make the Arabian Nights commonplace and dull. +Think of the Roentgen rays! Think of the achievement of the wonderful +young Italian! Marconi's invention seems uncanny, so impossible does +it appear even when you watch his magic instrument at work. + +In the laboratories of Europe and America investigations are this very +moment being made into Nature's securest secrets. The mystery of +to-day will be to-morrow's accepted and commonplace truth. One seizes +one's head and closes one's eyes in bewilderment at the possibilities +of science in every direction. + +All the great inventions, all the great discoveries, made! How like +the egotism of the infinitesimal mind of the human race that thought +this! + +If all the great inventions and discoveries have been made, man has +already mastered all of the laws of God's universe, and applied them +practically to all conditions and substances in existence. How absurd! + +The field of invention and scientific discovery is like that strange +and awful manifestation known as the "Milky Way." We see it with our +naked eye--numberless stars and a pale, growing blur around and behind +them, and we childishly call it the "Milky Way." + +That miracle called the telescope is invented; we look again, and +there are more and new stars--but, still farther on in the infinite +depths, the blur of light. Higher and higher goes the power of +telescope after telescope, but all that they reveal is a bewildering +infinitude of more new stars--and beyond that again the "Milky Way." + +This is an old and commonplace illustration, I know very well; but it +exactly represents the possibilities of new and vast inventions, of +strange and priceless discoveries, wherever you turn your eye. + +The only question is whether you have the _eye_. The conditions are +there to be discovered--_begging_ for discovery. If you have vision +and do not produce a great invention, the fault is not in the universe +about you. Of course, if you haven't vision, do not attempt it. Darius +Green and his flying machine are ridiculous always. + +What I have said of invention, war, statesmanship, literature, +journalism, and the law, may be applied to every conceivable field of +human thought. I merely wish to impress upon the great mass of young +Americans that not only have all the great things not been done, but +that the greatest of great things are yet to come. + +If you have greatness in you, do not be discouraged. "It is up to +_you_." + +Do not be discouraged, either, at failure and rebuke and defeat. If +you are going to attempt great things, remember you are starting on a +trunk-line. Very well; all continental trunk-lines have tunnels here +and there. But these tunnels are black with only temporary gloom. + +It is only the short roads that do not run through the mountains. +Tunnels--flashes of darkness--are certain to those who travel far. +Think of this--you who have troubles, difficulties, discouragements. + +But if on finding your limitations, as suggested in the first chapter +of this book, you discover neither inclination nor talent for these +great ventures in thought or action, do not, as you value happiness, +and even life, attempt great things; for your failure has been written +before you were born. + +_Do the thing which is in proportion to yourself_; and if that thing +is not great, still you have served yourself, your family, your +country, and the world, just as much as he who has done a larger +thing, and you deserve just as much credit for doing it. + +None of us controlled the color of our eyes or the texture of our +brain. If we could have done so, perhaps we should have been different +from what we are. And we cannot change the nature and relations of +things now; for "which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto +his stature"? + +But be your deeds little or big, one thing you _can_ do and be: _You +can be a man_ and do a man's work, heart gentle, and fearless feet on +the earth, but eyes on the stars. And to be a MAN, in our +American meaning of that word, is glory enough for this earthly life. +_Be a man_, be you street-sweeper or the Republic's President, and +know that emperor on throne of gold can be no more, and is lucky if he +is as much. + + + + +IX + +NEGATIVE FUNDAMENTALS + + +At one of the great official receptions at the White House one night +some years ago, a group of two or three gentlemen were observing the +swirling throng, with its ambitions, its jealousies, its brief flashes +of happiness, its numberless and infinitesimal intrigues, its +atmosphere of jaded, blase, and defeated expectations. + +One of the group was perhaps the greatest master of that mere +political craft and that management of men for the ordinary uses of +politics, as we employ the word, that the country has yet produced. He +was a sage of human nature. It was this quality, combined with many +other qualities, and the existence of certain conditions, that made +him the power that he was. From a practical point of view, what he +said about men was always worth while. + +"No, I don't consider him effective," said this great politician when +asked his opinion of a certain very prominent man in public life, who +had just entered, and who was chatting and occasionally laughing with +some boisterousness. "Really, he talks too much. Not that he betrays +his confidences; not even that he annoys, for what he says is always +bright; but--he talks too much; that is all." + +"It's a pity," said one of the group, who was a famous Washington +newspaper correspondent, "that _that_ man has never married." + +He was talking of another very strong professional and political man +who had reached more than forty years of age and was still a bachelor. +"He needs the finer sense and restraining influence of woman in his +life." + +The remark of the first speaker instantly recalled an observation made +several years ago by another very astute--even great--politician in +the minor and narrow sense of that word. He was at that time a +candidate for the nomination for President, and, according to all the +tricks of the game of politics, should have won it; but he failed, as, +it seems, with two exceptions, all mere politicians have failed in +securing that most exalted office in the world. + +This political candidate actually knew the leading men in each state, +and in each part of each state--so careful and thorough had been his +purely personal preparation. "How is Mr. ----, of ----, in your state? +I hope he is well. He is a keen and persistent man," was his inquiry +of and comment on a certain man. And he asked questions concerning +three or four. Among them he said: "And Mr. ----, of your state; how +is his health? He is very brilliant, yes, even able, but--he drinks +too much." + +Three generalizations may justly be deducted from the above discursive +talk. They are practically the ones with which for many years I have +been impressed--namely, that that man will be of very little present +use, and of no permanent and ultimate value to the world or to +himself, who drinks too much, who talks too much, or who thinks he can +get along without the ennobling influence of women. + +Let us take them one at a time. A young man could hardly do a more +fatal thing than to fall into the habit of taking stimulants. This is +no temperance lecture. It is merely a summary of suggestions, by +observing which the young man may avoid a few of the rocks in his +necessarily rugged pathway to success. I emphasized this in two +preceding chapters and shall reiterate it again and again; for I am +trying to say a helpful word to _you_; and all your talents will be +folly and all your toil the labor of Sisyphus if you companion with +the bottle. + +The belief sometimes entertained, that it is necessary to drink in +order to impress your sociability upon companions who also drink, is +utterly erroneous. One day a dinner was given by one of the great +lawyers of this country in honor of another lawyer of distinction, and +among those present was a young man of promise who at that time was +considerably in the public eye. + +The dinner began with a cocktail, and the young man was the only one +of the brilliant company who did not drink it. He was not ostentatious +in his refusal, but merely lifted the glass to his lips and then set +it down with the others. Nor did he take any wine throughout the +dinner. The incident was noticed by only a few, and those few chanced +to meet at a club the next day. The young man was the topic of their +conversation. + +"Well," said the great lawyer, "a young man who has enough +self-restraint to deny himself as that young man did, and who at the +same time is so scintillating in speech, so genuine and original in +thought, and so charming in manner, has in him simply tremendous +possibilities. I have not been so impressed in a long time as I was by +his refraining from drinking." + +This incident is related simply to show that a young man loses nothing +in the esteem of those who themselves drink by declining to join them. + +I repeat, this is no temperance lecture. I know perfectly well that +some of the strongest men in business and politics and literary life +in this country take wine occasionally at the dinner-table and +elsewhere. Nor are they to be condemned for it. But this paper is +meant to contain vital suggestions to _young men_ with life's +possibilities and difficulties before them. + +It is so entirely uncertain whether you have the will in you to keep +your hands very firmly on the reins of the wild horses of habit. It is +so utterly unknown to you whether you may not have inherited from an +ancestor, even very remote, an inflammable blood which, once touched +by stimulant, is ever after on fire. + +You risk too much, and you risk it needlessly. My earnest advice is +not to try it. I will leave to the doctors the description of its +effect on nerve and brain, and to common observation the universal +testimony to the peculiar blurring of judgment which stimulant of any +kind usually produces. Besides, it is a very bad thing for a young man +to get a reputation for. + +I have concluded, after very careful observation, that there is a +mighty change being wrought in this habit, and that a great majority +of the young men who are now the masters of affairs are abstainers. In +short, drinking will soon be out of style, and very bad form. + +Consider these illustrations: I know a young man who is just forty +years of age and who is practically the head of one of the greatest +business institutions in the world. He has worked his way to that +position by ability, character, and untiring industry, from the very +humblest position in his company's service. He is a total abstainer. + +I know another, also just forty, who is president of one of the +largest banks in America. When I first knew him, very many years ago, +he occupied the position of cashier in a comparatively obscure +financial house. Merit alone has placed him where he is now. He had no +friends when he began, no "influence," hardly an acquaintance. But he +had _himself_, clear brained and steady pulsed--and that was enough. +He, too, does not touch stimulants of any kind. + +Or, to get out of that class of occupations--one of the most +successful political "bosses" in this country, a man who makes +politics his profession, and who, just past forty, is in control of +the political machine of one of our great cities, rose to that +position, by ability alone, from the occupation of a street-car +driver. He also is a total abstainer. + +Not only do any of these three young men not drink--also they neither +smoke nor swear. And they are types of twentieth century success. The +"stein-on-the-table-and-a-good-song-ringing-clear" kind of man is out +of date. + +You see, so nerve-consuming are all the activities of modern life that +only the very highest types of effectiveness succeed. Brain of ice, +hand of steel, heart of fire, clear vision, and cold, steady grasp of +the lever and masterful, and yet a passionate relentlessness--these +are necessary. Stimulants destroy effectiveness; that is the trouble +with them. And you need every ounce of your power. Do not let the +people who talk "moderation" to you persuade you otherwise. We find +many such in what is called "society," where the taking of wine +moderately is universal. + +I repeat that you cannot tell what your powers of resistance are. +Unfortunately, many of the world's noblest characters have had nerves +so finely wrought and brain so vivid that a single drop of stimulant +started a perfect conflagration within them. One of the ablest men +this country has ever known, when questioned by a friend as to what +had been the greatest pleasure of his life, said: "The greatest +'pleasure' of my life is the delirium of intoxication"; and then he +went on to say how sure he was that if the fires of desire had never +been lighted in his blood he would have done better work. + +All of us can recall such examples in our own experience. Don't risk +it, therefore, young man. Why take the chance? for even if you +discover no taste for it, you will find that there is nothing in it, +after all. Why this hazard of your powers, just to find out whether +you can resist? It is a one-sided gamble, is it not? Even fools refuse +to play when they know that the dice may be loaded. + +Don't think that you have got to be a great public man, or a big +politician, or a celebrated scientist, or distinguished in any line, +before these practical truths apply to you. You must build your whole +life upon them from the very beginning. For example, I know a man who +for several years has been exercising ever-increasing power in his +State. He selects his lieutenants with greatest possible care, +consulting with trained advisers about the qualifications of each man +to whom any political work is to be trusted. + +Very well. The first question asked always is, "Does he drink?" If he +does, that fact strikes a black line through his name. He is no longer +considered, no matter how capable and energetic he may be otherwise. +For, ordinarily, another man just as effective can be found who does +not have this defect. + +This entire chapter could be taken up with these instances; and the +increasing number of them, the remarks I have quoted of that master of +worldly wisdom at the White House reception, the observation of the +great politician about the strong man of his party in another state, +fairly justify, I think, a suggestion to young men that as a +practical, worldly, and business matter they had better use no +stimulants, either alcoholic or others, for others are just as bad, or +worse, than the former. Indeed, alcohol and other various forms of +wines and other like stimulants have had a disproportionate amount of +abuse heaped upon them. Let the young man look out for all kinds of +stimulants. + +Weariness, exhaustion even, is no excuse. If you are tired, take a +rest. If your natural energy is not equal to your task, take a lesser +task. There is nothing more melancholy than the spectacle of men, +young or old, attempting things out of proportion to themselves. It is +hard to gage what is beyond one's natural powers, it is true. But if +you feel the need of stimulants to keep you up to the level of your +work, that is at least one unfailing test of your limitations. I must +repeat, for the third time, that all of this advice--no, let us say +suggestion--is made only as a matter of practical help to _young_ men +trying to get on in the world. + +It is the mere business side of the question at which we are looking +now, for it is business itself that is working this change. People do +not want a lawyer whose brain is not clear, a doctor, dealing with +life and death, whose perceptions are not steady and natural. People +refuse to ride on trains hauled by engineers who may be drinking, and +so on. It is all a matter of cold-blooded business. + +The conditions and requirements of modern society are coming to demand +greater and greater sobriety from those in responsible places, no +matter whether at the head of a party or a railway train. The +spiritual phase, the medical view, the moral, social, and economic +sides of the question I would not, under any circumstances, assume to +deal with. On all these there are various views, none of which would I +undertake to weigh or judge. + +And excessive talking! Don't indulge in that either. Politicians are +not the only ones who think interminable talk an indication of +weakness. I knew a liveryman who was also a great horse-trader. Said +he: "I shy clear across the road when a tonguey man tries to deal with +me." + +Of course, reserve in speech, particularly in conversation, is so +ancient and favorite a subject of the giver of advice that it is now +commonplace. Literature is full of it. Shakespeare nearly reaches the +crest of it in the advice Polonius gave to his son. But here, as +always, the very climax is the Bible. + +"Let your communication be Yea, yea; Nay, nay; for whatsoever is more +than these cometh of evil." + +This is not advice to taciturnity. It is not a suggestion that you +should be stolid and wooden in manner and speech. The reason of it is +to prevent you from making mistakes or betraying yourself by foolish +and unnecessary utterance. My suggestion to young men that they +practise reserve in speech is merely a practical and almost a +commercial matter. Do not be "a man full of talk," as Zophar cuttingly +puts it. + +There is a loss of authority that comes from incessant talking. There +is a surrender of dignity, which is one of the most influential things +in man's attitude toward and in connection with his fellows. Silence, +or rather reserve, gives a kind of emphasis to what you do. To a great +many, also, there is an index of your character in the quantity of +your speech. It is so refreshing to meet a man from whom you draw the +feeling that he is as deep and as full as the seven seas. + +This will never be drawn from any man whose talk is continuous, no +matter if he is an encyclopedia of information and a battery of +brilliancy. A man may be as comprehensive and profound as the oceans; +the point is, that other men will not easily be made to believe it. +His continued sparkle suggests a champagne bottle with its +limitations, rather than the illimitable deep. A good deal of this is +unjust, and comes from the universal egotism of mankind. Most men like +to feel themselves both brilliant and copious; and they want _you_ to +listen to _them_. Very well--_you_ do it; _you_ listen to them. + +There is a suggestion of wisdom in reserve of speech which may be +altogether out of proportion to the facts. Are we not all continually +quoting with approval Sir Walter Raleigh's line: + + "The shallow murmur, but the deep are dumb." + +Many a silent man is as shallow as he is silent--but he _may_ be as +deep also; and because he gives no sign as to whether he is deep or +shallow, and because his silence offends no one and is not in the way +of those who want to talk, he is given credit for profundity. + +We all know the story of the worn-out, world-tired club-man who said +he was looking for a man who was really wise, really experienced, and +really deep. At last he felt that he had found him in another +club-man--very handsome, especially full of forehead and broad between +the eyes, perfectly groomed, and silent to the point of stillness. The +Searcher for a Wise Man tried to engage him in conversation on a +hundred different subjects. His attempts met with failure; which made +a still deeper impression. + +But at a certain dinner one night, where both of these men were +guests, the club-man arranged to have the silent one sit next to him. +Every attempt was still a failure. Nothing more than "Yes" or "No" +could be gotten from the deep one. But when shrimps were brought on, +the supposedly great man colored with pleasure, and said: "Hey, +shrimps! Them's the dandies!" The illusion dissolved. + +I do not know whose story this is, but it illustrates my point so well +that I appropriate it. In other words, your permanent attitude, your +continuous impression on the world, is one of your assets, just as +your ability is, just as your character is; and discretion in speech +is a matter of great moment as affecting this impression. I use the +term continuous attitude and impression, because it is a small matter +what your temporary and transient impression is. If it becomes +necessary, talk to any extent required, no matter what the immediate +impression may be. But it is the stream and continuity of your life of +which I am now speaking. + +The three distinguished successes cited a moment ago in financial and +political life do not drink, smoke, or swear. Mark that latter +fact--they do not swear. I repeat again that this is no Sunday-school +lecture, but the plainest kind of a talk on practical methods of +success. The money you will lay aside in bank, or the property you +will accumulate, is one kind of an asset; but the respect of men, the +confidence of a community, is an asset also, and a more valuable one. +Very well. An oath never yet created respect for any man who used it. + +Even men who are habitually profane always feel a contemptuous yet +pitying regret when they hear a foul word fall from a mouth they +expected to be clean. You want people you live among to believe in +you. They are not going to believe in you spontaneously. You are on +trial every day of your first few years among them. As you go in and +out among them they acquire a confidence in you which finally grows +into an unquestioning faith. Beware how you start, in the minds of men +whose good-will you must have, a question as to whether their good +opinion of you is justified or not. Profanity will create such a +question. + +I remember having heard the most promising young lawyer in a certain +town swear in the presence of a conservative old banker who had begun +to "take the young man up" and was giving him some business. The +gray-bearded man of money made no comment, but I noted a slight +lifting of the eyebrows. That young man had unconsciously started a +question of himself in the mind of the man whose business friendship +he was seeking. How did that question run? + +"What's this? An oath! I'm surprised. How does this young fellow +happen to swear? Perhaps I do not know as much of him as I ought to. I +must look into his antecedents more closely. What kind of training has +he had? What other bad habits has he had, and has he now? Yes, +certainly I must look into this young man a little more before I trust +him further." + +That is how the question ran in the old man's mind. And nobody can +tell whether he ever did completely trust the young fellow again or +not. A subconscious inquiry was doubtless always present whenever that +young man's work was mentioned. No matter whether the old banker's +caution was justified; no matter whether this sensitiveness to the +language which the young man used is reasonable or not--the young man +needs all the respect and confidence he can possibly get. It is a good +thing for him to have the admiration of those among whom he dwells, +but their respect and confidence he must have. He cannot get along +without that. Let him be clean of speech, therefore. + +This growing prejudice against profanity is not unreasonable. Oaths +indicate a poverty of language--of ideas. The thief, the burglar, the +low-class criminal everywhere, expresses all his emotions by oaths. +Are they angry? They swear. Surprised? They swear. Delighted? They +swear. Every conception of the mind, every impulse of the blood, is +expressed in the narrow and base vocabulary of profanity. So that the +first thing an oath indicates is that he who uses it has limited +intellectual resources, otherwise he would not employ so commonplace a +method of expressing himself. + +Then, too, we quite unconsciously connect the swearing man with the +class which habitually employs profanity as the staple of its talk; +and so he who uses an oath in our presence automatically sinks to a +little lower level in our esteem. We cannot help it. We do not reason +out the why and wherefore of it, but we know it is so. + +Do not justify yourself by talking about Washington raging at +Monmouth, or Paul Jones boarding the _Serapis_, or Erskine climaxing +his greatest effort for justice with an appeal to the Father of the +universe. These men all swore, and swore mightily on those occasions, +but their oaths were oaths indeed. + +Liberty or tyranny, life or death, justice or infamy, hung in the +balance, and their oaths were prayers as earnest as ever ascended to +the Throne. But that is no example for you, young man. If you will +agree never to use an oath until you have the provocation of treason, +and your country thereby endangered, as Washington had at Monmouth, +there are a million chances to one that the Sacred Name will never +pass your lips in vain. + +I knew a man in the logging-camps twenty-eight years ago. He there +acquired that lurid speech which was the language by which oxen, +horses, and men themselves were in those times driven in those rude +camps of rugged industry. My friend did not remain a logger. He became +a lawyer and achieved some distinction and success, but he could not +shake off the habit of swearing. He would find himself "ripping out an +oath," as the saying is, on the most surprising occasions--and they +were brilliant oaths, splendid, flashing, coruscating oaths. His talk +was a very tropic jungle of profanity. + +So great were his abilities, so unceasing and intense his energies, +and so upright his life, that he succeeded in spite of this defect. +But this strong, fine man told me that this low habit of speech +delayed his progress constantly. A few years ago, in a great crisis in +his life, he was suddenly able to break the spell, and I think he is +now prouder of his clean words and that mastery of himself which their +use indicates than he is of any single success he has achieved or of +any single honor he has won. + +But the newspaper correspondent said the truest thing of all when he +suggested that the really capable and apparently successful lawyer and +politician, observed in the passing throng, had made a mistake in not +having had the influence of woman in his life. There is positively +nothing of such value to young men--yes, and to old men, too--as the +chastening and powerful influence for good which women bring into +their lives. + +This is the universal opinion, too. All literature voices it. Wilhelm +Meister and The Old Cattleman alike declare it. "There is no doubt +about it," exclaims the sage of Wolfville, "woman is a refinin', an +ennoblin' influence. * * * She subdooes the reckless, subjoogates the +rebellious, sobers the friv'lous, burns the ground from onder the +indolent moccasins of that male she's roped up in holy wedlock's bonds +an' pints the way to a higher and happier life. And that's whatever!" +And The Old Cattleman even includes the raucous "Missis Rucker--as +troo a lady as ever baked a biscuit." + +I should be the last man in the world to suggest that a young man +should keep himself "tied to his mother's apron-strings," as is the +saying of the people; and this is not what I mean when I again +earnestly suggest that he keep as close to his mother's opinions, +teachings, and influence as the circumstances of life will permit. + +The same thing, as already pointed out, may be said with reference to +a man's wife--even more strongly, if possible. But the conversation +and opinion of any good woman are, as a practical matter and a measure +of worldly wisdom, simply beyond price. She is wise with that +sublimated reason called "woman's instinct." + +There is, too, a human quality kept alive and growing in your +character by woman's association and influence that, as a matter of +business power in meeting the world and its problems, is far and away +beyond the value of the craft of the trickiest gamester of affairs, +business, or politics who ever lived. + +It is a saying of the farmer folks among whom I was raised that such +and such a person "has principle," meaning that the person so +described is upright, trustworthy, judicious; that such a person's +attitude toward God and man and the world is correct. + +Women "have principle" in the sense in which that term is used by the +country people. They will keep you true to the order of things--to the +constitution of the universe. They will do this not so much by +preaching at you, as by the influence of their very personality. + +The man who has gotten out of touch with womankind is not to be +feared. He is to be pitied rather than feared, for he is out of +harmony with the world--he is disarmed. No matter how large his mind +and great his courage, he is neutralized for all natural, properly +proportioned, and therefore enduring, effort. + +I know a physician who, still young, has reached the head of his +profession in this country. Sundays and the evenings with his wife +and children are not enough for him; he takes Wednesday also. +Precisely this same thing is done by the young captain of finance and +affairs whom I described first in this paper as being a total +abstainer. This is not done for the rest it gives these men; or, if it +is done for that, it is not the greatest benefit they get out of it. + +They come back to their work with clearer and stronger conceptions of +human character and of truth in the abstract and the concrete, with +which all men, no matter what their profession or business may be, +must deal. They have a new tenderness, a larger tolerance, a broader +vision of life and humanity, and therefore of their business, which is +merely a phase of life and affairs. + +This particular suggestion would appear to me to be unnecessary were +it not for the fact that I see the increasing number of men who think +that their business or profession or career is the important thing, +and that in these the influence of woman is not essential. They are +frightfully wrong who think so. I am trying to give practical +suggestions to young men. Therefore I emphasize the practical value of +the influence of women. + +Remember that most great men have been discovered by women, and that +nearly all of them have had her for their inspiration. + +The value of woman's society on character and intellect is above that +of the conversation of the most learned and experienced men. It is the +elemental and natural in her that give a perspective of life and its +larger purposes that man alone cannot possibly secure. + +The sum of practical wisdom for young men is to keep close to the +elemental principles. I think Marcus Aurelius says, in his philosophy, +"Let your principles be few and elemental." And here again the Bible +puts it even better than this glorious old Stoic, directing us "to do +justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God." + +Above all things, do not lose your confidence in your fellow men. You +are not a very great man if you are not great enough to stand +betrayal. You would better have your confidence broken a dozen times a +day than to fall into the attitude of universal suspicion. + +Keep your sweet faith in our common humanity, do not excite your +nerves and intellect by intoxicants, keep close to the saving and +elevating influence of women, and then--go ahead and work as hard as +you please, be as keen as you choose, fight as savagely as you like, +and there is no power that can stay your conquest of the world; for +the very nature of things themselves and the whole order of the +universe are your allies and your servants. But do not get the +impression that you are to be maudlinly "good." Oh, no! that is as +fatal almost as wickedness. + + + + +X + +THE YOUNG MAN AND THE NATION + + +You are an American--remember that; and be proud of it, too. It is the +noblest circumstance in your life. Think what it means: The greatest +people on earth--to be one of that people; the most powerful +Nation--to be a member of that Nation; the best and freest +institutions among men--to live under those institutions; the richest +land under any flag--to know that land for your country and your home; +the most fortunate period in human history--to live in such a day. +This is a dim and narrow outline of what it means to be an American. +Glory in that fact, therefore. Your very being cannot be too highly +charged with Americanism. And do not be afraid to assert it. + +The world forgives the egotist of patriotism. "We Germans fear God, +and nothing else!" thundered Bismarck on closing his greatest speech +before the Reichstag. It was the very frenzy of pride of race and +country. Yet even his enemies applauded. If it was narrow, it was +grandly patriotic. It was more: it appealed to the elemental in their +breasts. + +Love of one's own is a universal and deathless passion, common not +only to human beings but also shared by all animate creation. Be an +American, therefore, to the uttermost limit of consciousness and +feeling. Thank God each day that your lot has fallen beneath the Stars +and Stripes. It is a sacred flag. There is only one holier emblem +known to man. + +You have American conditions about you every day, and so their value +and advantage become commonplace and unnoted. To any young man +afflicted with the disease of thinking life hard and burdens heavy in +this Republic, I know of no remedy equal to a trip abroad. You will +find things to admire in France; you will applaud things in Germany; +you will see much in other lands that suggests modifications of +American methods. + +But after you have traveled all over the earth; after you have seen +Teutonic system made ten times more perfect in Japan and Slav patience +outdone in China--in short, after you circle the globe and sojourn +among its peoples, you will come home a living, breathing, thinking +Fourth of July. + +Of course I do not mean that we are perfect--we are still crude; or +that we have not made mistakes--we have rioted in error; or that other +nations cannot teach us something--we can learn greatly from them, and +we will. But this is the point as it affects you, young man: Among all +the uncounted millions of human beings on this earth, none has the +opportunities to make the most of life that the young American has. + +No government now existing or described by history gives you such +liberty of effort, or scatters before and around you such chances. No +soil now occupied by any separate nation is so bountiful or +resourceful. No other people have our American unwearied spirit of +youth. The composite brain of no other nation yeasts in thought and +ideas like the combined intellect of the American millions. + +For, look you, our institutions invite every man to do his best. There +is positively no position which a man of sufficient mind, energy, and +character cannot obtain, no reward he cannot win. Everybody, +therefore, is literally "putting in his best licks" in America. In +other countries there is in comparison a general atmosphere of "what's +the use?"--a comparative slumberousness of activity and effort. + +Then, again, the American people are made up of the world's boldest +spirits and the descendants of such. The Puritans, who gave force, +direction, and elevation to our national thought and purpose, were the +stoutest hearts, the most productive minds of their time. Their +characteristics have not disappeared from their children. + +The same is true, generally, but of course in an infinitely lesser +degree, of most of our immigrants. Usually it is the nervy and +imaginative men who go to a new country. Our own pioneers were endowed +with daring and vision. They had the courage and initiative to leave +the scarcely warmed beds of their new-made homes and push farther on +into the wilderness. + +The blue-eyed, light-haired Swede who, among all in his little +Scandinavian village, decides to come to America, the Irishman who +does the like, are, for the most part, the hopeful, venturesome, +self-reliant members of their communities across the sea. The German +who turns his face from the Fatherland, seeking a new home half across +the world, brings us some of the most vigorous blood in the Kaiser's +Empire. Such men believe in better things--have the will to try to get +those better things. + +Thus, the American Republic is an absorbent of the optimism of the +world. We attract to ourselves the children of faith and hope among +the common people of other nations. And these are the types we are +after. They are the most vital, the least exhausted. I should not want +"the flower" of other nations to immigrate to our shores. Nature is +through with them, and they must be renewed from below. Do not object +to human raw material for our citizenship. One or two generations will +produce the finished product. + +What says Emerson: + + "The lord is the peasant that was, + The peasant the lord that shall be. + The lord is hay, the peasant grass, + One dry and one the living tree." + +The purpose of our institutions is to manufacture manhood. + +Make it impossible for the criminal and diseased, the vicious and the +decadent, to come to us; bar out those who seek our country merely +because they cannot subsist in their own, and you will find that the +remainder of our immigrants are valuable additions to our populations. +Don't despise these common people who come to us from other lands. + +Don't despise the common people anywhere on earth. The Master did not +go to the "first citizens" for His followers. He selected the +humblest. He chose fishermen. A promoter of a financial enterprise +does not do this. But the Saviour was not a promoter; He was teacher, +reformer, Redeemer. + +Then, too, consider our imperial location on the globe. If all the +minds of all the statesmen who ever lived were combined into one vast +intellect of world-wisdom, and if this great composite brain should +take an eternity to plan, it could not devise a land better located +for power and world-dominance than the American Republic. + +On the east is Europe, with an ocean between. This ocean is a highway +for commerce and a fluid fortress for defense, an open gateway of +trade and a bulwark of peace. + +On the west is the Orient, with its multitude of millions. Between +Asia and ourselves is again an ocean. And again this ocean is an +invitation to effort and a condition of safety. + +The Republic is thus enthroned between the two great oceans of the +world. Its seat of power commands both Europe and Cathay. + +On the north is slowly building a great people, developing a dominion +as imperial as our own. The same speech and blood of kinship make +certain the ultimate union with our vital brothers across our northern +frontier. + +To the south is a group of governments over whom the sheer operation +of natural forces is already establishing a sort of American oversight +and suzerainty. + +Mark, now, our harbors. Behold how cunningly the Master Strategist has +placed along our coasts great ports from which communication with the +ends of earth naturally radiates. + +Consider, too, the sweep of the ocean's currents in relation to this +country. Observe the direction and effect of the Gulf Stream, and of +the great current of the Pacific seas upon our coasts. Follow on your +map the direction of our rivers, and see how nicely Nature has +designed the tracery of the Republic's waterways. + +In short, ponder over the incomparable position of this America of +yours--this home and country of yours--on the surface of the globe. +When you think of it, not only will your mind be uplifted in pride, +but you will sink to your knees in prayerful gratitude that the Father +has given you such a land, with such opportunities, for your earthly +habitation. + +Attempt now to estimate our resources. Your mathematics are not equal +to it. The available productivity of the Mississippi Valley exceeds +the supply of all the fertile regions of fable or history. The country +watered by the Columbia or the Oregon surpasses in wealth-producing +power the valleys of the Nile or the Euphrates in ancient times. + +Our deposits of coal and iron already under development are equalled +nowhere on earth except perhaps by the unopened mines of China; and +greater fields of ore and fuel than those which we are now working are +known positively to exist within our dominions. The mere indexing of +America's material possibilities well-nigh stuns credulity. + +But all these are definite and physical things, things you can measure +or weigh. More valuable than all of these combined are our American +institutions and our exalted National ideals. + +You can meditate all day on the reasons for pride in your Americanism, +and each reason you think of will suggest others. The examples I have +given are only hints. Be proud of your Americanism, +therefore--earnestly, aggressively, fervently proud of your Americanism. +I like to see patriotism have a religious ardor. It will put you in +harmony with the people you are living among, which, I repeat, is the +first condition of success. + +Also it puts a vigor, manliness, mental productivity into you. Make it +a practise, when going to your business or your work each morning, to +reflect how blessed a thing it is to be an American, and why it is a +blessed thing. Then observe how your backbone stiffens as you think, +how your step becomes light and firm, how the very soul of you floods +with a kind of sunlight of confidence. + +There was a time when each one of that masterful race that lived upon +the Tiber's banks in the days of the Eternal City's greatest glory +believed that "to be a Roman was greater than to be a king." And the +ideals of civic duty were more nearly realized in that golden hour of +human history than they had ever been before--or than they have ever +been since until now. + +Very well, young man. If to be a Roman then was greater than to be a +king, what is it to be an American now? + +Think of it! To be an American at the beginning of the twentieth +century! + +Ponder over these eleven words for ten minutes every day. After a +while you will begin to appreciate your country, its institutions, +and the possibilities which both produce. + +Realizing, then, that you are an American, and that, after all, this +is a richer possession than royal birth, make up your mind that you +will be worthy of it, and then go ahead and be worthy of it. + +Be a part of our institutions. And understand clearly what our +institutions are. They are not a set of written laws. _American +institutions are citizens in action._ American institutions are the +American people in the tangible and physical process of governing +themselves. + +A book ought to be written describing how our government actually +works. I do not mean the formal machinery of administration and +law-making at Washington or at our state capitals. These multitudes of +officers and groups of departments, these governors and presidents, +these legislatures and congresses, are not the government; they are +the instruments of government. + +_The people are the government._ What said Lincoln in his greatest +utterance? "A government of the people, for the people, _and by the +people_," are the great American's words. And Lincoln knew. + +The real thing is found at the American fireside. This is the forum of +both primary and final discussion. These firesides are the hives +whence the voters swarm to the polls. The family is the American +political unit. Men and measures, candidates and policies, are there +discussed, and their fate and that of the Republic determined. This is +the first phase of our government, the first manifestation of our +institutions. + +Then comes the machinery through which these millions of homes "run +the government." I cannot in the limited space of this paper describe +this system of the people; the best I can do is to take a type, an +example. In every county of every state of the Nation each party has +its committee. This committee consists of a man from each precinct in +each township of the county. These precinct committeemen are chosen by +a process of natural selection. They are men who have an aptitude for +marshaling their fellow men. + +In the country districts of the Republic they are usually men of good +character, good ability, good health, alert, sleepless, strong-willed. +They are men who have enough mental vitality to believe in something. +When they cease to be effective they are dropped, and new men +substituted by a sort of common consent. There are nearly two hundred +thousand precinct committeemen in the United States. + +These men are a part of American institutions in action. They work all +the time. They talk politics and think politics in the midst of their +business or their labor. Their casual conversation with or about every +family within their jurisdiction keeps them constantly and freshly +informed of the tendency of public opinion. + +They know how each one of their neighbors feels on the subject of +protection, or the Philippines, or civil service, or the currency. +They know the views of every voter and every voter's wife on public +men. They understand whether the people think this man honest and that +man a mere pretender. The consensus of judgment of these precinct +committeemen indicates with fair accuracy who is the "strongest man" +for his party to nominate, and what policies will get the most votes +among the people. + +This is their preliminary work. When platforms have been formulated +and candidates have been chosen, these men develop from the partizan +passive to the partizan militant. They know those who, in their own +party, are "weakening," and by the same token those who are +"weakening" in the other party. + +They know just what argument will reach each man, just what speaker +the people of their respective sections want to hear upon public +questions. They keep everybody supplied with the right kind of +literature from their party's view-point. + +They either take the poll of their precinct or see that it is taken; +and that means the putting down in a book the name of each voter, his +past political allegiance, his present political inclinations, the +probable ballot he will cast, etc. + +Not many of these men do this work for money or office. There are too +many of them to hope for reward. Primarily they do it because they are +naturally Americans, because they have the gift of government, because +they like to help "run the show." They are useful elements of our +political life, and they are modest. They seldom ask anything for +themselves. + +They do require, however, that their opinions shall be taken into +account as to appointments to office made from their county, and of +course they make their opinions felt in all nominating conventions. +Without these men our "American institutions" would look beautiful on +paper but they would work haltingly. They would move sluggishly. They +might even rust, and fall to pieces from decay. + +This much space has been given to the political precinct committeeman +because, as I have said, he is a type. He is the man who sees that the +"citizen" does not forget his citizenship. This great body of men, +fresh from the people, of the people, living among the people, are +perpetually renewed from the ranks of the people. + +All this occurs, as has been said, by a process of natural selection. +The same process selects from this great company of "workers" county, +district, and state committeemen--county, district, and state +chairmen. And the process continues until it culminates in our great +National committees, headed by masterful captains of popular +government, under whose generalship the enormous work of National and +state campaigns is conducted. + +Very well. If you appreciate your Americanism, young man, show it by +being a part of American institutions. Be one of these precinct +committeemen, or a county committeeman, or a state committeeman, or a +worker of some kind. If _you_ do not, a bad man will; and that will +mean bad politics and bad government. + +You see, this whole question of good government is right up to _you_. +_You_ are the remedy for bad government, young man--_you_ and not +somebody else, not some theory. So be a committeeman or some sort of a +"worker" in real politics. Help run our institutions _yourself_, or, +rather, be a part of our institutions yourself. + +If you have neither the time nor aptitude for such active work, at +least be a citizen. That does not mean merely that you shall go to the +polls to vote. It does not even mean that you shall go to the +primaries only. It means a great deal more than that. + +At the very least be a member of an active political club which is +working for your party's success. There are such clubs in most wards +of our cities. + +They are the power-houses of our political system. Party sentiment +finds its first public expression there--often it has its beginnings +there in the free conversations which characterize such American +political societies. You will find the "leaders" gathering there, too; +and in the talks among these men those plans gradually take form by +which nominations are made and even platforms are formulated. + +These "leaders" are men who, in the practical work of politics, +develop ability, activity, and effectiveness. There is a great deal of +sneering at the lesser political leaders in American politics. They +are called "politicians," and the word is used as a term of reproach, +and sometimes deservedly. But ordinarily these "leaders," especially +in the country districts of the Republic, are men who keep the +machinery of free institutions running. + +The influence of no boss or political general can _retain_ a young man +in leadership. Favoritism may give you the place of "local leader"; +but nothing but natural qualities can keep you in it. The more we have +of honest, high-grade "local leaders," the better. + +Whether you, young man, become one or not, you ought at least to be a +part of the organization, and work with the other young men who are +leaders. But be sure to make one condition to your fealty--require +them to be honest. + +"I have no time for politics," said a business man; "it takes all my +time and strength to attend to my business." + +That means that he has no time for free institutions. It means that +this "blood-bought privilege" which we call "the priceless American +ballot" is not worth as much to him as the turning of a dollar, or +even as the loss of a single moment's personal comfort. + +"Come down to the club to-night; we are going to talk over the coming +campaign," said one man to another in an American city of moderate +size and ideal conditions. + +"Excuse me," was the answer; "we have a theater party on hand +to-night." + +Yes; but while the elegant gentleman of society enjoys the witty +conversation of charming women, and while the business man is +attending to his personal affairs and nothing else, the other fellows +are determining nominations, and under the direction of able and +creative political captains shaping the policies of parties, and in +the end the fate of the Nation. + +Of course that is all right if that is your conception of American +citizenship. But if this is going to be "a government of the people +and by the people," _you_, as one of the people, have got to take part +in it. That means you have got to take part in it _all the time_. + +Occasional spasms of violent civic virtue amount to little in their +permanent results. They only scare bad men for a day or two. Their +very ardor soon burns them out. The citizen has got to do more than +that--he has got to take an every-day-and-every-week interest in our +civic life. If he does not, our brave and beautiful experiment in +self-government will surely fail and we shall be ruled not even by a +trained and skilful tyrant, but by a series of coarse and corrupt +oligarchies. + +In ancient Israel a certain proportion of the year's produce was given +to the Temple. In like manner, if popular government means anything to +you, you have got to give up a certain portion of your time and money +to _being a part_ of this popular government. + +Just this is the most important matter in our whole National life. +Recently there died the greatest master of practical politics America +has produced. Firmly he had kept his steel hand upon his state for +thirty years. A dozen times were mighty efforts made to break his +over-lordship. Each time his resourcefulness, audacity, and genius +confounded his enemies. But finally that undefeated conqueror, Death, +took this old veteran captive. + +He left an able successor in his seat of power, but a man without that +prestige of invulnerability which a lifetime of political combat and +victory had given the deceased leader. "Here," said every one, "is an +opportunity to overthrow the machine." Within a few months an election +occurred--not a National election, but one in which the "machine" +might have been crippled. + +But, _mirabile dictu_, the "good people," the "reformers," the +"society" and "business" classes, _did not come out to vote_. They not +only formed no plans to set up a new order of things, _they did not +even go to the polls_. Yet these were the descendants of the men who +founded the Nation and who set free institutions in practical +operation. + +This shows how American institutions, like everything else, have in +themselves the seeds of death if they are not properly exercised. When +the great body of our citizens become afflicted with civic paralysis, +it is the easiest thing in the world for the strong and resourceful +"boss," by careful selection of his precinct committeemen and other +local workers all over his state, to seize power--legislative, +executive, and even judicial. It has been done more than once in +certain places in this country. + +Where it is successful, _the Republic no longer endures_. The people +no longer rule; an oligarchy rules in the name of the people. And +where this is true, the people deserve their fate. And so, young man, +if you do not expect this fate to overtake the entire country, _you_ +have got to get right into "the mix of things." + +_You_, I say, not some other man, but _you_, _you_, _you_. _You_--you +yourself--YOU are the one who is responsible. Quit your +aloofness. Get out of any clubs and desert all associations which +sneer at active work in ward and precinct. Do not get political +locomotor ataxia. + +It was a fine thing that was said by a political leader to a +singularly brilliant young man from college who, with letters of +unlimited indorsement from the presidents of our three greatest +universities, asked for a humble place in the diplomatic service. He +wanted to make that service his career. + +"I like your style," said the man whose favor the young fellow was +soliciting. "Your ability is excellent, your recommendations perfect, +your character above reproach, your family a guarantee of your moral +and mental worth. But you have done nothing yet among real men. + +"Go back to your home; get out of the exclusive atmosphere of your +perfumed surroundings; join the hardest working political club of +your party in your city; report to the local leader for active work; +mingle with those who toil and sweat. + +"Do this until you 'get a standing' among other young men who are +doing things. Thus you will get close to the people whom, after all, +you are going to represent. Also this contact with the sharp, keen +minds of the most forceful fellows in your town will be the best +training you can get for the beginning of your diplomatic career." + +"Now let me tell you this," said President Roosevelt to this same +young man: "You may have a small under-secretaryship; but let me tell +you this," said he; "do not take it just yet. You are only out of +college. Take a postgraduate course with the people. Get down to +earth. See what kind of beings these Americans are. Find out from +personal contact. + +"If you belong to exclusive clubs, quit them, and spend the time you +would otherwise spend in their cold and unprofitable atmosphere in +mingling with the people, the common people, merchants and street-car +drivers, bankers and working men. + +"Finally, when you get your post, do as John Hay did--resign in a +year, or a couple of years, and come home to your own country, and +again for a year or two get down among your fellow Americans. In +short," said he, "be an American, and never stop being an American." + +That is it, young man--that is the whole law and the gospel of this +subject. Be an American. And do not be an American of imagination. You +cannot be an American by seeing visions and dreaming dreams. You +cannot be an American by reading about them. Professor Munsterberg's +volume will not make you an American any more than a study of tactics +out of a book will make you a soldier. + +It is the field that makes you a soldier. It is marching shoulder to +shoulder with other soldiers that makes you a soldier. It is mingling +with other Americans that makes you an American. Our eighty millions +will make you American. Keep close to them. The soil will make you +American. Keep close to it. + +Utilize your enthusiasms. Do not neutralize them by permitting them to +be vague and impersonal. Be for men and against men. Be for policies +and against policies. And remember always that it is far more +important to be for somebody and something than to be against. + +There is an excellent though fortunately a small class of citizens in +this and every other country who are never for anybody but always +against somebody. Frequently these men are right in their opposition; +but their force is dissipated because they are habitually negative. + +I know of nothing better for a young man's character than that he +should become the admirer and follower of some noted public man. Let +your discipleship have fervor. Permit your youth to be natural. But be +sure that the political leader to whom you attach yourself is worthy +of your devotion. + +Usually this will settle itself. Public men will impress you not only +by their deeds, words, and general attitude; but also through a sort +of psychic sense within you which illumines and interprets all they +say and do, and makes you understand them even better than their +spoken words. + +This subconscious intelligence which the people come to have of a +public man is seldom wrong. + +Somehow or other the people know instinctively those who really are +unselfishly devoted to the Nation's interest. _In the end_ they never +fail to know the man who is honest. + +This instinctive estimate of the qualities of mind and soul of public +men will probably select for you the captain to whom you are to give +your allegiance. Be faithful and earnest in your championship of him. +In this way you make your political life personal and human. + +You give to the policies in which you believe the warmth and vitality +of flesh and blood. And, best of all, you increase within yourself +human sympathies and devotions, and thus make yourself more and more +one of the people who in due time, in your turn, it may be your duty +to lead, if the qualities of leadership are in you. + +This matter of leadership among public men is becoming more and more +important, because personality in politics is meaning more every day. +Obeying generally, then, your instinct as to the public men whom you +intend to follow, subject your choice to the corrective of cold and +careful analysis. + +It is probably true that the greatest danger of our future is the +peril of classes, and inseparably connected with classes the menace of +demagogy. The last decade has revealed signs that the demagogue, in +the modern meaning of that word, is making his appearance in American +civic life. + +Such men always seize the most attractive "cause" as argument to the +people for their support. They are quite as willing to pose as the +especial apostles of righteousness and purity as they are to enact the +character of the divinely appointed tribunes of patriotism. Whatever +the political fashion of the day may be, your demagogue will appeal to +it. It makes no difference what methods he finds necessary to use, so +that he can achieve the power and consequence which is his only +purpose. + +If the ruling tendency be for honesty, these men will make that serve +their purpose, or commercialism, or expansion, or war, or peace, or +what not. There is no conviction about them. Sometimes such a man will +represent himself as a great conservative. He does this not because he +is conservative (sometimes he does not even know what that word really +means), but because he thinks by associating his name with this word +he can capture the "solid" elements among the people, business men and +the like. + +These illustrations can be multiplied without limit. They are as +numerous as the "issues" which can be used to influence the people. +Beware of the demagogue in whatever guise he presents himself. Look +out for the play-actor in politics. Whether he wear the cloth of the +pulpit, the uniform of the soldier, the garment of the reformer, he is +always the same at heart, never for the people, always for himself; +never for the Nation and the future, always for power and the present. + +Make sure, then, that the captain whom you elect to follow is above +all other things sincere. Insist upon his being genuine. See to it +that he is intellectually honest. I do not mean that he should be +honest in money matters alone, or in telling the truth merely. I mean +that he should be square with himself, as well as with you and the +world. When a public man is honest and in earnest, you know it--know +it without knowing why. + +It is safe to follow such a man as this even when you do not agree +with all of his public views. You know that he is honest about them; +and a man who is honest _within himself_ will change his views, no +matter how dear they may be to him, when he finds that he is mistaken +about them. The first and last essential of the men who are to voice +the opinion and enact the purposes of the American people is an +honesty so perfect that it is unconscious of itself. + +"He does not deserve the least credit for being square," said Dr. +Albert Shaw, the eminent editor, scholar, and publicist, concerning a +public man; "he was born that way. His mind is so upright that he +cannot help saying what he thinks. It would be impossible for him to +tell you or the people a falsehood. He is truth personified. His +honesty works as naturally as his heart beats, quite free from the +influences of his will." + +That is the kind of a political leader you ought to attach yourself +to, while your young days last and your political and civic character +is forming. But follow no man who is striving merely to advance his +personal interests. What are they to you? Be sure that the man you +choose for your chief is trying to do something for the Nation rather +than for himself. + +Of course you will belong to some political party. That is all right. +Be a partizan. And be a hearty partizan while you are about it. But do +not be a narrow one. Never forget that parties are only modes of +political action. They are not sacred, therefore. So never mistake +partizanship for patriotism. Remember always that your only reason for +belonging to any particular party is because you find that the best +method of being an American. + +When your party is fundamentally wrong on some absolutely vital +question of _principle_ which affects the fate of the Republic, do not +hesitate to leave it. It has ceased to be of any use to you. Because +your political association has been with certain men is no reason at +all for continuing it. Or, rather, it is purely a sentimental reason, +like that which makes the companionship of friends so dear, or the +comradeship of soldiers so lasting. + +But do not break away from your party merely because you think it +wrong on minor questions. _If you think its general tendency right, +stay loyally with it through its common mistakes._ Try to prevent +those mistakes within the party. Fight like a man to make your party +take the right course on every question, big or little, as you see it. + +But when you are unable to convince the majority of your party +associates that they are wrong; when they think that you are the +person who is wrong, fall in line with them and march in the ranks, +battling even more vigorously than you would had you prevailed. If the +majority were right and you were wrong, you ought to help execute +their views. If the majority were wrong and you were right, the +earlier that fact is demonstrated the better for you and everybody. + +So keep step with your rank and file, whether your party does what you +think it ought to do or not on matters of passing moment. But I +repeat, on large issues which come to your conscience--_on questions +which you think affect the destiny of the Nation_, you are a traitor +to the Republic if, in spite of your convictions, you stand by your +party and against your country. + +But to break with your party on minor issues is foolish. A certain +class is coming to regard leaving one's party as a smart thing. But it +is not a smart thing. Quitting your party does not necessarily mean +independence. It may mean that, and then again it may mean stupidity; +and still again it may only mean a "sore head," as the political +phrase has it. + +In a country as old as ours there finally comes to be in politics a +fundamental division. There is the constructive and progressive on the +one side, and the destructive and reactionary on the other side. These +are merely the centripetal and centrifugal forces of nature at work in +human society. Usually it is found that one of these parties is +naturally the Governing Party, and the other one is naturally the +Party of Opposition. + +Not only your judgment but your instincts will tell you, young man, to +which one of these forces you belong. Each has its uses. You can well +serve your country in either organization. It is merely a question as +to whether you are in character and temperament a builder, a doer of +things, or a critic of things done and the doing of them. Each is +necessary. + +I have no quarrel with your partizan creed, no matter what it is. That +is your business. But whatever you are, be National. Be broad. Do not +be deceived by catchwords. Remember that this is a Nation in the +making. When the first railroad was built across the boundaries of +states it modified old-time interpretations of our Constitution. + +Telegraph and telephone wires, steam and electric railways, all the +means of instantaneous communication which this wizard-like age of +ours is weaving from ocean to ocean, are consolidating the American +people into a single family. + +Natural conditions and the ordinary progress of industry and invention +are making old methods inadequate and unjust. So keep abreast of the +growing Nation in your political thinking. Solve all American +problems from the view-point of the Nation, and not from the +view-point of state or section. Consider the American people _as_ a +People, and not as a lot of separate and hostile communities. Be +National. Be an American. Know but one flag. + +Whatever party you belong to, and whatever your views on public +questions, you will never make a profound mistake as long as you keep +your civic ideals high and pure. Believe in the mission of the +American people. Have faith in our destiny. Never question that this +Republic is God's handiwork, and that it will surely do His will +throughout the earth. + +Understand that we are not living for to-day alone. Keep in mind the +future--the tasks, opportunities, and rewards of which for the +American people will make our large performances of to-day seem like +mere suggestions. Strive to make yourself worthy of this Nation of +your ideals. + +And of all your ideals, let the Nation itself be the noblest. Fear not +lest you pitch your thought too high for American realities and +possibilities. No single mind can scale the heights the American +people will finally conquer. No single imagination can compass the +American people's combined activity, power, and righteousness even at +this present moment. + +We have defects and deficiencies; fear not, they will be remedied and +supplied. We have perplexities and problems; fear not, they will be +untangled and solved. We have burdens, foreign and domestic; fear not, +we will bear them to the place appointed, and, at the hands of the +Master who gave us those burdens to carry, receive the reward for the +well-doing of our work, and, strengthened by our labor, go on to +heavier and nobler tasks which He will have ready and waiting for us. + +For this Nation of ours is here for a purpose. He did not give us our +liberty for nothing, or our location or our physical resources, or any +element of our material, intellectual, or spiritual power. No, the +Father of Lights has thus highly endowed us that we may do the very +things which are at our hands to-day, and those other and greater +things which will follow. It is for us Americans to solve the problems +that confront us now, and the still harder and deeper ones that we do +not yet behold; and we will solve them, never doubt. Live up to this +ideal of your Nation's place and purpose in the world, young man. Be +an American. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +THE WORLD AND THE YOUNG MAN + + +There has been much counseling of the young man respecting the world. +But what of counseling the world respecting the young man? Do not men +and women riper in years and richer in experience need to have their +attention called to the young man and the potentialities of him. He +faces the world with vigor, courage, and faith--this stout-hearted, +hopeful young fellow with To-morrow and all its possibilities coiled +up in his brain and heart. + +The young man is the future incarnate. His soul is the abiding-place +of uplifting ideals, and the world--that vast collective individuality +to which you and I belong--too often dispels those sensitive +enthusiasms by its neglect or disapproval. Do we not find in our daily +speech a certain cynicism toward youth? Does not our skeptic wisdom +paste the label "illusions" over the word "ideals" written on the +young man's brow? Is there not a refusal to recognize young manhood's +force until it compels recognition by sheer mastery? + +If so, it is a fault that the world should remedy. Not that the young +man should not prove himself before the world accepts him; not that he +should not win his spurs before he is knighted. No one insists that he +shall "make good" more than I do. But in the testing of him, let us +give him the help of our kindly attention. Let us lend him the +encouragement of our applause as he rides into the lists. + +Countless young men have been needlessly discouraged by the +indifference of the occupied and the sneers of the calloused. Let us +not be so chary of our sympathy. Faith in most young men is a much +safer hazard than infidelity. For all things strong and pure and +helpful to the world _may_ be possible of those young fellows who +must, in any event, very soon possess the earth. + +So let not the frost of the world's unconcern fall upon young +manhood's unfolding powers. Let us beware how we extinguish the +feeblest of youth's idealisms. Let us check not the onset of his +knight-errantry. And the world does these things--not purposely, not +even knowingly, but thoughtlessly. Many a young man has had his +life's work kept back and the ardor of it chilled by rebuff at the +beginning. + +Many another has had his faith in God and humanity and the +effectiveness of the eternal verities in the world's work enfeebled +and even shattered by what he felt was the world's disbelief in them. +No statistician can collect and classify the instances of young lives +impaired by the heedlessness and insensibility of the mature to the +beatitudes which glorify all youth. + +This attitude of the world toward young men is not caused by any +distrust of them or by any undervaluing of the high qualities of the +true, the beautiful, and the good which the young man brings to it. +Let no young man get the idea that the world of society and affairs is +"down on him," to borrow the phrasing of the people again. Let him +never for a moment feel that this world of experience and present +power does not believe in him. + +For the world does believe in you, young man. It is not "down on" you. +It is busy, that is all. It is engaged with the numberless and +pressing concerns of its from-day-to-day existence. It is forgetful, +no doubt, but its apathy does not go deeper than that. + +With this caution to the young man that he may not misunderstand what +is here written, I appeal to men and women, in whose faces the years +have etched the lines and wrinkles of knowledge and understanding, to +give more attention to young men; to encourage the nobilities of them; +to reach down a helping hand from your secure station on the heights +to him who struggles upward toward you. + +It will not hurt you, sir or madam, to closely watch for signs of +developing power in the young men of your acquaintance and to +cultivate that growing strength by your active and aggressive faith in +the young giant whom you have thus discovered. + +Men and women there are who search minutely for unknown powers in +plant-life, and by infinite pains in the use of that power, when +found, evolve newer, higher, and better types of fruit and flower. And +this is a good work. Men and women there are who sweep the infinitudes +of the skies that they may find a star hitherto unseen, or steal +unawares upon a hidden planet or a flying comet swiftly, yet +stealthily, emerging upon the field of the telescope's vision. + +And that is a good work, too--yet fruitless, for the immensities of +the universe will never be measured, nor the mysteries of the skies +be solved, nor the stars give up their secrets. Most of us are on some +quest which requires the very infinitesimalities of patience, quests +that are grand and quests that are foolish, searchings that are useful +and explorations that are frivolous. + +But the noblest of all prospecting is for strength and high purpose +and thoroughbred quality among the young manhood of our Nation. For +any one who helps some young man to make his life righteously +successful has enriched humanity more than he who reveals a Klondike +to the uses and the greed of the clans of trade. + +Yes; and he or she who, in the search for strong minds and pure hearts +among young men, discovers to the world a _great_ man has in that +achievement wrought immortality for himself and herself, while +rendering to mankind a service like that of a Columbus or a Pasteur. +For Columbus discovered a new continent; but what of the man or woman +who while looking through all the immaturities of his youth +"discovers" a Columbus. + +Thus would I direct the divining keenness of our men of affairs, so +swift and sure to detect advantages in business, to the young men who +wait at their outer gates for recognition and service. I would invite +the world, whose hearing is so sensitive to the material things of +commerce, to the exalted and eternal subject of human characters and +human destinies as they are developing daily, hourly, all about us. In +a word, I ask the ear of the world for its young men. + +I read in some sermon--I think it was by Myron Reed--that the most +pathetic thing in life is that a man of either thought or action must +spend two-thirds of his time getting a hearing. "During this time," +said the preacher, "the man of thought speaks his immortal word; the +man of action does his immortal deed; all the time the World is +refusing to listen or to heed; but finally, when the fires of genius +have burned low, when the great thoughts have been uttered and the +great works wrought, then it is willing to give ear and eye to the +necessarily feebler acts and thoughts of the great man's later days." + +It refuses to come near the fire when in full glow; it comes and puts +its hands into the ashes after the flame has died out and the ashes +themselves are growing cold. Do we not find ourselves worshiping +echoes and ghosts in the persons of men who _once_ wrought +splendidly, and denying the real forces of the present hour until they +compel recognition by their overwhelmingness; and then, having +exhausted themselves, become in their turn ghosts and echoes. + +It is all right to honor those who have done big things and are +"living on their reputations"; but it is all wrong to deny to those +young men who are doing and will do big things, now and in the future, +full and glad recognition of their power and possibilities. + +The first thing that the world should remember about the young man who +is confronting it, asking his daily bread of it, is the inestimable +value of the qualities of freshness, of innocence, of faith, of +confidence, of high honesty, of Don Quixote courage which the young +man brings to it. These are qualities which in human character are +worth all the wisdom of the market-place many million times +multiplied. They are the qualities which, in spite of itself, keep the +world young and tolerable. + +The young man comes to the world fresh from his mother's knee. The +Lord's Prayer is still in his mind; his mother taught it to him. The +glorious fable of Washington and the cherry-tree is still in his +heart; his mother taught it to him. A beautiful honor that makes him +very foolish on the stock exchange and causes the shrewd ones to say, +"He will know more after a while"--the splendid honor that makes him +throw over what the world calls "advantages"--still glorifies his +soul; his mother taught him that honor. The confidence that God is +just, and that success is surely his if he will but do right, still +beautifies him like the rose-tinted clouds of morning; it is the +influence of his mother's teaching. + +Let the world understand that these qualities with which the mother +labors to endow her child, from the time the blessing of maternity is +hers to the time the bright-eyed young fellow steps out from the old +home, are more valuable to the world itself than all its gold-mines, +all its scientific discoveries, all its electric railroads, all its +games of politics, all its commerce. "Il mondo va da se," said a +cynical Italian statesman--"the world goes by itself." But it does +not. + +If the world were not each year renewed, refreshed, glorified by the +magnificent honor and fine expectancies of its young men, it would +soon become simply fiendish in its sordidness, selfishness, and +baseness. Let the world, then, preserve these fine qualities at which +it too often idly sneers; not for the young man's sake--no, that is +not to be expected--but for its own sake. + +Let the world turn to the Master and think of what he said: "Except ye +become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of +heaven." I am pleading for the tolerance of what, by a certain class +of men, are called impracticable business defects in youthful +character, which in reality are the vital blood by which the world is +kept morally alive. + +The first attitude that the world ought really to take toward the +young man is charity. How parrot-like one is! Charity! "And now +abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these +is charity." I defy any man who talks about the practical affairs of +this life to get away from the Bible. + +Let the world then have charity for the young man. Let it realize that +for the particular moment there is nothing conceivable so helpless as +he. He is just as helpless as, in time, he will become irresistible. I +have already earnestly advised every young man, as a practical matter, +to do at least one thing each day not only free from any selfish +motive, but from which no possible material benefit could come to +himself. + +And now this is the reverse side of that shield. Let the world give to +the young man a little start, a little help, a little foothold, a +little encouragement. And I repeat that by the world I mean the great +mass of men who have ceased to be young men, or who, still young in +years, have achieved places of power--those who hold the reins of +affairs and business, of industrial and social conditions. + +I heard of a banker once who saw to it that at least once each week he +hunted up some young man, bravely struggling, bravely fighting, and +gave him some little assistance--a piece of business, an opportunity, +needful and kindly counsel--something that moistened his parched lips, +dry and hot from running the hard race that all youth must run for +success. I said to myself: "There is something in reincarnation; the +soul of Abou-ben-Adhem is dwelling in that banker's heart." + +For years the greatest pleasure of my life has been that young boys +have come to me from all over my State to talk about how they should +proceed in life's battle. You, too, may have the pleasure of helping +young men. But beware how you do this, saying in your heart, "I will +help this young man, and when he succeeds I will reap my reward." Such +a selfish thought will utterly poison your advice, deflect your moral +vision, distort your intellectual perceptions. + +That man who advises a young man with the thought that some day he +will be able to harvest personal advantage from that young man's +success, has probably by that very thought been rendered incapable of +giving sound advice or profitable help. Help the young man for his +sake, for the sake of the great humanity of which he is a fresh and +beautiful part, for the sake of that abstract good which, after all, +is the only reward in this life worthy the consideration of a serious +man. + +I heard not long ago of a brilliant and crafty young politician who +was and is an earnest champion and helper of a very successful and +highly practical man in public life. He had acquired some unfortunate +traits. He was suspicious, distrustful. He feared betrayal here, a +Judas there. The caution increased his cunning but was impairing his +character. The man to whose fortunes he was attached called him in, in +the midst of a great political battle on which the fortunes of that +man depended, and said to his young lieutenant: + +"Success in this fight is important to me, but it is not so important +as the impairing of your character which I see going on. You are +becoming permanently distrustful, suspicious. You think one friend +will fail us here, that that friend is untrue, that the other one may +be influenced improperly. Very soon you will begin to suspect me, then +you will suspect yourself, and then--then, you are utterly lost. Stop +it. I would rather lose the fight than see your character become +negative." + +That man was right, and the attitude he took in his advice to the +young man was right. Let the world quit encouraging young men to think +that guile succeeds. Let it encourage the faith that nothing but the +noble and the good really succeed in the end. Let every one point out +to the young man confronting the world that it is not so great a thing +after all to be "smart," not so great a thing after all to be capable +with the little tricks of life, but that it is everything to be good +and trustful and fearless and constructive. + +It will not do for the world to reply that it does, in words, +encourage these fine qualities of youth. It does not, except in formal +and meaningless utterances--preachments that have not the vitality of +individuality in them. Words are very little, almost less than +nothing; but attitude and action are everything. The young man would +not feel that he had to be "slick," or crafty, or cunning, if the +world's attitude did not invite him to such a conclusion. It is the +nature of young men the world over, and particularly of young +Americans, to be open in life, direct in method, lofty in purpose, and +fearless in action. + +A very successful lawyer once told me the following--it illustrates my +point: "I remember," said he, "that when I was a law student one of +the most brilliant young men I ever met--one of the most brilliant +young or old men I ever met--one day received a client of the firm +with a luxury of attention and a sumptuousness of courtesy that deeply +aroused my ignorant and rural admiration. + +"When the consultation had been finished and the rich client had left +the office, this young lawyer, who had bowed him out with a deft +compliment which made the client feel that he was the point about +which the universe was revolving, turned and said, as he went to his +desk, 'There goes the shallowest fool and most stupid rascal in the +state.' + +"When asked how he could say such a thing after having treated the +client with such distinction, he turned with a wink of his eye, and +said: 'That is the way to work them. You don't know the world yet. +Wait till you get on in the world; it will teach you how to handle +them.' + +"That young man had become thoroughly saturated with the opinion that +Ferrers, in "Ernest Maltravers," is the type to be imitated--a +character of crafty cunning, playing on the weaknesses of men. He had +gotten his opinion from the apparent success of the tricks and sharp +practises of the law. He had not seen the broader horizon above which +only those who are as good as they are capable ever rise. + +"It was a fatal method for _him_. He finally failed. It was a fatal +method for at least two young students upon whom his ideals and +influences fell with determining power." + +Of course; and it is a fatal view of life for any young man to get. +The young man who comes out from the ennobling influence of the +American mother will not take this view if the world does not compel +him to do so. The world, then, should not applaud any feat of +smartness or cunning on the part of the young man. It should not wink +its eye and pat him on the shoulder and say, "That was very 'smooth,' +very 'smooth' indeed; I congratulate you." + +The young man confronts the world with mingled courage and timidity. +It is so vast. It seems so unconquerable. And yet he has been taught +to believe that if he meets it with a high fearlessness he will +conquer. That is what his mother taught him. Out of this thought and +his nervous timidity combined comes what appears to the world to be a +senseless courage, a foolish daring. He is very much afraid; he wants +to make the world think he is not afraid; he has been told to put up a +bold front--and men think him rash and adventurous. He is not--he is +only trying to keep you from seeing how scared he is. + +In the campaign of 1898 a young man with all of these qualities, and +gifted with considerable oratorical power, was seeking an opportunity +to get a little hearing. He had just graduated from college, had +opened a law office, had never had the shadow or substance of a +client, but he had that fresh confidence and the ability back of it +which the world neglects until, finally, it is forced to accept it. + +I secured for him an invitation to make some speeches in a neighboring +State. He was delighted. He went, but returned wounded in spirit by +the heedlessness of the State Committee and the indifference of the +men of prominence who had refused to notice him. And yet the fine +courage that dared take part in the great struggle just beginning was +a quality which was more valuable to his party and to the world and to +humanity, than all of the schemes of the men who rejected him. + +It is this courage constantly injected into the veins of the world +which, little by little, is lifting mankind up to a more and still +more endurable estate. I shall never be able to perform a higher +service than to light again, as I did, the fires of his confidence and +young daring. + +Let the world not suppose that by encouraging these great qualities of +youth which it now heedlessly represses, and only too often kills, it +will spoil the young man. The intrinsic difficulties of life are great +enough to keep him within bounds, no matter how much encouragement he +receives. The very nature of things, and the constitution of society +as he comes to examine it in its concrete manifestations, will chasten +his illusions. + +The rarity of the air as he mounts upward in life will weight his +wings at last. The limitations of Nature and of affairs will in +themselves be all the chastisement he needs to correct abnormal hope, +courage, faith, or honor--yes, even more than enough. Let the world, +then--the men and women who have won their places in life--let them +nourish the enthusiasms and the elemental "illusions" of youth +wherever they see them. + +After all, they are not illusions; they are the only true things in +this universe. The houses that men construct will in time decay. The +remorseless elements will rot the noblest trees down to the earth from +which they grew. The laws that men make will lose their force and be +succeeded by other statutes, equally temporary and futile. Reputations +men build will vanish almost before they are made. Civilizations they +erect will pass from their flowering into the seeds of future +civilizations and be forgotten, too. + +But the "illusions" with which the young man confronts the world at +the beginning of his career are as everlasting as God's word: "Till +heaven and earth pass, one jot or one little shall in no wise pass +from the law, till all be fulfilled." The "illusions" of the young +man--of the young American particularly--are the manifestations of +that law, the eternal law of the eternal verities. + + "The lyrical dream of the boy is the kingly truth. + The world is a vapor and only the Vision is real-- + Yea, nothing can hold against hell but the Winged Ideal." + +Let the world look to it, then, that the exalted qualities of youth +which make it indiscreet, audacious, exhilarant--yes, and spotless, +too--be not discouraged, repressed, destroyed; for these qualities are +"the salt of the earth; but if the salt have lost its savor, wherewith +shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing but to be cast +out, and to be trodden under foot of men." + +Speaking to the world of business and of society, I therefore plead +for tolerance of all the fresh, clean, high, and splendid--absurd, if +you will--"illusions" of the young man seeking his seat at the table +where all men eat, and where all, at the end, must drink the same +hemlock cup. + +For if these "illusions" are destroyed and replaced with the wisdom of +the serpent, Tennyson's "Locksley Hall" will, sure enough and in sad +reality, be replaced by the "Locksley Hall Sixty Years After." Take +the young man, then, by the hand, take him to your heart, and, instead +of destroying, catch, if you can, some of the glory, the faith, the +freshness, the "illusions" of his youth; remembering that Wordsworth +uttered an ultimate note when he said: + + "Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting; + The soul that rises with us, our life's star, + Hath had elsewhere its setting, + And cometh from afar. + Not in entire forgetfulness, + And not in utter nakedness, + But trailing clouds of glory, do we come + From God, who is our home." + +And it is these clouds of glory that still surround the young man when +he stands brave and sweet and full of faith, and with his mother's +precious precepts and counsels ringing in his ears, before the great +old world, wrinkled by its infinite centuries. + +But you, young man, you for whom I am asking the world's helpful +regard--when you read this do not go to pitying yourself. That is +fatal. Do not get the notion that the world is not giving you your +just due. If you have such an idea, thrust it instantly from you. If +you think the world has downed you, up and at it again. If, a second +time, it knocks you out, still up and at it again. And keep smiling. +Never whine--you deserve defeat if you do that. + +Be a "thoroughbred," as the expression of the hour has it. After "you +conquer and prevail," you will find that the world has a kindly and +even a loving heart. All you have to do is to keep in condition and +keep fighting. And that ought to be pleasant to any male +creature--what more can he want? Just go right ahead with faith in +God, believing in all the virtues and keeping up your nerve. But if +you get to pitying yourself, you are lost, and ought to be. + +Furthermore, do not succumb to the fiction that there are fewer +"chances" for young men now than there used to be. Never was there a +period when there were so many opportunities as there are this very +day--_high-grade_ opportunities. They are for high-grade men--and that +is what you are, is it not? If not, why not? The calls for men of fine +equipment daily rise from every business, and are never satisfied. + +And these calls are for young men, too. Indeed, it is not the young +man, but the old and middle-aged man who has the right to complain. +The exactions of modern business are discriminating in favor of the +man under forty. There are calls for all kinds of men. But the +fiercest demand is for first-class men. You have only to be a +_first-class man_ in order to be sought for by scores of firms and +corporations--and on your own terms. No! it is not the fact that there +are no chances for young men to-day. The chances are all around you. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +THE YOUNG MAN'S SECOND WIND; OR FACING THE WORLD AT FIFTY + + +Life has three tragedies: loss of honor, loss of health, and the black +conclusion of men past middle life who think they have failed--played +the game and lost. The young man starting out in life has my heart; +but the man past fifty who feels that he has failed has my heart +absolutely and with emphasis. Apparently he has so much to contend +against--the onsweep of the world, the pitying attitude of those of +his own age who have succeeded, and, over all, his secret feeling of +despair. But the last is the only fatal element in his problem. + +As a matter of fact, the man past middle life who has not achieved +distinct success very possibly has only been "finding himself," to use +Mr. Kipling's expression. Perhaps he has only been growing. Certainly +he has been accumulating experience, knowledge, and the effective +wisdom which only these can give. And if his failure has not been +because he is a fraud, and because people found it out--if he has +been, and is, genuine--it may be that he has been unconsciously +preparing for continuous, enduring, and possibly great success, if he +only will. + +I should say that the very first thing for this man to do is to see +that he does not get soured. That attitude of character is an acid +which will destroy all success. Keep yourself sweet, no matter how +snail-like your progress has been, no matter how paltry your apparent +achievements. If you are already soured on men and the world, change +that condition by a persistent habit of optimism. All death shows an +acid reaction. Hopefulness is the alkaline in character. + +Make "looking on the bright side" a habit. It can be done. Mingle with +people as much as possible--especially with the young and buoyant and +beautifully hopeful. Be a part of passing events. Read the daily +newspapers. Form the habit of picking out the brighter aspects of +occurrences. There is an astonishing tonic in the daily newspaper. +When you read it, the blood of the world's great vitality is pouring +through you. + +I know a man who is now a millionaire, but who at the age of forty +was without a dollar. He is now not over fifty-five. He had spent all +those forty years watching for his opportunity--aye, getting ready for +it. When it came, his beak was sharpened, his talons keen as needles +and strong as steel, and he swooped down upon that opportunity like a +bird of prey. + +"No," said he, "I did not get discouraged. I was living, and my wife +and children were living; and Vanderbilt was not doing any more than +that, after all. I felt all the time that I was getting ready. I +worked a good deal harder than I have since I achieved my fortune. +Somehow, up to the time it came I had not felt equal to my chance; for +I knew that my opportunity would be a large one when it came, and I +knew that it would come. It did come." + +Business men said for the first two or three years, "What a change of +luck Mr. ---- has had! But he is not equal to it. He has never +accomplished anything heretofore." + +Yes, but he had been getting ready. He had been saving vitality, +building up character, indexing and pigeonholing experiences, +accumulating and systematizing a long-continued series of observations +and all the potentialities of intellect and personality out of which, +when applied to proper conditions, success alone is forged. + +And so he gathered to himself great riches, and the poor man of a few +years ago is now--of course, of course, and alas! if you like--a +member of one of the most powerful trusts in the country. + +Get yourself into the current of Circumstance--"in the swim," as the +colloquialism has it. A man of large experience and important +achievement said to me not long ago: "I am afraid I am getting to be a +back number." That was a distinct note of degeneration. If he thought +so that thought was the best evidence of the fact. + +Do not get it into your head that you are out of step with the times. +That in itself will paralyze both intellect and will. It is an +admission of permanent failure. No matter whether you think the +changed conditions and methods of business, society, and affairs, +which almost each day brings, are inferior or superior to the old +conditions and methods or not, you must keep abreast of them; take in +the spirit of them. + +An attitude of protest against the progressive order of things may be +heroic, but it is not practical or effective. These conditions and +methods which make you feel like a "back number" may not be the best; +if they are not, try to make them the best, if you will, but do not +attempt to perfect them backward by returning to yesterday. The world +is very impatient of _apparent_ retrogression; it hurts its egotism. + +"What! Go back to old conditions?" says the World. "Never! never! +Progress, alone, for me!" + +But sometimes it means motion, not progress; for true progress might +possibly be a return to old and superior methods. No matter, I am +speaking of _your_ practical, personal, and material success now. I am +not speaking to you as a reformer or as a teacher of the elemental +truths. _You_ are a searcher, past fifty years of age, after the +flesh-pots. Very well, then. Do not run amuck of the world. Join in +its progress, even if that progress seems to you to be unreal. + +At the risk of iteration, I again urge constant mingling with people. +It is from them that you must draw your success, after all. A man over +fifty who feels that his life is a failure is apt to emphasize the +outward manners and inward habits of thought of his earlier days, as +he would, if he could, stick to the old styles and fashions of apparel +of the days of his youth. To do the latter would be to call attention +at once to his antiquity; but to retain his old mental attitude is +antiquity indeed. + +People are quick to see, feel, and know that you are in deed and in +truth not of the present day. When they think that, you are +discredited and at an unnecessary disadvantage. Therefore mingle with +men. Don't withdraw into yourself. Don't be a turtle. Be an active and +present part of society, not only that your whole mind and whole +conscious being may be kept fresh and growing, but that people may not +perceive the contrary. + +Growing! Growth! It is only a question of that, after all. No man can +ultimately fail who has kept himself alive, and therefore kept himself +growing. If you find that you have ceased to grow, start up the +process again. Make yourself take an interest in large and +constructive things of the present moment in your city, county, state, +and country, and in the world. + +The mind and character of man are the two great exceptions to the +entire constitution of the universe. Decay is the law that controls +everything else except these; but thought and character need never +decay. They may be kept growing as long as life endures. Who shall +deny that the philosophers of India are right, and that mind and +character may continue to grow throughout illimitable series of +existences? + +Only two classes of men are hopeless: those who think to prevail by +fraud and the contrivances of indirection, and those whose minds and +characters have begun to disintegrate, or degenerate, if you like the +latter word better. There is every reason why character should each +day get a truer bearing, why the mind each day should become more +luminous, elevated, and accurate. + +The Stoics said that even temperament might be given steadiness and +poise by an exercise of philosophy and will, and the lives of many of +them seemed to prove it. And if all this is true, your fifty years +have given you an arsenal of power that is a considerable advantage +over younger men, if you will but use it; and it is to point out some +of the methods for its use, and some of the mistakes which I have +observed men in your condition make, that this paper is written. + +A great and natural desire of men such as those to whom this paper is +addressed is to move from the places in which they have achieved no +success to new locations, where, as they put it, they "can start life +afresh." Do not do it. Such a course is, ordinarily, as fatal as it is +alluring. + +If you have been an upright man--and without this there can be no +permanent success of any kind--your long residence in your community +has put you to no disadvantage, but precisely the contrary. You have, +during these years, secured the confidence of your community. They +know you to be loyal, truthful, sober, steadfast, industrious. This +popular faith in the elemental qualities of your character is the +foundation of success, and usually it requires years to establish +that. + +You are at no disadvantage because the people do not have for you that +admiration which the doing of things compels. The fact that your +neighbors do not suspect your potentialities is really an advantage. +If you have that righteous and permissible craft which every man +should have, and if you take advantage of it, you can begin the work +which will bring you success without that envy and competition, that +friction of jealousy, which every man of acknowledged power arouses. +But if you, a man of fifty or over, go into a new environment, you +carry with you that heaviest of all burdens, the necessity of making +explanations. + +"Why have you come among us at your age?" the people ask. "What is the +story of your past?" they very properly inquire. "It must be that you +are not a man of integrity which commanded the respect and support of +your old home," they will not unnaturally conclude; "either this, or +else you were a failure there." + +These are the two necessary and inevitable deductions, and either horn +of that cruel dilemma of logic is enough to impale you. If you escape +them, you do it because you do not attract notice, and this, in +itself, is failure. And in any event, to gain the substantial +confidence of the people you must spend several years of right living +among them. And you have no time to waste in building up confidence at +your period of life. That is an asset which your whole career of +unsuccessful probity should have accumulated for you; and it is +dissipated if you remove from among those in whose minds that belief +in you exists. + +I have seen this serious error made so many times, and nearly always +with such destroying results, that I give it more space than its +relative proportion deserves. I have in mind now two men who did +precisely this thing. Their success in the two country towns where +they had lived had been reasonable, but not considerable. It did not +appear to be success at all to them, though. + +They were quite sure that they were bigger than their +opportunities--yes, that was what was the matter--they needed larger +opportunities, "larger fields," more "scope" for their powers. Each +man was about fifty years of age. Each was a man of far more than +ordinary talent. Each removed to a city. And in the city which each +chose, each miserably, utterly, hopelessly failed. + +Had they remained where for years they had been planting the seeds of +confidence, respect, and achievement, and had they awaited the slow +processes of the harvest, each man would soon have become the leading +man in his town, county, and district, and would have remained so +until the end of his days; for the harvest was nearly theirs. They did +not understand that while it takes a long time to prepare the soil and +sow the seed, and let it grow to maturity, the ripening of the harvest +comes in a few golden days. + +It is true that there are exceptions to the above rule--the rule of +abiding, of standing fast. But the exception is justified only when +you have made so many definite, tangible, and public failures in your +old home that there is absolutely no possibility of further hope. Of +course, if you are a man of lion heart and lion power, this is another +matter. Any place on earth is a fit field for achievement by these +savages of enterprise. + +I know one of these who won a fortune, and lost it; won another, and +again lost; and who, finally, with judgments and executions showering +upon him, set his face to a new land and resolved again to conquer +fortune or die. He conquered--of course he conquered--and is now worth +many millions. But if you look into his kindly but deadly blue eye, +and consider the tragic and premature whiteness of his hair, and take +in the whole resistless and compelling personality of the man, you +will see why _he_ succeeded. + +We are all familiar with the stirring history of a certain great +American master of millions who is now about sixty-five years of age, +and has amassed his wealth since he was fifty. He had failed, and +failed often, before that time--failed once humiliatingly and +irretrievably, so the ordinary man would say. So the ordinary man did +say, and say hard and often. + +The details of his early catastrophes are not worth while here. The +point is that they did not affect him except to make him stronger. +They were the Thor-like blows with which Fate forged the +unconquerableness of this man. For unconquerable he has become. + +He has carried through daring plans; he has brought great financial +institutions that opposed him to their knees; from the throne of his +audacity he has dictated terms to boards of trade, and made the +princes of the houses of commercial royalty his servants. + +But if you look at his brow of power, at the merciless and yet +delicate and sensitive lips, you will become conscious of why he +succeeded--why he must eventually have succeeded anywhere. But such a +man is no example for you unless you are such a man yourself--and in +that case, you need no examples of any kind. You are your own example. + +I read with keen interest, the other day, a feature article in one of +our great daily newspapers, giving incidents in the careers of fifteen +American millionaires who made their fortunes after they were fifty. +But all these had the luck of the never-say-die men. They were all of +the class that Emerson describes as having an excess of arterial +circulation. + +Every failure to them was simply an access of information. They +regarded each loss as another piece of instruction in the game. +Fortune always gives the winnings to such as these at last. Fortune +loves a daring player; and while she may rebuff him for a while, it is +only to gild the refined gold of his ultimate achievings. + +Another thing. Go you to church. Use clean linen. Wear good and +well-fitting clothing. Take care of your shoes. Look after all the +details of your personal grooming. In short, observe all the methods +which human experience has devised to keep men from degenerating. +There is an unalterable connection between the physical and mental and +moral. + +The old saying that "cleanliness is next to godliness" has beneath it +all the philosophy of civilization. + +It is an easy process that produces tramps. A few days' growth of +beard, the tolerance of certain personal habits of indolence, and your +tramp begins, vaguely, but none the less surely, to appear. This is +accompanied by a falling off in clear-cut thought, a blurring of the +moralities, and a cessation of definite and effective energy. This is +itself, of course, an interminable subject upon which several papers +might be written; but perhaps I have said enough to make apparent to +you its practical application. + +The stages of degeneration are as easy as they are fatal, and since to +resist them requires courage, force, and alertness, it is only too +probable that the man past fifty, who feels that he has failed, is +beginning to submit to them. Do not do it. Resort to every possible +device to prevent it; for degeneration, in itself, is failure; more, +it is death. It is exactly the same force which rots out the heart of +the oak, manifesting itself in human character. + +Your problem is not to give way to your weaknesses. That is the +problem of all of us. "I see two men looking from your eyes," said the +Norse seeress, "a young man and an old man. Do not let the old man in +you conquer the young man in you." Very well! Barring the loss of +health, you can always make the young man in you the victor. + +Do not conclude that things are fixed, that conditions are permanent, +and that, as there is no apparent place for you as circumstances now +exist, there never will be. Fix in your mind this dreadful and +glorious paradox, that even the most permanent things are transient. +Study the clouds, those visible emblems of human experience and +institutions. A twist, a curve, a change in the shape and outline, and +final disappearance into the universal blue--such is their destiny; +and yet each instant they are permanent, apparently, so far as that +instant is concerned. + + "The rushing metamorphosis + Dissolving all that fixture is, + Melts things that be to things that seem + And solid Nature to a dream." + +It will be useful, also, to consider the political machine. There is +nothing which, in its day, is apparently more permanent or powerful; +yet it dissolves in obedience to the very laws on which it is built. +So, my friend, there is never a time that you can truthfully say that +there is not, and never will be, any place for you in the order of +society and affairs. + +No, indeed; things are not fixed. Recall the story of the Oriental +monarch. His wise men with all their wisdom could not produce a single +truth that stood the test of time. As the tale runs, the ruler, weary +of the falsehoods of so-called learning, called his wise men together +and said to them: + +"I sicken of your daily sagacities which the next day prove to be +follies. Tell me one truth--only one. I ask but a single sentence. But +let it be a sentence that will be as true next year as this year--a +sentence which always has been true and always will be true. I give +you one year to formulate one such sentence. If at the end of that +time you cannot state an absolute verity, your lives will be +forfeited." + +At the end of the year the wise men came to their dread lord and said +that they had found one universal truth. "State it," said their +sovereign. They answered: "Here is the only sentence our wisdom can +construct which is absolutely true: '_And this, too, shall pass +away._'" And so shall your misfortunes, my friend past fifty, pass +away. "It is a long road that has no turning," declares the maxim of +the people. Your road is no exception. + +The historic instances of great success past fifty are numerous and +inspiring. They begin with Moses, who was forty years of age when "he +slew the Egyptian," and they come down to our present day; to +Bismarck, who, while so brilliant as a young man that he attracted the +attention of Europe, was not great till he was past forty-five; to +Disraeli, who, though so dazzling in his youth and early prime that +he astounded Parliament and filled the press with comment, was not +constructive or permanent in his success till comparatively late in +life. + +Think, too, of those historic successes of which there was not the +faintest sign until far past middle life--they are not many, to be +sure, but they are inspiring. Some of the great headlands that +shoulder out into history--Washington, Lincoln, and the like--became +visible to the world after forty-five. + +Of course, it is true that the immense majority of the world's great +achievers--generals, statesmen, poets, philosophers, inventors, +builders--have been young men. But the noble exceptions contain +sufficient encouragement for you if you still have the heart of +purpose. + +I like to think of a man fighting his best fight just at the end of +life. There has always been something attractive to me about the +expression of Western hardihood, "Dying with his boots on," and the +attitude of character that it describes. + +From my infancy the story of the _Bon Homme Richard_ has been like +wine to my blood. Be you like that ship, my dear friend past fifty! +She had, apparently, failed, but she kept in service. She had reached +the age of decay, and her timbers scarcely held together; yet she did +not go out of commission. + +She attacked the _Serapis_, one of the youngest and stanchest and best +equipped of the matchless navy of England. She was blown full of +holes; still she fought. She was on fire; still she fought. The water +poured into her hold and she was sinking; still she fought. Fought, +fought, fought, and in the grim, the terrible, and the sublime end she +won. + +The _Serapis_ was captured by the _Bon Homme Richard_, and the +victorious old ship's crew established themselves on the decks of the +conquered Englishman. The gallant veteran of the waves was kept afloat +that night, but at sunrise the next day they ran to her masthead her +glorious, shot-torn battle-flag, and she went to her home in the +abysses of the deep with that banner of battle and ultimate triumph +flying as she sank beneath the waves. + +Be that your end, my friend, and that of all brave hearts. Fight until +the last, and let your noblest and most decisive victory be won with +the final efforts of your expiring life. + + +THE END + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Young Man and the World, by Albert J. Beveridge + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE YOUNG MAN AND THE WORLD *** + +***** This file should be named 17110.txt or 17110.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/7/1/1/17110/ + +Produced by Suzanne Lybarger, Jeannie Howse and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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