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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/33952-8.txt b/33952-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2f4fd66 --- /dev/null +++ b/33952-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1261 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of What You Can Do With Your Will Power, by +Russell H. Conwell + +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: What You Can Do With Your Will Power + +Author: Russell H. Conwell + +Release Date: October 2, 2010 [EBook #33952] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHAT YOU CAN DO WITH YOUR *** + + + + +Produced by D Alexander, Juliet Sutherland and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + + What You + Can Do With Your + Will Power + + _By_ + RUSSELL H. CONWELL + + VOLUME I + + NATIONAL + EXTENSION UNIVERSITY + 597 Fifth Avenue, New York + + + + + WHAT YOU CAN DO WITH YOUR WILL POWER + + Copyright, 1917, by Harper & Brothers + Printed in the United States of America + + + + + [Illustration: Russell H. Conwell] + + + + + PREFACE + + +Other writers have fully and accurately described _the road_, and my +only hope is that these hastily written lines will inspire the young +man or young woman to arise _and go_. + + RUSSELL H. CONWELL. + + + + + [The Author is much indebted to Mr. Merle Crowell of the + _American Magazine_ who assisted most efficiently in the + preparation of the facts herein contained.] + + + + + WHAT YOU CAN DO WITH YOUR WILL POWER + + + + + Success has no secret-- + + I + + +Success has no secret. Her voice is forever ringing through the +market-place and crying in the wilderness, and the burden of her cry +is one word--WILL. Any normal young man who hears and heeds that cry +is equipped fully to climb to the very heights of life. + +The message I would like to leave with the young men and women of +America is a message I have been trying humbly to deliver from lecture +platform and pulpit for more than fifty years. It is a message the +accuracy of which has been affirmed and reaffirmed in thousands of lives +whose progress I have been privileged to watch. And the message is this: +Your future stands before you like a block of unwrought marble. You can +work it into what you will. Neither heredity, nor environment, nor any +obstacles superimposed by man can keep you from marching straight +through to success, provided you are guided by a firm, driving +determination and have normal health and intelligence. + +Determination is the battery that commands every road of life. It is the +armor against which the missiles of adversity rattle harmlessly. If +there is one thing I have tried peculiarly to do through these years it +is to indent in the minds of the youth of America the living fact that +when they give WILL the reins and say "DRIVE" they are headed toward the +heights. + +The institution out of which Temple University, of Philadelphia, grew +was founded thirty years ago expressly to furnish opportunities for +higher education to poor boys and girls who are willing to work for it. +I have seen ninety thousand students enter its doors. A very large +percentage of these came to Philadelphia without money, but firmly +determined to get an education. I have never known one of them to go +back defeated. Determination has the properties of a powerful acid; all +shackles melt before it. + +Conversely, lack of will power is the readiest weapon in the arsenal of +failure. The most hopeless proposition in the world is the fellow who +thinks that success is a door through which he will sometime stumble if +he roams around long enough. Some men seem to expect ravens to feed +them, the cruse of oil to remain inexhaustible, the fish to come right +up over the side of the boat at meal-time. They believe that life is a +series of miracles. They loaf about and trust in their lucky star, and +boldly declare that the world owes them a living. + +As a matter of fact the world owes a man nothing that he does not earn. +In this life a man gets about what he is worth, and he must render an +equivalent for what is given him. There is no such thing as inactive +success. + +My mind is running back over the stories of thousands of boys and girls +I have known and known about, who have faced every sort of a handicap +and have won out solely by will and perseverance in working with all the +power that God had given them. It is now nearly thirty years since a +young English boy came into my office. He wanted to attend the evening +classes at our university to learn oratory. + +"Why don't you go into the law?" I asked him. + +"I'm too poor! I haven't a chance!" he replied, shaking his head sadly. + +I turned on him sharply. "Of course you haven't a chance," I exclaimed, +"if you don't make up your mind to it!" + +The next night he knocked at my door again. His face was radiant and +there was a light of determination in his eyes. + +"I have decided to become a lawyer," he said, and I knew from the ring +of his voice that he meant it. + +Many times after he became mayor of Philadelphia he must have looked +back on that decision as the turning-point in his life. + +I am thinking of a young Connecticut farm lad who was given up by his +teachers as too weak-minded to learn. He left school when he was seven +years old and toiled on his father's farm until he was twenty-one. Then +something turned his mind toward the origin and development of the +animal kingdom. He began to read works on zoology, and, in order to +enlarge his capacity for understanding, went back to school and picked +up where he left off fourteen years before. Somebody said to him, "You +can get to the top _if you will_!" + +He grasped the hope and nurtured it, until at last it completely +possessed him. He entered college at twenty-eight and worked his way +through with the assistance that we were able to furnish him. To-day he +is a respected professor of zoology in an Ohio college. + +Such illustrations I could multiply indefinitely. Of all the boys whom I +have tried to help through college I cannot think of a single one who +has failed for any other reason than ill health. But of course I have +never helped any one who was not first helping himself. As soon as a man +determines the goal toward which he is marching, he is in a strategic +position to see and seize everything that will contribute toward that +end. + +Whenever a young man tells me that if he "had his way" he would be a +lawyer, or an engineer, or what not, I always reply: + +"You can be what you will, provided that it is something the world will +be demanding ten years hence." + +This brings to my mind a certain stipulation which the ambition of youth +must recognize. You must invest yourself or your money in a _known +demand_. You must select an occupation that is fitted to your own +special genius and to some actual want of the people. Choose as early as +possible what your life-work will be. Then you can be continually +equipping yourself by reading and observing to a purpose. There are many +things which the average boy or girl learns in school that could be +learned outside just as well. + +Almost any man should be able to become wealthy in this land of opulent +opportunity. There are some people who think that to be pious they must +be very poor and very dirty. They are wrong. Not money, but the _love_ +of money, is the root of all evil. Money in itself is a dynamic force +for helping humanity. + +In my lectures I have borne heavily on the fact that we are all walking +over acres of diamonds and mines of gold. There are people who think +that their fortune lies in some far country. It is much more likely to +lie right in their own back yards or on their front door-step, hidden +from their unseeing eye. Most of our millionaires discovered their +fortunes by simply looking around them. + +Recently I have been investigating the lives of four thousand and +forty-three American millionaires. All but twenty of them started life +as poor boys, and all but forty of them have contributed largely to +their communities, and divided fairly with their employees as they went +along. But, alas, not one rich man's son out of seventeen dies rich. + +But if a man has dilly-dallied through a certain space of wasted years, +can he then develop the character--the motor force--to drive him to +success? Why, my friend, will power cannot only be developed, but it is +often dry powder which needs only a match. Very frequently I think of +the life of Abraham Lincoln--that wonderful man! and I am thankful that +I was permitted to meet him. Yet Abraham Lincoln developed the splendid +sinews of his will after he was twenty-one. Before that he was just a +roving, good-natured sort of a chap. Always have I regretted that I +failed to ask him what special circumstance broke the chrysalis of his +life and loosened the wings of his will. + +Many years ago some of the students of Temple University held a meeting +in a building opposite the Bellevue-Stratford Hotel. As they were +leaving the building they noticed a foreigner selling peanuts on the +opposite curb. While buying peanuts they got to talking with the +fellow, and told him that any one could obtain an education if he was +willing to work for it. Eagerly the poor fellow drank up all the +information he could get. He enrolled at Temple University and worked +his way through, starting with the elementary studies. He is to-day an +eminent practising physician in the national capital. + +Often I think of an office clerk who reached a decision that the +ambitions which were stirring in his soul could be realized if he could +only get an education. He attended our evening classes and was graduated +with a B.S. degree. He is now the millionaire head of one of the largest +brokerage houses in the country. + +"Where there's a will there's a way!" But one needs to use a little +common sense about selecting the way. A general may determine to win a +victory, but if he hurls his troops across an open field straight into +the leaden sweep of the enemy's artillery he invites disaster and +defeat. The best general lays his plans carefully, and advances his +troops in the way that will best conserve their strength and numbers. So +must a man plan his campaign of life. + +No man has a right, either for himself or for others, to be at work in a +factory, or a store, or anywhere else, unless he would work there from +choice--money or no money--if he had the necessities of life. + +"As a man thinks, so he is," says the writer of Proverbs; but as a man +adjusts himself, so really is he, after all. One great trouble with many +individuals is that they are made up of all sorts of machinery that is +not adjusted, that is out of place--no belts on the wheels, no fire +under the boiler, hence no steam to move the mechanism. + +Some folk never take the trouble to size themselves up--to find out +what they are fitted to do--and then wonder why they remain way down at +the bottom of the heap. I remember a young woman who told me that she +did not believe she could ever be of any particular use in the world. I +mentioned a dozen things that she ought to be able to do. + +"If you only knew yourself," I said, "you would set yourself to writing. +You ought to be an author." + +She shook her head and smiled, as if she thought I was making fun of +her. Later, force of circumstances drove her to take up the pen. And +when she came to me and told me that she was making three thousand +dollars a year in literary work, and was soon to go higher, I thought +back to the time when she was a poor girl making three dollars a week +when she failed accurately to estimate herself. + + + + + There is a deplorable tendency-- + + II + + +There is a deplorable tendency among many people to wait for a +particularly favorable opportunity to declare themselves in the battle +of life. Some people pause for the rap of opportunity when opportunity +has been playing a tattoo on their resonant skulls for years. + +Hardly a single great invention has been placed on the market without a +number of men putting forth the claim that they had the idea first--and +in most cases they proved the fact. But while they were sitting down and +dreaming, or trying to bring the device to a greater perfection, a man +with initiative rose up and acted. The telegraph, telephone, +sewing-machine, air-brake, mowing-machine, wireless, and +linotype-machine are only a few illustrations. + +The most wonderful idea is quite valueless until it is put into +practical operation. The Government rewards the man who first gets a +patent or first puts his invention into practical use--and the world +does likewise. Thus the dreamer must always lag behind the door. + +True will power also predicates concentration. I shall never forget the +time I went to see President Lincoln to ask him to spare the life of one +of my soldiers who was sentenced to be shot. As I walked toward the door +of his office I felt a greater fear than I had ever known when the +shells were bursting all about us at Antietam. Finally I mustered up +courage to knock on the door. I heard a voice inside yell: + +"Come in and sit down!" + +The man at the table did not look up as I entered; he was busy over a +bunch of papers. I sat down at the edge of a chair and wished I were in +Peking or Patagonia. He never looked up until he had quite finished with +the papers. Then he turned to me and said: + +"I am a very busy man and have only a few minutes to spare. Tell me in +the fewest words what it is you want." + +As soon as I mentioned the case he said: + +"I have heard all about it, and you do not need to tell me any more. Mr. +Stanton was talking to me about that only a few days ago. You can go to +the hotel and rest assured that the President never did sign an order to +shoot a boy under twenty, and never will. You may tell his mother that." +Then, after a short conversation, he took hold of another bunch of +papers and said, decidedly, "Good morning!" + +Lincoln, one of the greatest men of the world, owed his success largely +to one rule: whatsoever he had to do at all he put his whole mind into, +and held it all there until the task was all done. That makes men great +almost anywhere. + +Too many people are satisfied if they have done a thing "well enough." +That is a fatal complacency. "Well enough" has cursed souls. "Well +enough" has wrecked enterprises. "Well enough" has destroyed nations. If +perfection in a task can possibly be reached, nothing short of +perfection is "well enough." Governor Talbot of Massachusetts got his +high office because General Swift made a happy application of the truth +in saying to the convention, "I nominate for Governor of this state a +man who, when he was a farmer's boy, hoed to the end of the row." That +saying became a campaign slogan all up and down the state. "He hoed to +the end of the row! He hoed to the end of the row!" When the people +discovered that this was one of the characteristics of the man, they +elected him by one of the greatest majorities ever given a Governor in +Massachusetts. + +Yet we must bear in mind that there is such a thing as overdoing +anything. Young people should draw a line between study that secures +wisdom and study that breaks down the mind; between exercise that is +healthful and exercise that is injurious; between a conscientiousness +that is pure and divine and a conscientiousness that is over-morbid and +insane; between economy that is careful and economy that is stingy; +between industry that is a reasonable use of their powers and industry +that is an over-use of their powers, leading only to destruction. + +The best ordered mind is one that can grasp the problems that gather +around a man constantly and work them out to a logical conclusion; that +sees quickly what anything means, whether it be an exhibition of goods, +a juxtaposition of events, or the suggestions of literature. + +A man is made up largely of his daily observations. School training +serves to fit and discipline him so that he may read rightly the lesson +of the things he sees around him. Men have made mighty fortunes by just +using their eyes. + +Several years ago I took dinner in New York with one of the great +millionaires of that city. In the course of our talk he told me +something about his boyhood days--how, with hardly a penny in his +pocket, he slung a pack on his back and set out along the Erie Canal, +looking for a job. At last he got one. He was paid three dollars a week +to make soft soap for the laborers to use at the locks in washing their +hands. One can hardly imagine a more humble occupation; but this boy +kept his eyes open. He saw the disadvantages of soft soap, and set to +work to make a hard substitute for it. Finally he succeeded, and his +success brought him many, many millions. + +Every person is designed for a definite work in life, fitted for a +particular sphere. Before God he has a right to that sphere. If you are +an excellent housekeeper you should not be running a loom, and it is +your duty to prepare yourself to enter at the first opportunity the +sphere for which you are fitted. + +George W. Childs, who owned the Philadelphia _Ledger_, once blacked +boots and sold newspapers in front of the _Ledger_ building. He told me +how he used to look at that building and declare over and over to +himself that some day he would own the great newspaper establishment +that it housed. When he mentioned his ambition to his associates they +laughed at him. But Childs had indomitable grit, and ultimately he did +come to own that newspaper establishment, one of the finest in the +country. + +Another thing very necessary to the pursuit of success is the proper +employment of waiting moments. How do you use your waiting time for +meals, for trains, for business? I suppose that if the average +individual were to employ wisely these intervals in which he whistles +and twiddles his thumbs he would soon accumulate enough knowledge to +quite make over his life. + +I went through the United States Senate in 1867 and asked each of the +members how he got his early education. I found that an extremely large +percentage of them had simply properly applied their waiting moments. +Even Charles Sumner, a university graduate, told me that he learned more +from the books he read outside of college than from those he had studied +within. General Burnside, who was then a Senator, said that he had +always had a book beside him in the shop where he worked. + +Before leaving the subject of the power of the will, there is one thing +I would like to say: a true will must have a decent regard for the +happiness of others. Do not get so wrapped up in your own mission that +you forget to be kind to other people, for you have not fulfilled every +duty unless you have fulfilled the duty of being pleasant. Enemies and +ignorance are the two most expensive things in a man's life. I never +make unnecessary enemies--they cost too much. + +Every one has within himself the tools necessary to carve out success. +Consecrate yourself to some definite mission in life, and let it be a +mission that will benefit the world as well as yourself. Remember that +nothing can withstand the sweep of a determined will--unless it happens +to be another will equally as determined. Keep clean, fight hard, pick +your openings judiciously, and have your eyes forever fixed on the +heights toward which you are headed. If there be any other formula for +success, I do not know it. + + + + + The biography of that great patriot-- + + III + + +The biography of that great patriot and statesman, Daniel Manin of +Venice, Italy, contains a very romantic example of the possibilities of +will force. He was born in a poor quarter of the city; his parents were +without rank or money. Venice in 1805 was under the Austrian rule and +was sharply divided into aristocratic and peasant classes. He was soon +deserted by his father and left to the support of his mother. He was a +dull boy, and could not keep along with other boys in the church +schools; his mind labored as slowly as did the childhood intellects of +many of the greatest men of history. Daniel seemed destined to earn his +living digging mud out of the canals, if he supported himself at all. No +American boy can be handicapped like that. But the children who learn +slowly learn surely, and history, which is but the biography of great +men, mentions again and again the fact that the great characters began +to be able to acquire learning late in life. Napoleon and Wellington +were both dull boys, and Lincoln often said that he was a dunce through +his early years. Daniel Manin seems to have been utterly unable to learn +from books until he was eight or ten years old. But his latent will +power was suddenly developed to an unexpected degree when he was quite a +youth. Kossuth, who was a personal friend of Manin, said in an address +in New York that the American Republic was responsible for the awakening +of Manin, and through him had made Italy free. + +It appears that an American sea-captain, while discharging a cargo in +Venice, employed Daniel as an errand-boy, and when the ship sailed the +captain made Daniel a present of a gilt-edged copy of the lives of +George Washington and John Hancock in one volume. The captain, who had +greatly endeared himself to Daniel, made the boy promise solemnly that +he would learn to read the book. But Daniel was utterly ignorant of the +English language in print and had learned only a few phrases from the +captain. The gift of that book made Venice a republic, led to the +adoption of sections of the United States Constitution by that state and +carried the principles on into the constitution of United Italy. That +book awakened the sleeping will power of the industrious dull boy. Even +his mother protested against his waste of time in trying to read English +when he was unable to conquer the primers in Italian. But he secured a +phrase-book and a grammar, and paid for them in hard labor. With those +crude implements, without a teacher, he determined to read that book. +Only one friend, a young priest in St. Mark's Cathedral, gave him any +word or look of encouragement. But his candle burned late, and the +returning daylight took him to his book to study until time for +breakfast. Then came the daily task as a messenger, or gondolier. Some +weeks or months after he began his seemingly foolish problem he rushed +into his mother's room at night, excited and noisy, shouting to her: "I +can read that book! I can read that book!" There comes a moment in the +life of every successful student of a foreign language when he suddenly +awakens to the consciousness that he can think in that language. From +that point on the work is always easy. It must have been a similar +psychological change which came into Daniel's intellect. So sudden was +it, so amazing the change, that the priest reported the case as a +miracle, and the little circle of the poor people who knew the boy +looked on him with awe. Consul-General Sparks, who represented the +United States at Venice in 1848, wrote that "Manin often mentions his +intellectual new birth, and his success in reading the life of +Washington in English spurs him on in the difficult and dangerous +undertakings connected with the efforts of Venice to get free." + +When Daniel began to appreciate his ability to determine to do and to +persevere, his ambition and hope brought to him larger views of life. He +resolved to learn in other ways. He took up school books and mastered +them thoroughly, and he became known as "a boy who works slowly, but +what he does at all he does well." He soon found helpers among kind +gentlemen and secured employment in a bookstall. The accounts of his +persistence and his achievements are as thrilling and as fascinating as +any finished romance. He managed to get a college education, recognized +by Padua University; he studied law and was admitted to the bar when he +was twenty-two years of age. The Austrian judges would not admit him to +their courts, and it is said he visited his law-office regularly and +daily for nearly two years before he had a paying client. But his strong +will, shown in his perseverance in the presence of starvation, won the +respect and love of the daughter of a wealthy patrician. They had been +married but a short time when the Austrians confiscated the property of +his father-in-law because of suspicions circulated concerning his secret +connection with the "Americani." That patriotic secret society was +called the "Carbonari" by the Austrians, and Manin became the leading +spirit in the Venetian branch. His will seemed resistless. He refused +the Presidency in 1832, when revolution shook the tyrannies of all +Europe and Venice fell back under Austrian control. But in 1848 he was +almost unanimously elected President of the "American Republic of +Venice"; and in his second proclamation before the great siege began he +issued a call for the election, using, as Consul-General Sparks records, +the following language (as translated): "and until the election is held +and the officers installed the following sections of the Constitution of +the United States of America shall be the law of the City." He was +determined to secure an "American republic" in Italy. He lived to see it +in Venice. Statues of Daniel Manin are seen now in all the great cities +of Italy; and when the statue was dedicated at Venice and a city park +square named after him, he was called the father of the new kingdom of +Italy. General Garibaldi said that when Manin made a draft of the +Constitution he proposed for United Italy, he quoted the American +Declaration of Independence. The general also said that Manin insisted +the Government of Italy should be like the American Republic, and that +it was difficult to convince Manin that a king--so called--could be as +limited as a President. Even Mazzini, the extremist, and both Cavour and +Gavazzi finally came to accept Manin's demands for freedom and equality +as they were set forth in the Constitution of the American Republic. +Manin did not live to see the final union, nor to see his son a general +in the Italian army, but his vigorous will gave a momentum to freedom in +Italy which is still pressing the people on to his noblest ideals. "What +man has done man can do," and what Manin did can be done again in other +achievements. + +The normal reader never was anxious that the North Pole should be +located, and he does not care now whether it has been discovered. +Mathematicians and geographers may find delight in the solution of some +abstract problem, but the busy citizen who seizes his paper with haste +to see if Peary has found the North Pole has no interest in the spot. +He would not visit the place if some authority would give him a thousand +acres or present him with a dozen ice-floes. What the reader desires is +to learn how the will power in those discoverers worked out through +hair-breadth escapes, long winters, and starvation's pangs. It is a +great game, and the world is a grand stand. The man with the strongest +will attracts the admiration of the world. All the world which loves a +lover also admires a hero, and a hero is always a man of forceful will. +When we read of Louis Joliet and James Marquette in their terrible +experience tracing the Mississippi River--Indians as savage as wild +beasts, marshes, lakes, forests, mountains, burdens, illness, wounds, +exhaustion, seeming failures--all testify to their sublime strength of +purpose. Peter Lemoyne, Jonathan Carver, Captain Lewis, Lieutenant +Clark, Montgomery Pike, General Fremont, Elisha Kent Kane, Charles +Francis Hall, David Livingstone, Captain Cook, Paul Du Chaillu, and +Henry M. Stanley carved their names deep in walls of history when +differing from other men only in the cultivation of a mighty will. + +Mary Lyon, the heroine of Mount Holyoke, used to quote frequently the +saying of Doctor Beecher that he once had "a machine admirably +contrived, admirably adjusted, but it had one fault; _it wouldn't go!_" +while Catherine Beecher would retort that Miss Lyon had "too much go for +so small a machine." But what a monumental triumph was the dedication of +the first building of Mount Holyoke College at South Hadley, +Massachusetts. Mrs. Deacon Porter wrote to Henry Ward Beecher: "I wish +you could have seen Miss Lyon's face as the procession moved up the +street. It was indeed the face of an angel." From that immortal hour +when that little woman, peeling potatoes as her brother's housekeeper +at Buckland, Massachusetts, suddenly determined to start a movement for +the higher education of young women, she had written, had traveled, had +begged, had given all her inheritance, had visited colleges and schools, +going incessantly, working, praying, appealing, until the material +embodiment of her martyr sacrifices was opened to women. All women in +all countries are greatly in her debt. Men feel grateful for what the +higher education of women has done for men. One cannot now walk over the +embowered campus of Mount Holyoke College without meditating on what a +forceful will of a frail woman, set toward the beautiful and good, can +do within the severest limitations. Vassar, Wellesley, Smith, Bryn Mawr, +and the thirty-five other colleges for women in Western and Southern +states are the children of Mount Holyoke. One lone woman, one single +will, a large heart! God sees her and orders His forces to aid her! + +Richard Arkwright, Stephenson, and Edison in the pursuit of an +invention, with stern faces and clenched teeth, work far into the +morning. John Wesley, Whitfield, and the list of religious reformers +from St. Augustine to Dwight L. Moody have been men of dynamic +confidence in the triumph of a great idea. Neal Dow, Elizabeth Fry, and +their disciples, urging on the cause of temperance with that motive +force which they discovered in themselves, aroused the people wherever +they went to assistance or to opposition. Fulton said, "I will build a +steamboat." Cyrus Field said, "I will lay a telegraph cable to Europe." +Sir Christopher Wren, imitating the builders of St. Peter's, said, "I +will build the dome of St. Paul's Cathedral." General Washington said, +"I will venture all on final victory," and General Grant said, "I will +fight it out on this line." When Abraham Lincoln gave his eloquent +tribute to Henry Clay in 1852 he said, "Henry Clay's example teaches us +that one can scarcely be so poor but that, if he will, he can acquire +sufficient education to get through the world respectably." To such men +log cabins were universities. Daniel Webster decided, at the end of his +day's work plowing a stony field in the New Hampshire hills, that he +would be a statesman. Thomas H. Benton, when nearly all men supposed the +wilderness unconquerable, decided to push the Republic west to the Rocky +Mountains. Salmon P. Chase, from the time he ran the ferryboat on the +Cuyahoga River, kept in his pocket-book a motto, "Where there is a will +there is a way." Charles Sumner had a disagreeable habit of talking +about himself and boasting of his learning. He was frankly told one day +by James T. Fields that it was a "weakening trait." Mr. Sumner thanked +Mr. Fields and told him that he had determined "to discontinue such +foolish talk." "He fought himself," wrote Mr. Fields, "and he +conquered." James G. Blaine, in college at Washington, Pennsylvania, saw +a student who had been too devoted to football weeping over his failure +to pass an examination. Warned by the failure of this student, James +told his mother that he would not play another game of football while he +was in college. He kept his resolution unbroken throughout the course. +When James A. Garfield was earning his tuition as a bell-ringer at Hiram +College he resolved that the first stroke of the bell should be exactly +on the minute throughout the year. The president of the college stated +that the people in the village set their clocks by that bell, and not +once in the year was it one minute ahead or behind time. Grover +Cleveland at eighteen was drifting about from one job to another, and +men prophesied that he would be a disgrace to his "over-pious" father, +who was a preacher. Mr. Cleveland said in a speech that, "like Martin +Luther, I was stopped in my course by a stroke of lightning." It does +not appear to what he referred, but it does appear that he decided +firmly that he would choose some calling and stick to it. He decided +upon the law, and was so fixed in his determination to know law that he +stayed in his tutor's office three years after he had been admitted to +the bar, and there continued persistently in his studies. + + + + + In a small town in Western Massachusetts-- + + IV + + +In a small town in western Massachusetts, forty years ago, a young, pale +youth was acting as cashier of the savings bank. He was dyspeptic, +acutely nervous, and often ill-natured. One day several large factories +closed their doors, and the corporations to whom the bank had loaned +money gave notice of bankruptcy. The president of the bank was in Europe +and the people did not know that the bank was a loser by the failure. +The cashier was almost overcome by the sense of danger, for he could not +meet a run on the bank with the funds he had on hand. He entered the +bank after a sleepless night, fearing that the people might in some way +learn of the bank's responsibility. He was sleepy, faint, discouraged. +An old farmer came in to get a small check cashed, and the glum cashier +did not answer the farmer's usual salutation. His face was cloudy, his +eyes bloodshot, and his whole manner irritating. He counted out the +money and threw it at the farmer. The old man counted his money +carefully and then called out to the cashier: "What's the matter? Is +your bank going to fail?" When the farmer had left the bank the young +cashier could see that his manner was letting out that which he wished +to conceal. He then paced up and down the bank and fought it all out +with himself. He determined he would be cheerful, brave, and strong. He +forced himself to smile, and soon was able to laugh at himself for +presenting such a ridiculous appearance. He met the next customer with a +hearty greeting of good cheer. All the forenoon he grew stronger in his +determination to let nothing move him to gloom again. About noon the +daily Boston paper came and announced the possible failure of that bank. +Almost instantly the news flew about town, and a wild mob assailed the +bank, screaming for their money. But the cheerful cashier met them with +a smile and made fun of their excitement. The eighteenth man demanding +his money was an old German, who, seeing the cashier count out the money +so coolly and cheerfully, drew back his bank-book and said: "If you have +the money, we don't want it now! But we thought you didn't have it!" +That suggestion made the crowd laugh, and in half an hour the crowd had +left and those who had drawn their money in many cases asked the cashier +to take it back. The cashier now is a most successful manufacturer and +railroad director, stout-hearted and cheerful. He often refers to the +fight he had that morning with his "insignificant, flabby little self." + +To appreciate one's power at command is the first consideration. A man +from Cooperstown, New York, visited St. Anthony Falls, Minnesota, in the +early fifties of the last century and laughed loud and long at the +ridiculous little mill which turned out a few bags of flour and sawed a +few thousand feet of lumber. It was indeed ludicrous. He could think of +no comparison except an elephant drawing a baby's tin toy. His laughter +led to a heated discussion and investigation. An army officer at Fort +Snelling, who was a civil engineer, was asked to make an estimate of the +Mississippi River's horse-power at St. Anthony Falls. His report was +beyond the civilian's belief. He said there was power enough to turn the +wheels to grind out ten thousand barrels of flour a day and to cut logs +into millions of square feet of board every hour. The estimate was below +the facts, but was not accepted for ten years. Then was constructed the +strong dam which built up the great city of Minneapolis and represents +the finest and most vigorous civilization of our age. Nevertheless, +there still runs to waste ten thousand horse-power. In the first +paper-mill erected at South Hadley Falls, Massachusetts, the horse-power +used was less than one hundred, yet an engineer employed by Mr. Chapin, +of Springfield, to determine the possible power of the Connecticut River +at that point reported it so great that unbelief in his figures +postponed for a long time all the proposed enterprises. But one poor +man, determined "to do something about it," promoted a system of canals +which now so utilizes the water that a large city, manufacturing +annually products worth many millions, draws from it comfort and riches. +Massive as are the present works at Holyoke, regret is often expressed +that so much of the water-power still goes over the mighty dam and +ridicules the smallness of the faith of those who tried to harness it. + +Such is the intellectual force in a young person's mind. It is +reasonable to conclude that no mind ever did its very best, and that no +will power was ever exerted continuously to its greatest capacity. But +the first essential in the making of noble character is to gain a full +appreciation of the latent or unused force which each individual +possesses. When one without foolish egotism realizes how much can be +done with his wasting energies, then he must carefully consider to what +object he will turn his power. Great wills are often wasted on unworthy +objects, and the strong current of the mind, which could be applied to +the making of world-enriching machinery, is used to manufacture some +unsalable toy. The mind is often compared to an electric dynamo. The +figure is accurate. It is an automatic, self-charging battery which, +when applied to worthy occupation or to a high purpose, distributes +happiness, progress, and intelligence to mankind, and as a natural +consequence brings riches and honor to the industrious possessor. + +Forty years ago there was on the lips of nearly every teacher and father +a fascinating story of a Massachusetts boy whose history illustrates +forcibly the "power to will" which is latent in us all. I need not state +the details of the life, as it is only the illustration which we need +here. + +A young fellow sat on a barrel at the door of a country grocery-store in +a small village not far from Boston. He was the son of an industrious +mechanic who had opened a small shop for making and repairing farm +utensils, such as rakes, hoes, and shovels. But the son, encouraged by +an indulgent mother, would not work. He gave way to cards, drink, and +bad company. He would not go to school, and was a continual source of +alarm to his parents, and he became the talk of the neighbors. He either +was ill with a cough or pretended to fear consumption; the doctor's +advice to set him at work in the open air was not enforced by his +anxious mother. He was a fair sample of the many thousand young men seen +now about the country stores and taverns. He had, however, the unusual +disadvantage of having his board and clothing furnished to him without +earning them. If he exercised his will, it was to turn it against +himself in a determined self-indulgence. I heard him once refer to those +days and quote Virgil in saying that "the descent to Avernus is easy." + +One evening with his hands in his pockets he strolled up to the store +and post-office to meet some other young men for a game of checkers. +Under the only street lamp near the store a patent-medicine peddler had +opened one side of his covered wagon and was advertising his "universal +cure." The boy--then about nineteen years old--listened listlessly to +the songs and stories, but was not interested enough to learn what was +offered for sale. The vender of medicines held up a chain composed of +several seemingly solid rings which he skilfully took apart. He then +offered a dollar to any one who would put the rings together as they +were before. The puzzle caught the eye and interest of the careless boy; +as the rings were passed from one to another they came to him. He looked +them over and said, "I can't do it," and passed them on. The Yankee +peddler yelled at the boy, "If you talk like that you will land in the +poorhouse!" The young fellow was cut to the heart with the short rebuke. +He was inclined to answer hotly, but lacked the courage. After the +other boys had had their chance to see the rings, he asked to examine +them again; but he still saw no way to cut or open the solid steel and +contemptuously threw them at the peddler and shouted, "You're fooling; +that can't be done!" The smiling vender rolled the rings into a chain in +an instant and, throwing it to the boy, said, sarcastically: "Take it +home to your mother; she can do it!" The young fellow, ashamed, angry, +and crushed, caught the chain and crept out of the crowd and went home, +entering his room by the back stairs. He hated the peddler with a +murderous passion, but despised himself and must have wept great tears +far into the night. The next morning he sat on the side of his bed, +gazing at the chain, long after his father had gone to work. That was a +terrible battle! All who succeed must fight that battle to victory at +some time, or life is a failure. He who conquers himself can conquer +other men. He who does not rule himself cannot control other people. For +the first time that boy was conscious of his lack of WILL. He was +painfully ashamed. He could not again meet the boys, or the one girl who +was at the post-office, unless he solved that riddle. It was far worse +to him than the riddles of the ancient oracles or the questions of +Samson had been to the ancients. No victory so glorious to any man as +that when he rises over his dead self and can shout with unwavering +confidence, I WILL. That young man's battle was furious and a strain on +body and soul; he kept saying over and over again, "I will solve that +riddle." He was sorely tempted by hunger, as he would not stop to eat. +He determined to win out alone, and did not ask aid even of his mother. +That night the rings fell apart in his hands and rolled on the floor. +He had won! Life has few joys like that hour of victory. The rings had +little value as pieces of steel, but his triumph over self was worth +millions to him, and worth a thousand millions to his country. + +The next morning his parents were surprised to see him the first one at +the breakfast-table. He told of his solution of the puzzle, and said to +his astonished but delighted parents that he had loafed around long +enough and that he had determined to take hold and do things. He asked +for an especially hard place in the shop, and entered that week on a +noble, triumphant career, having few equals save those of like +experience. His health became robust, his work became profitable, new +business ideas were developed, and in a few years he controlled the +inside business and far distanced all outside competitors. He said to +his wife, "I will have a million dollars, and every dollar shall be a +clean and honest dollar." In those days a million looked like a mountain +of gold. But he secured the million and steadily raised the pay of his +workmen. He became the sheik of the town, the father and adviser of +every local enterprise. He was sent to Congress by a nearly unanimous +vote. For eleven years he was a safe counselor of the administration at +Washington and was a close friend and trusted supporter of President +Lincoln. + +One day in 1864 the Federal armies had been defeated by the Confederate +forces and gloom shadowed the faces of the people. President Lincoln had +a sleepless night--it looked like defeat and disunion. The danger was +greatly increased by the abandonment of the scheme to hold California to +the Union by building a railroad through the mountainous wilderness of +the Sierra Nevada and Rocky Mountains. The chief engineer who surveyed +the route said that it could not be done because of the great cost. +Three great financiers had been consulted and refused to undertake the +hopeless task. The great Massachusetts Senator told Mr. Lincoln that +there was just one man who could do that gigantic feat. The Senator said +to Lincoln: "If that Congressman makes up his mind to do it, and it is +left to him, he will do it. He is a careful man, but he has a will which +seems to be irresistible." President Lincoln sent for the Congressman +and said: "A railroad to California now will be more than an army, and +it will be an army--in the saving of the Union. Will you build it?" The +Congressman asked for three weeks to think. Before the end of that time +he asked the Secretary of War to take his card to President Lincoln, +then in Philadelphia; on the card was written, "I will." What a +startlingly fascinating story from real life is the history of that +mighty undertaking. Now, when the traveler passes the highest point on +that transcontinental railroad, 8,550 feet above the sea at Sherman, +Wyoming, and lifts his hat before the monument erected to the memory of +that civil nobleman and hero, he is paying his respect to the +self-giving heart and mighty brain of the boy who conquered _the three +links_. + +It may not be necessary to multiply illustrations of this vital +question, but no one who lived in the journalistic circles of Washington +subsequent to the Civil War can forget the power and fame of that +feminine literary genius who, as the Washington correspondent of the +_New York Independent_, wrote such brilliant letters. The fact that she +bore the same name as the Congressman we have mentioned, though no +relative of his, does not account for this reference to her. She was +nearly thirty-three years old when a divorce and the breaking up of her +home left her poor, ill, and under the cloud of undeserved disgrace. Her +acquaintances predicted obscurity, daily toil with her hands, and a life +of lonely sorrow. Poor victim of sad circumstances! She had but little +education, and had been too full of cares to read the books of the day. +Her start in the profession which she later so gracefully and forcibly +adorned was the foremost topic in corners and cloakrooms at her largely +attended literary receptions in Washington. + +She had been told by those who loved her that a divorced woman would be +shunned by all cultured women and be the butt of ridicule for +fashionable men; and that as she must earn a living she should sew or +embroider or act as a nurse. She certainly was too weak to wash clothes +or care for a kitchen. But within her soul there was that yearning to do +something worth while which seems given to almost every woman. Few women +reach old age without feeling that somehow the great object of living +has not been attained. The ambitions to which a man can give free wings, +a woman must suppress or hide in deference to custom or competition. +As yet she has seldom under our civilization seemed to do her best or +accomplish the one great ideal of her heart and intellect. While she has +the same God-given impulses, visions, and sense of power, she builds no +cathedrals, spans no rivers, digs no mines, founds no nations, builds +no steamships, and seldom appears in painting, sculpture, banking, or +oratory. She is conscious of the native talent, sees the ideals, but +must hide them until it is too late. But this woman from the interior +of New York State was an exception; like Charlotte Brontë, she said, +"I will write." Like the same great author, she had her rebuffs and +returned manuscripts, and all the more since at that time women were +unknown in the newspaper business. But her invariable answer to critics +and discouraged friends was, "I will." When in 1883 she said, "I will," +to the great editor who became her second husband, the President of the +United States wrote a personal letter to say that, while he wished her +joy, he could but admit that it would be a "distinct loss to humanity +to have such a brilliant genius hidden by marriage." + +In an automobile ride from Lake Champlain to New York I saw the city +of Burlington, Vermont, with its university, where Barnes had said, +"I will." At St. Johnsbury the whole city advertises Fairbanks, who +said, "I will." At Brattleboro the hum of industry ever repeats the name +of the boy Esty, who said, "I will"; at Holyoke, the powerful canals +seem to reflect the faces of Chase and Whitney, who, when poor men, +said, "I will." At Springfield the signs on the stores, banks, and +factories suggest the young Chapin, who made the city prosperous with +his "I will." At New Haven Whitney's determination stands out in great +streets and university buildings. + +Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles, New Orleans, Atlanta, Raleigh, Niagara, +Pittsburg and a hundred American cities like them are the outcome of +ideas with wills behind them in the heads of common men. If every man +had in the last generation done all that it was in his power to do, what +sublime things would stand before us now in architecture, commerce, art, +manufactures, education, and religion. The very glimpse of that vision +bewilders the mind. But the many will not to do, while the few great +benefactors of the race will to do. My young friend, be thou among those +who will with noble motives to do. + + + THE END + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of What You Can Do With Your Will Power, by +Russell H. 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Conwell + +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: What You Can Do With Your Will Power + +Author: Russell H. Conwell + +Release Date: October 2, 2010 [EBook #33952] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHAT YOU CAN DO WITH YOUR *** + + + + +Produced by D Alexander, Juliet Sutherland and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + + + + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 65%;"> +<img src="images/cover.jpg" width="100%" alt="Cover Page" title="Cover Page" /> +</div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h1>What You<br /> +Can Do With Your<br /> +Will Power</h1> + +<h3><i>By</i><br /> +RUSSELL H. CONWELL</h3> + +<h4>VOLUME I<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +NATIONAL<br /> +EXTENSION UNIVERSITY<br /> +<small>597 Fifth Avenue, New York</small></h4> + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h5><span class="smcap">What You Can Do With Your Will Power</span><br /> +<br /> +Copyright, 1917, by Harper & Brothers<br /> +Printed in the United States of America<br /> +</h5> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 65%;"> +<img src="images/frontis.jpg" width="100%" alt="Russell H. Conwell" title="Russell H. Conwell" /> +<span class="caption">Russell H. Conwell</span> +</div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>PREFACE</h2> + + +<p>Other writers have fully and accurately +described <i>the road</i>, and my +only hope is that these hastily written +lines will inspire the young man or +young woman to arise <i>and go</i>.</p> + +<p style='text-align:right'><big><span class="smcap">Russell H. Conwell.</span></big></p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>[The Author is much indebted to Mr. Merle Crowell +of the <i>American Magazine</i> who assisted most efficiently in +the preparation of the facts herein contained.]</p> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div class="blq"> +<p><i>Success has<br /> +no secret—</i></p> +</div> + +<h1>I</h1> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 1]</span></p> +<h1>WHAT YOU CAN DO<br /> +WITH YOUR WILL POWER</h1> + + + + +<h2>I</h2> + + +<p>Success has no secret. Her +voice is forever ringing through +the market-place and crying in the +wilderness, and the burden of her cry +is one word—WILL. Any normal +young man who hears and heeds that +cry is equipped fully to climb to the +very heights of life.</p> + +<p>The message I would like to leave +with the young men and women of +America is a message I have been trying +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 2]</span> +humbly to deliver from lecture +platform and pulpit for more than +fifty years. It is a message the accuracy +of which has been affirmed and +reaffirmed in thousands of lives whose +progress I have been privileged to +watch. And the message is this: Your +future stands before you like a block +of unwrought marble. You can work +it into what you will. Neither heredity, +nor environment, nor any obstacles +superimposed by man can keep you +from marching straight through to success, +provided you are guided by a firm, +driving determination and have normal +health and intelligence.</p> + +<p>Determination is the battery that +commands every road of life. It is the +armor against which the missiles of +adversity rattle harmlessly. If there +is one thing I have tried peculiarly +to do through these years it is to indent +in the minds of the youth of America +the living fact that when they give +WILL the reins and say "DRIVE" +they are headed toward the heights.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 3]</span></p> + +<p>The institution out of which Temple +University, of Philadelphia, grew +was founded thirty years ago expressly +to furnish opportunities for higher +education to poor boys and girls who +are willing to work for it. I have seen +ninety thousand students enter its +doors. A very large percentage of +these came to Philadelphia without +money, but firmly determined to get an +education. I have never known one +of them to go back defeated. Determination +has the properties of a powerful +acid; all shackles melt before it.</p> + +<p>Conversely, lack of will power is the +readiest weapon in the arsenal of failure. +The most hopeless proposition +in the world is the fellow who thinks +that success is a door through which +he will sometime stumble if he roams +around long enough. Some men seem +to expect ravens to feed them, the +cruse of oil to remain inexhaustible, the +fish to come right up over the side of +the boat at meal-time. They believe +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 4]</span> +that life is a series of miracles. They +loaf about and trust in their lucky star, +and boldly declare that the world owes +them a living.</p> + +<p>As a matter of fact the world owes a +man nothing that he does not earn. +In this life a man gets about what he +is worth, and he must render an equivalent +for what is given him. There is +no such thing as inactive success.</p> + +<p>My mind is running back over the +stories of thousands of boys and girls +I have known and known about, who +have faced every sort of a handicap and +have won out solely by will and perseverance +in working with all the power +that God had given them. It is now +nearly thirty years since a young +English boy came into my office. He +wanted to attend the evening classes +at our university to learn oratory.</p> + +<p>"Why don't you go into the law?" +I asked him.</p> + +<p>"I'm too poor! I haven't a chance!" +he replied, shaking his head sadly.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 5]</span></p> + +<p>I turned on him sharply. "Of +course you haven't a chance," I exclaimed, +"if you don't make up your +mind to it!"</p> + +<p>The next night he knocked at my +door again. His face was radiant and +there was a light of determination in +his eyes.</p> + +<p>"I have decided to become a lawyer," +he said, and I knew from the +ring of his voice that he meant it.</p> + +<p>Many times after he became mayor +of Philadelphia he must have looked +back on that decision as the turning-point +in his life.</p> + +<p>I am thinking of a young Connecticut +farm lad who was given up by his +teachers as too weak-minded to learn. +He left school when he was seven years +old and toiled on his father's farm until +he was twenty-one. Then something +turned his mind toward the origin and +development of the animal kingdom. +He began to read works on zoology, +and, in order to enlarge his capacity +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 6]</span> +for understanding, went back to school +and picked up where he left off fourteen +years before. Somebody said to him, +"You can get to the top <i>if you will</i>!"</p> + +<p>He grasped the hope and nurtured it, +until at last it completely possessed +him. He entered college at twenty-eight +and worked his way through with +the assistance that we were able to +furnish him. To-day he is a respected +professor of zoology in an Ohio college.</p> + +<p>Such illustrations I could multiply +indefinitely. Of all the boys whom +I have tried to help through college I +cannot think of a single one who has +failed for any other reason than ill +health. But of course I have never +helped any one who was not first helping +himself. As soon as a man determines +the goal toward which he is +marching, he is in a strategic position +to see and seize everything that will +contribute toward that end.</p> + +<p>Whenever a young man tells me that +if he "had his way" he would be a +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 7]</span> +lawyer, or an engineer, or what not, I +always reply:</p> + +<p>"You can be what you will, provided +that it is something the world will be +demanding ten years hence."</p> + +<p>This brings to my mind a certain +stipulation which the ambition of +youth must recognize. You must invest +yourself or your money in a +<i>known demand</i>. You must select an +occupation that is fitted to your own +special genius and to some actual want +of the people. Choose as early as possible +what your life-work will be. +Then you can be continually equipping +yourself by reading and observing to +a purpose. There are many things +which the average boy or girl learns in +school that could be learned outside +just as well.</p> + +<p>Almost any man should be able to +become wealthy in this land of opulent +opportunity. There are some people +who think that to be pious they must +be very poor and very dirty. They +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 8]</span> +are wrong. Not money, but the <i>love</i> +of money, is the root of all evil. +Money in itself is a dynamic force for +helping humanity.</p> + +<p>In my lectures I have borne heavily +on the fact that we are all walking +over acres of diamonds and mines of +gold. There are people who think that +their fortune lies in some far country. +It is much more likely to lie right in +their own back yards or on their front +door-step, hidden from their unseeing +eye. Most of our millionaires discovered +their fortunes by simply looking +around them.</p> + +<p>Recently I have been investigating +the lives of four thousand and forty-three +American millionaires. All but +twenty of them started life as poor +boys, and all but forty of them have +contributed largely to their communities, +and divided fairly with their employees +as they went along. But, alas, +not one rich man's son out of seventeen +dies rich.<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 9]</span></p> + +<p>But if a man has dilly-dallied through +a certain space of wasted years, can +he then develop the character—the +motor force—to drive him to success? +Why, my friend, will power cannot +only be developed, but it is often dry +powder which needs only a match. +Very frequently I think of the life of +Abraham Lincoln—that wonderful +man! and I am thankful that I was +permitted to meet him. Yet Abraham +Lincoln developed the splendid sinews +of his will after he was twenty-one. +Before that he was just a roving, good-natured +sort of a chap. Always have I +regretted that I failed to ask him what +special circumstance broke the chrysalis +of his life and loosened the wings of +his will.</p> + +<p>Many years ago some of the students +of Temple University held a meeting +in a building opposite the Bellevue-Stratford +Hotel. As they were leaving +the building they noticed a foreigner +selling peanuts on the opposite curb. +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 10]</span> +While buying peanuts they got to +talking with the fellow, and told him +that any one could obtain an education +if he was willing to work for it. Eagerly +the poor fellow drank up all the information +he could get. He enrolled at +Temple University and worked his way +through, starting with the elementary +studies. He is to-day an eminent practising +physician in the national capital.</p> + +<p>Often I think of an office clerk who +reached a decision that the ambitions +which were stirring in his soul could +be realized if he could only get an +education. He attended our evening +classes and was graduated with a B.S. +degree. He is now the millionaire +head of one of the largest brokerage +houses in the country.</p> + +<p>"Where there's a will there's a +way!" But one needs to use a little +common sense about selecting the way. +A general may determine to win a +victory, but if he hurls his troops +across an open field straight into the +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 11]</span> +leaden sweep of the enemy's artillery +he invites disaster and defeat. The +best general lays his plans carefully, +and advances his troops in the way that +will best conserve their strength and +numbers. So must a man plan his +campaign of life.</p> + +<p>No man has a right, either for himself +or for others, to be at work in a +factory, or a store, or anywhere else, +unless he would work there from choice—money +or no money—if he had the +necessities of life.</p> + +<p>"As a man thinks, so he is," says the +writer of Proverbs; but as a man +adjusts himself, so really is he, after +all. One great trouble with many +individuals is that they are made up +of all sorts of machinery that is not +adjusted, that is out of place—no belts +on the wheels, no fire under the boiler, +hence no steam to move the mechanism.</p> + +<p>Some folk never take the trouble to +size themselves up—to find out what +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 12]</span> +they are fitted to do—and then wonder +why they remain way down at +the bottom of the heap. I remember +a young woman who told me that she +did not believe she could ever be of +any particular use in the world. I +mentioned a dozen things that she +ought to be able to do.</p> + +<p>"If you only knew yourself," I said, +"you would set yourself to writing. +You ought to be an author."</p> + +<p>She shook her head and smiled, as +if she thought I was making fun of her. +Later, force of circumstances drove her +to take up the pen. And when she +came to me and told me that she was +making three thousand dollars a year +in literary work, and was soon to go +higher, I thought back to the time when +she was a poor girl making three dollars +a week when she failed accurately +to estimate herself.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div class="blq"> +<p><i>There is a<br /> +deplorable tendency—</i></p> +</div> + +<h1>II</h1> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 13]</span></p> +<h2>II</h2> + + +<p>There is a deplorable tendency +among many people to wait for +a particularly favorable opportunity to +declare themselves in the battle of life. +Some people pause for the rap of +opportunity when opportunity has been +playing a tattoo on their resonant +skulls for years.</p> + +<p>Hardly a single great invention has +been placed on the market without a +number of men putting forth the claim +that they had the idea first—and in +most cases they proved the fact. But +while they were sitting down and dreaming, +or trying to bring the device to a +greater perfection, a man with initiative +rose up and acted. The telegraph, +telephone, sewing-machine, air-brake, +mowing-machine, wireless, and linotype-machine +are only a few illustrations.<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 14]</span></p> + +<p>The most wonderful idea is quite +valueless until it is put into practical +operation. The Government rewards +the man who first gets a patent or +first puts his invention into practical +use—and the world does likewise. Thus +the dreamer must always lag behind +the door.</p> + +<p>True will power also predicates concentration. +I shall never forget the +time I went to see President Lincoln +to ask him to spare the life of one of +my soldiers who was sentenced to be +shot. As I walked toward the door of +his office I felt a greater fear than I +had ever known when the shells were +bursting all about us at Antietam. +Finally I mustered up courage to knock +on the door. I heard a voice inside +yell:</p> + +<p>"Come in and sit down!"</p> + +<p>The man at the table did not look +up as I entered; he was busy over a +bunch of papers. I sat down at the +edge of a chair and wished I were in +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 15]</span> +Peking or Patagonia. He never looked +up until he had quite finished with the +papers. Then he turned to me and +said:</p> + +<p>"I am a very busy man and have +only a few minutes to spare. Tell me +in the fewest words what it is you +want."</p> + +<p>As soon as I mentioned the case he +said:</p> + +<p>"I have heard all about it, and you +do not need to tell me any more. +Mr. Stanton was talking to me about +that only a few days ago. You can +go to the hotel and rest assured that +the President never did sign an order +to shoot a boy under twenty, and never +will. You may tell his mother that." +Then, after a short conversation, he +took hold of another bunch of papers +and said, decidedly, "Good morning!"</p> + +<p>Lincoln, one of the greatest men of +the world, owed his success largely +to one rule: whatsoever he had to do +at all he put his whole mind into, and +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 16]</span> +held it all there until the task was all +done. That makes men great almost +anywhere.</p> + +<p>Too many people are satisfied if they +have done a thing "well enough." +That is a fatal complacency. "Well +enough" has cursed souls. "Well +enough" has wrecked enterprises. +"Well enough" has destroyed nations. +If perfection in a task can possibly be +reached, nothing short of perfection is +"well enough." Governor Talbot of +Massachusetts got his high office because +General Swift made a happy +application of the truth in saying to +the convention, "I nominate for Governor +of this state a man who, when +he was a farmer's boy, hoed to the end +of the row." That saying became a +campaign slogan all up and down the +state. "He hoed to the end of the row! +He hoed to the end of the row!" When +the people discovered that this was one +of the characteristics of the man, they +elected him by one of the greatest +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 17]</span> +majorities ever given a Governor in +Massachusetts.</p> + +<p>Yet we must bear in mind that there +is such a thing as overdoing anything. +Young people should draw a line between +study that secures wisdom and +study that breaks down the mind; between +exercise that is healthful and +exercise that is injurious; between a +conscientiousness that is pure and divine +and a conscientiousness that is +over-morbid and insane; between economy +that is careful and economy that +is stingy; between industry that is a +reasonable use of their powers and +industry that is an over-use of their +powers, leading only to destruction.</p> + +<p>The best ordered mind is one that +can grasp the problems that gather +around a man constantly and work +them out to a logical conclusion; that +sees quickly what anything means, +whether it be an exhibition of goods, a +juxtaposition of events, or the suggestions +of literature.<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 18]</span></p> + +<p>A man is made up largely of his +daily observations. School training +serves to fit and discipline him so that +he may read rightly the lesson of the +things he sees around him. Men have +made mighty fortunes by just using +their eyes.</p> + +<p>Several years ago I took dinner in +New York with one of the great millionaires +of that city. In the course of +our talk he told me something about +his boyhood days—how, with hardly a +penny in his pocket, he slung a pack +on his back and set out along the Erie +Canal, looking for a job. At last he got +one. He was paid three dollars a week +to make soft soap for the laborers to +use at the locks in washing their hands. +One can hardly imagine a more humble +occupation; but this boy kept his eyes +open. He saw the disadvantages of +soft soap, and set to work to make a +hard substitute for it. Finally he succeeded, +and his success brought him +many, many millions.<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 19]</span></p> + +<p>Every person is designed for a definite +work in life, fitted for a particular +sphere. Before God he has a right to +that sphere. If you are an excellent +housekeeper you should not be running +a loom, and it is your duty to prepare +yourself to enter at the first opportunity +the sphere for which you are fitted.</p> + +<p>George W. Childs, who owned the +Philadelphia <i>Ledger</i>, once blacked boots +and sold newspapers in front of the +<i>Ledger</i> building. He told me how he +used to look at that building and declare +over and over to himself that +some day he would own the great newspaper +establishment that it housed. +When he mentioned his ambition to his +associates they laughed at him. But +Childs had indomitable grit, and ultimately +he did come to own that newspaper +establishment, one of the finest +in the country.</p> + +<p>Another thing very necessary to the +pursuit of success is the proper employment +of waiting moments. How +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 20]</span> +do you use your waiting time for meals, +for trains, for business? I suppose that +if the average individual were to employ +wisely these intervals in which he +whistles and twiddles his thumbs he +would soon accumulate enough knowledge +to quite make over his life.</p> + +<p>I went through the United States +Senate in 1867 and asked each of the +members how he got his early education. +I found that an extremely large +percentage of them had simply properly +applied their waiting moments. Even +Charles Sumner, a university graduate, +told me that he learned more from the +books he read outside of college than +from those he had studied within. +General Burnside, who was then a +Senator, said that he had always had +a book beside him in the shop where he +worked.</p> + +<p>Before leaving the subject of the +power of the will, there is one thing +I would like to say: a true will must +have a decent regard for the happiness +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 21]</span> +of others. Do not get so wrapped up +in your own mission that you forget +to be kind to other people, for you have +not fulfilled every duty unless you have +fulfilled the duty of being pleasant. +Enemies and ignorance are the two +most expensive things in a man's life. +I never make unnecessary enemies—they +cost too much.</p> + +<p>Every one has within himself the +tools necessary to carve out success. +Consecrate yourself to some definite +mission in life, and let it be a mission +that will benefit the world as well as +yourself. Remember that nothing can +withstand the sweep of a determined +will—unless it happens to be another +will equally as determined. Keep +clean, fight hard, pick your openings +judiciously, and have your eyes forever +fixed on the heights toward which you +are headed. If there be any other +formula for success, I do not know it.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div class="blq"> +<p><i>The biography of<br /> +that great patriot—</i></p> +</div> + +<h1>III</h1> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 22]</span></p> +<h2>III</h2> + + +<p>The biography of that great patriot +and statesman, Daniel Manin of +Venice, Italy, contains a very romantic +example of the possibilities of will +force. He was born in a poor quarter +of the city; his parents were without +rank or money. Venice in 1805 was +under the Austrian rule and was sharply +divided into aristocratic and peasant +classes. He was soon deserted by his +father and left to the support of his +mother. He was a dull boy, and could +not keep along with other boys in the +church schools; his mind labored as +slowly as did the childhood intellects +of many of the greatest men of history. +Daniel seemed destined to earn his +living digging mud out of the canals, +if he supported himself at all. No +American boy can be handicapped like +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 23]</span> +that. But the children who learn +slowly learn surely, and history, which +is but the biography of great men, +mentions again and again the fact that +the great characters began to be able +to acquire learning late in life. Napoleon +and Wellington were both dull +boys, and Lincoln often said that he +was a dunce through his early years. +Daniel Manin seems to have been utterly +unable to learn from books until +he was eight or ten years old. But his +latent will power was suddenly developed +to an unexpected degree when he +was quite a youth. Kossuth, who was +a personal friend of Manin, said in +an address in New York that the American +Republic was responsible for the +awakening of Manin, and through him +had made Italy free.</p> + +<p>It appears that an American sea-captain, +while discharging a cargo in +Venice, employed Daniel as an errand-boy, +and when the ship sailed the +captain made Daniel a present of a +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 24]</span> +gilt-edged copy of the lives of George +Washington and John Hancock in one +volume. The captain, who had greatly +endeared himself to Daniel, made the +boy promise solemnly that he would +learn to read the book. But Daniel +was utterly ignorant of the English language +in print and had learned only +a few phrases from the captain. The +gift of that book made Venice a republic, +led to the adoption of sections +of the United States Constitution by +that state and carried the principles on +into the constitution of United Italy. +That book awakened the sleeping will +power of the industrious dull boy. +Even his mother protested against his +waste of time in trying to read English +when he was unable to conquer the +primers in Italian. But he secured a +phrase-book and a grammar, and paid +for them in hard labor. With those +crude implements, without a teacher, +he determined to read that book. Only +one friend, a young priest in St. +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 25]</span> +Mark's Cathedral, gave him any word +or look of encouragement. But his +candle burned late, and the returning +daylight took him to his book to study +until time for breakfast. Then came +the daily task as a messenger, or gondolier. +Some weeks or months after he +began his seemingly foolish problem +he rushed into his mother's room at +night, excited and noisy, shouting to +her: "I can read that book! I can +read that book!" There comes a moment +in the life of every successful +student of a foreign language when he +suddenly awakens to the consciousness +that he can think in that language. +From that point on the work is always +easy. It must have been a similar +psychological change which came into +Daniel's intellect. So sudden was it, +so amazing the change, that the priest +reported the case as a miracle, and the +little circle of the poor people who knew +the boy looked on him with awe. +Consul-General Sparks, who represented +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 26]</span> +the United States at Venice in +1848, wrote that "Manin often mentions +his intellectual new birth, and his +success in reading the life of Washington +in English spurs him on in the +difficult and dangerous undertakings +connected with the efforts of Venice +to get free."</p> + +<p>When Daniel began to appreciate his +ability to determine to do and to persevere, +his ambition and hope brought +to him larger views of life. He resolved +to learn in other ways. He took up +school books and mastered them thoroughly, +and he became known as "a +boy who works slowly, but what he +does at all he does well." He soon +found helpers among kind gentlemen +and secured employment in a bookstall. +The accounts of his persistence +and his achievements are as thrilling +and as fascinating as any finished romance. +He managed to get a college +education, recognized by Padua University; +he studied law and was +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 27]</span> +admitted to the bar when he was twenty-two +years of age. The Austrian judges +would not admit him to their courts, +and it is said he visited his law-office +regularly and daily for nearly two years +before he had a paying client. But +his strong will, shown in his perseverance +in the presence of starvation, +won the respect and love of the daughter +of a wealthy patrician. They had +been married but a short time when +the Austrians confiscated the property +of his father-in-law because of suspicions +circulated concerning his secret +connection with the "Americani." +That patriotic secret society was called +the "Carbonari" by the Austrians, and +Manin became the leading spirit in the +Venetian branch. His will seemed resistless. +He refused the Presidency in +1832, when revolution shook the tyrannies +of all Europe and Venice fell +back under Austrian control. But in +1848 he was almost unanimously elected +President of the "American +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 28]</span> +Republic of Venice"; and in his second +proclamation before the great siege began +he issued a call for the election, +using, as Consul-General Sparks records, +the following language (as translated): +"and until the election is held +and the officers installed the following +sections of the Constitution of the +United States of America shall be the +law of the City." He was determined +to secure an "American republic" in +Italy. He lived to see it in Venice. +Statues of Daniel Manin are seen now +in all the great cities of Italy; and +when the statue was dedicated at +Venice and a city park square named +after him, he was called the father of +the new kingdom of Italy. General +Garibaldi said that when Manin made +a draft of the Constitution he proposed +for United Italy, he quoted the American +Declaration of Independence. The +general also said that Manin insisted +the Government of Italy should be +like the American Republic, and that +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 29]</span> +it was difficult to convince Manin that +a king—so called—could be as limited +as a President. Even Mazzini, the extremist, +and both Cavour and Gavazzi +finally came to accept Manin's demands +for freedom and equality as they +were set forth in the Constitution of +the American Republic. Manin did +not live to see the final union, nor to +see his son a general in the Italian +army, but his vigorous will gave a +momentum to freedom in Italy which +is still pressing the people on to his +noblest ideals. "What man has done +man can do," and what Manin did +can be done again in other achievements.</p> + +<p>The normal reader never was anxious +that the North Pole should be located, +and he does not care now whether it +has been discovered. Mathematicians +and geographers may find delight in +the solution of some abstract problem, +but the busy citizen who seizes his +paper with haste to see if Peary has +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 30]</span> +found the North Pole has no interest +in the spot. He would not visit the +place if some authority would give him +a thousand acres or present him with +a dozen ice-floes. What the reader +desires is to learn how the will power +in those discoverers worked out through +hair-breadth escapes, long winters, and +starvation's pangs. It is a great game, +and the world is a grand stand. The +man with the strongest will attracts +the admiration of the world. All the +world which loves a lover also admires +a hero, and a hero is always a man of +forceful will. When we read of Louis +Joliet and James Marquette in their +terrible experience tracing the Mississippi +River—Indians as savage as wild +beasts, marshes, lakes, forests, mountains, +burdens, illness, wounds, exhaustion, +seeming failures—all testify +to their sublime strength of purpose. +Peter Lemoyne, Jonathan Carver, Captain +Lewis, Lieutenant Clark, Montgomery +Pike, General Fremont, Elisha +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 31]</span> +Kent Kane, Charles Francis Hall, +David Livingstone, Captain Cook, Paul +Du Chaillu, and Henry M. Stanley +carved their names deep in walls of +history when differing from other men +only in the cultivation of a mighty will.</p> + +<p>Mary Lyon, the heroine of Mount +Holyoke, used to quote frequently the +saying of Doctor Beecher that he once +had "a machine admirably contrived, +admirably adjusted, but it had one +fault; <i>it wouldn't go!</i>" while Catherine +Beecher would retort that Miss Lyon +had "too much go for so small a +machine." But what a monumental +triumph was the dedication of the first +building of Mount Holyoke College at +South Hadley, Massachusetts. Mrs. +Deacon Porter wrote to Henry Ward +Beecher: "I wish you could have seen +Miss Lyon's face as the procession +moved up the street. It was indeed the +face of an angel." From that immortal +hour when that little woman, peeling +potatoes as her brother's housekeeper +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 32]</span> +at Buckland, Massachusetts, suddenly +determined to start a movement for +the higher education of young women, +she had written, had traveled, had +begged, had given all her inheritance, +had visited colleges and schools, going +incessantly, working, praying, appealing, +until the material embodiment of +her martyr sacrifices was opened to +women. All women in all countries are +greatly in her debt. Men feel grateful +for what the higher education of women +has done for men. One cannot now +walk over the embowered campus of +Mount Holyoke College without meditating +on what a forceful will of a frail +woman, set toward the beautiful and +good, can do within the severest limitations. +Vassar, Wellesley, Smith, Bryn +Mawr, and the thirty-five other colleges +for women in Western and Southern +states are the children of Mount +Holyoke. One lone woman, one single +will, a large heart! God sees her and +orders His forces to aid +her!<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 33]</span></p> + +<p>Richard Arkwright, Stephenson, and +Edison in the pursuit of an invention, +with stern faces and clenched teeth, +work far into the morning. John +Wesley, Whitfield, and the list of religious +reformers from St. Augustine to +Dwight L. Moody have been men of +dynamic confidence in the triumph +of a great idea. Neal Dow, Elizabeth +Fry, and their disciples, urging on the +cause of temperance with that motive +force which they discovered in themselves, +aroused the people wherever +they went to assistance or to opposition. +Fulton said, "I will build a +steamboat." Cyrus Field said, "I will +lay a telegraph cable to Europe." Sir +Christopher Wren, imitating the builders +of St. Peter's, said, "I will build the +dome of St. Paul's Cathedral." General +Washington said, "I will venture +all on final victory," and General +Grant said, "I will fight it out on this +line." When Abraham Lincoln gave +his eloquent tribute to Henry Clay +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 34]</span> +in 1852 he said, "Henry Clay's example +teaches us that one can scarcely +be so poor but that, if he will, he can +acquire sufficient education to get +through the world respectably." To +such men log cabins were universities. +Daniel Webster decided, at the end +of his day's work plowing a stony +field in the New Hampshire hills, that +he would be a statesman. Thomas +H. Benton, when nearly all men supposed +the wilderness unconquerable, +decided to push the Republic west to +the Rocky Mountains. Salmon P. +Chase, from the time he ran the ferryboat +on the Cuyahoga River, kept in +his pocket-book a motto, "Where +there is a will there is a way." Charles +Sumner had a disagreeable habit of +talking about himself and boasting of +his learning. He was frankly told one +day by James T. Fields that it was +a "weakening trait." Mr. Sumner +thanked Mr. Fields and told him that +he had determined "to discontinue +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 35]</span> +such foolish talk." "He fought himself," +wrote Mr. Fields, "and he conquered." +James G. Blaine, in college at +Washington, Pennsylvania, saw a student +who had been too devoted to football +weeping over his failure to pass an +examination. Warned by the failure +of this student, James told his mother +that he would not play another game +of football while he was in college. +He kept his resolution unbroken +throughout the course. When James +A. Garfield was earning his tuition as +a bell-ringer at Hiram College he resolved +that the first stroke of the bell +should be exactly on the minute +throughout the year. The president +of the college stated that the people in +the village set their clocks by that bell, +and not once in the year was it one +minute ahead or behind time. Grover +Cleveland at eighteen was drifting +about from one job to another, and men +prophesied that he would be a disgrace +to his "over-pious" father, who was +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 36]</span> +a preacher. Mr. Cleveland said in a +speech that, "like Martin Luther, I +was stopped in my course by a stroke +of lightning." It does not appear to +what he referred, but it does appear +that he decided firmly that he would +choose some calling and stick to it. +He decided upon the law, and was so +fixed in his determination to know law +that he stayed in his tutor's office +three years after he had been admitted +to the bar, and there continued persistently +in his studies.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div class="blq"> +<p><i>In a small town<br /> +in Western<br /> +Massachusetts</i>—</p> +</div> + +<h1>IV</h1> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 37]</span></p> +<h2>IV</h2> + + +<p>In a small town in western Massachusetts, +forty years ago, a young, +pale youth was acting as cashier of +the savings bank. He was dyspeptic, +acutely nervous, and often ill-natured. +One day several large factories closed +their doors, and the corporations to +whom the bank had loaned money +gave notice of bankruptcy. The president +of the bank was in Europe and +the people did not know that the bank +was a loser by the failure. The cashier +was almost overcome by the sense of +danger, for he could not meet a run +on the bank with the funds he had on +hand. He entered the bank after a +sleepless night, fearing that the people +might in some way learn of the bank's +responsibility. He was sleepy, faint, +discouraged. An old farmer came in +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 38]</span> +to get a small check cashed, and the +glum cashier did not answer the farmer's +usual salutation. His face was +cloudy, his eyes bloodshot, and his +whole manner irritating. He counted +out the money and threw it at the +farmer. The old man counted his +money carefully and then called out +to the cashier: "What's the matter? +Is your bank going to fail?" When +the farmer had left the bank the +young cashier could see that his manner +was letting out that which he +wished to conceal. He then paced up +and down the bank and fought it all +out with himself. He determined he +would be cheerful, brave, and strong. +He forced himself to smile, and soon +was able to laugh at himself for presenting +such a ridiculous appearance. +He met the next customer with a +hearty greeting of good cheer. All +the forenoon he grew stronger in his +determination to let nothing move +him to gloom again. About noon the +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 39]</span> +daily Boston paper came and announced +the possible failure of that +bank. Almost instantly the news flew +about town, and a wild mob assailed +the bank, screaming for their money. +But the cheerful cashier met them +with a smile and made fun of their +excitement. The eighteenth man demanding +his money was an old German, +who, seeing the cashier count +out the money so coolly and cheerfully, +drew back his bank-book and +said: "If you have the money, we don't +want it now! But we thought you +didn't have it!" That suggestion +made the crowd laugh, and in half an +hour the crowd had left and those +who had drawn their money in many +cases asked the cashier to take it +back. The cashier now is a most +successful manufacturer and railroad +director, stout-hearted and cheerful. +He often refers to the fight he had that +morning with his "insignificant, flabby +little self."<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 40]</span></p> + +<p>To appreciate one's power at command +is the first consideration. A +man from Cooperstown, New York, +visited St. Anthony Falls, Minnesota, +in the early fifties of the last century +and laughed loud and long at the +ridiculous little mill which turned out +a few bags of flour and sawed a few +thousand feet of lumber. It was indeed +ludicrous. He could think of +no comparison except an elephant +drawing a baby's tin toy. His laughter +led to a heated discussion and investigation. +An army officer at Fort +Snelling, who was a civil engineer, +was asked to make an estimate of the +Mississippi River's horse-power at St. +Anthony Falls. His report was beyond +the civilian's belief. He said +there was power enough to turn the +wheels to grind out ten thousand +barrels of flour a day and to cut logs +into millions of square feet of board +every hour. The estimate was below +the facts, but was not accepted +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 41]</span> +for ten years. Then was constructed +the strong dam which built up the +great city of Minneapolis and represents +the finest and most vigorous +civilization of our age. Nevertheless, +there still runs to waste ten thousand +horse-power. In the first paper-mill +erected at South Hadley Falls, Massachusetts, +the horse-power used was +less than one hundred, yet an engineer +employed by Mr. Chapin, of +Springfield, to determine the possible +power of the Connecticut River at +that point reported it so great that +unbelief in his figures postponed for +a long time all the proposed enterprises. +But one poor man, determined +"to do something about it," +promoted a system of canals which +now so utilizes the water that a large +city, manufacturing annually products +worth many millions, draws from it +comfort and riches. Massive as are +the present works at Holyoke, regret +is often expressed that so much of +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 42]</span> +the water-power still goes over the +mighty dam and ridicules the smallness +of the faith of those who tried +to harness it.</p> + +<p>Such is the intellectual force in a +young person's mind. It is reasonable +to conclude that no mind ever +did its very best, and that no will +power was ever exerted continuously +to its greatest capacity. But the first +essential in the making of noble character +is to gain a full appreciation of +the latent or unused force which each +individual possesses. When one without +foolish egotism realizes how much +can be done with his wasting energies, +then he must carefully consider to +what object he will turn his power. +Great wills are often wasted on unworthy +objects, and the strong current +of the mind, which could be applied +to the making of world-enriching +machinery, is used to manufacture +some unsalable toy. The mind is +often compared to an electric dynamo. +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 43]</span> +The figure is accurate. It is an automatic, +self-charging battery which, +when applied to worthy occupation or +to a high purpose, distributes happiness, +progress, and intelligence to mankind, +and as a natural consequence +brings riches and honor to the industrious +possessor.</p> + +<p>Forty years ago there was on the +lips of nearly every teacher and father +a fascinating story of a Massachusetts +boy whose history illustrates forcibly +the "power to will" which is latent +in us all. I need not state the details +of the life, as it is only the illustration +which we need here.</p> + +<p>A young fellow sat on a barrel at +the door of a country grocery-store in +a small village not far from Boston. +He was the son of an industrious mechanic +who had opened a small shop +for making and repairing farm utensils, +such as rakes, hoes, and shovels. +But the son, encouraged by an indulgent +mother, would not work. He +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 44]</span> +gave way to cards, drink, and bad +company. He would not go to school, +and was a continual source of alarm +to his parents, and he became the talk +of the neighbors. He either was ill +with a cough or pretended to fear consumption; +the doctor's advice to set +him at work in the open air was not +enforced by his anxious mother. He +was a fair sample of the many thousand +young men seen now about the +country stores and taverns. He had, +however, the unusual disadvantage of +having his board and clothing furnished +to him without earning them. If he +exercised his will, it was to turn it +against himself in a determined self-indulgence. +I heard him once refer +to those days and quote Virgil in saying +that "the descent to Avernus is +easy."</p> + +<p>One evening with his hands in his +pockets he strolled up to the store and +post-office to meet some other young +men for a game of checkers. Under +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 45]</span> +the only street lamp near the store a +patent-medicine peddler had opened +one side of his covered wagon and was +advertising his "universal cure." The +boy—then about nineteen years old—listened +listlessly to the songs and +stories, but was not interested enough +to learn what was offered for sale. +The vender of medicines held up a +chain composed of several seemingly +solid rings which he skilfully took +apart. He then offered a dollar to +any one who would put the rings together +as they were before. The puzzle +caught the eye and interest of the +careless boy; as the rings were passed +from one to another they came to +him. He looked them over and said, +"I can't do it," and passed them on. +The Yankee peddler yelled at the +boy, "If you talk like that you will +land in the poorhouse!" The young +fellow was cut to the heart with the +short rebuke. He was inclined to +answer hotly, but lacked the courage. +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 46]</span> +After the other boys had had their +chance to see the rings, he asked to +examine them again; but he still saw +no way to cut or open the solid steel +and contemptuously threw them at +the peddler and shouted, "You're +fooling; that can't be done!" The +smiling vender rolled the rings into +a chain in an instant and, throwing +it to the boy, said, sarcastically: "Take +it home to your mother; she can do +it!" The young fellow, ashamed, +angry, and crushed, caught the chain +and crept out of the crowd and went +home, entering his room by the back +stairs. He hated the peddler with a +murderous passion, but despised himself +and must have wept great tears +far into the night. The next morning +he sat on the side of his bed, gazing at +the chain, long after his father had gone +to work. That was a terrible battle! +All who succeed must fight that battle +to victory at some time, or life is a +failure. He who conquers himself can +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 47]</span> +conquer other men. He who does not +rule himself cannot control other people. +For the first time that boy was +conscious of his lack of WILL. He +was painfully ashamed. He could not +again meet the boys, or the one girl +who was at the post-office, unless he +solved that riddle. It was far worse +to him than the riddles of the ancient +oracles or the questions of Samson had +been to the ancients. No victory so +glorious to any man as that when he +rises over his dead self and can shout +with unwavering confidence, I WILL. +That young man's battle was furious +and a strain on body and soul; he +kept saying over and over again, "I +will solve that riddle." He was sorely +tempted by hunger, as he would not +stop to eat. He determined to win +out alone, and did not ask aid even of +his mother. That night the rings fell +apart in his hands and rolled on the +floor. He had won! Life has few +joys like that hour of victory. The +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 48]</span> +rings had little value as pieces of steel, +but his triumph over self was worth +millions to him, and worth a thousand +millions to his country.</p> + +<p>The next morning his parents were +surprised to see him the first one at +the breakfast-table. He told of his +solution of the puzzle, and said to his +astonished but delighted parents that +he had loafed around long enough +and that he had determined to take +hold and do things. He asked for an +especially hard place in the shop, and +entered that week on a noble, triumphant +career, having few equals save +those of like experience. His health +became robust, his work became profitable, +new business ideas were developed, +and in a few years he controlled the +inside business and far distanced all +outside competitors. He said to his +wife, "I will have a million dollars, +and every dollar shall be a clean and +honest dollar." In those days a million +looked like a mountain of gold. +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 49]</span> +But he secured the million and steadily +raised the pay of his workmen. He +became the sheik of the town, the father +and adviser of every local enterprise. +He was sent to Congress by a nearly +unanimous vote. For eleven years he +was a safe counselor of the administration +at Washington and was a close +friend and trusted supporter of President +Lincoln.</p> + +<p>One day in 1864 the Federal armies +had been defeated by the Confederate +forces and gloom shadowed the faces +of the people. President Lincoln had +a sleepless night—it looked like defeat +and disunion. The danger was +greatly increased by the abandonment +of the scheme to hold California to the +Union by building a railroad through +the mountainous wilderness of the +Sierra Nevada and Rocky Mountains. +The chief engineer who surveyed the +route said that it could not be done +because of the great cost. Three great +financiers had been consulted and +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 50]</span> +refused to undertake the hopeless task. +The great Massachusetts Senator told +Mr. Lincoln that there was just one +man who could do that gigantic feat. +The Senator said to Lincoln: "If that +Congressman makes up his mind to +do it, and it is left to him, he will do +it. He is a careful man, but he has +a will which seems to be irresistible." +President Lincoln sent for the Congressman +and said: "A railroad to +California now will be more than an +army, and it will be an army—in the +saving of the Union. Will you build +it?" The Congressman asked for +three weeks to think. Before the end +of that time he asked the Secretary of +War to take his card to President +Lincoln, then in Philadelphia; on the +card was written, "I will." What a +startlingly fascinating story from real +life is the history of that mighty undertaking. +Now, when the traveler +passes the highest point on that transcontinental +railroad, 8,550 feet above +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 51]</span> +the sea at Sherman, Wyoming, and lifts +his hat before the monument erected to +the memory of that civil nobleman and +hero, he is paying his respect to the +self-giving heart and mighty brain of +the boy who conquered <i>the three links</i>.</p> + +<p>It may not be necessary to multiply +illustrations of this vital question, but +no one who lived in the journalistic +circles of Washington subsequent to +the Civil War can forget the power +and fame of that feminine literary +genius who, as the Washington correspondent +of the <i>New York Independent</i>, +wrote such brilliant letters. The +fact that she bore the same name as +the Congressman we have mentioned, +though no relative of his, does not +account for this reference to her. She +was nearly thirty-three years old when +a divorce and the breaking up of her +home left her poor, ill, and under the +cloud of undeserved disgrace. Her +acquaintances predicted obscurity, +daily toil with her hands, and a life of +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 52]</span> +lonely sorrow. Poor victim of sad +circumstances! She had but little education, +and had been too full of cares +to read the books of the day. Her +start in the profession which she later +so gracefully and forcibly adorned was +the foremost topic in corners and cloakrooms +at her largely attended literary +receptions in Washington.</p> + +<p>She had been told by those who +loved her that a divorced woman would +be shunned by all cultured women and +be the butt of ridicule for fashionable +men; and that as she must earn a +living she should sew or embroider or +act as a nurse. She certainly was too +weak to wash clothes or care for a +kitchen. But within her soul there +was that yearning to do something +worth while which seems given to almost +every woman. Few women reach +old age without feeling that somehow +the great object of living has not been +attained. The ambitions to which a +man can give free wings, a woman must +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 53]</span> +suppress or hide in deference to custom +or competition. As yet she has seldom +under our civilization seemed to do +her best or accomplish the one great +ideal of her heart and intellect. While +she has the same God-given impulses, +visions, and sense of power, she builds +no cathedrals, spans no rivers, digs +no mines, founds no nations, builds no +steamships, and seldom appears in +painting, sculpture, banking, or +oratory. She is conscious of the native +talent, sees the ideals, but must +hide them until it is too late. But +this woman from the interior of New +York State was an exception; like +Charlotte Brontë, she said, "I will +write." Like the same great author, +she had her rebuffs and returned +manuscripts, and all the more since at +that time women were unknown in the +newspaper business. But her invariable +answer to critics and discouraged +friends was, "I will." When in 1883 +she said, "I will," to the great editor +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 54]</span> +who became her second husband, the +President of the United States wrote +a personal letter to say that, while +he wished her joy, he could but admit +that it would be a "distinct loss to +humanity to have such a brilliant +genius hidden by marriage."</p> + +<p>In an automobile ride from Lake +Champlain to New York I saw the +city of Burlington, Vermont, with its +university, where Barnes had said, +"I will." At St. Johnsbury the whole +city advertises Fairbanks, who said, +"I will." At Brattleboro the hum of +industry ever repeats the name of the +boy Esty, who said, "I will"; at Holyoke, +the powerful canals seem to reflect +the faces of Chase and Whitney, +who, when poor men, said, "I will." +At Springfield the signs on the stores, +banks, and factories suggest the young +Chapin, who made the city prosperous +with his "I will." At New Haven +Whitney's determination stands out in +great streets and university +buildings.<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 55]</span></p> + +<p>Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles, New +Orleans, Atlanta, Raleigh, Niagara, +Pittsburg and a hundred American +cities like them are the outcome of +ideas with wills behind them in the +heads of common men. If every man +had in the last generation done all +that it was in his power to do, what +sublime things would stand before us +now in architecture, commerce, art, +manufactures, education, and religion. +The very glimpse of that vision bewilders +the mind. But the many will +not to do, while the few great benefactors +of the race will to do. My +young friend, be thou among those who +will with noble motives to do.</p> + + +<h3>THE END</h3> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 48%;"> +<img src="images/endpaper2.jpg" width="100%" alt="End Page 2" title="End Page 2" /> +</div> + +<div class="figright" style="width: 52%;"> +<img src="images/endpaper1.jpg" width="100%" alt="End Page 1" title="End Page 1" /> +</div> + + + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of What You Can Do With Your Will Power, by +Russell H. 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Conwell + +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: What You Can Do With Your Will Power + +Author: Russell H. Conwell + +Release Date: October 2, 2010 [EBook #33952] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHAT YOU CAN DO WITH YOUR *** + + + + +Produced by D Alexander, Juliet Sutherland and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + + What You + Can Do With Your + Will Power + + _By_ + RUSSELL H. CONWELL + + VOLUME I + + NATIONAL + EXTENSION UNIVERSITY + 597 Fifth Avenue, New York + + + + + WHAT YOU CAN DO WITH YOUR WILL POWER + + Copyright, 1917, by Harper & Brothers + Printed in the United States of America + + + + + [Illustration: Russell H. Conwell] + + + + + PREFACE + + +Other writers have fully and accurately described _the road_, and my +only hope is that these hastily written lines will inspire the young +man or young woman to arise _and go_. + + RUSSELL H. CONWELL. + + + + + [The Author is much indebted to Mr. Merle Crowell of the + _American Magazine_ who assisted most efficiently in the + preparation of the facts herein contained.] + + + + + WHAT YOU CAN DO WITH YOUR WILL POWER + + + + + Success has no secret-- + + I + + +Success has no secret. Her voice is forever ringing through the +market-place and crying in the wilderness, and the burden of her cry +is one word--WILL. Any normal young man who hears and heeds that cry +is equipped fully to climb to the very heights of life. + +The message I would like to leave with the young men and women of +America is a message I have been trying humbly to deliver from lecture +platform and pulpit for more than fifty years. It is a message the +accuracy of which has been affirmed and reaffirmed in thousands of lives +whose progress I have been privileged to watch. And the message is this: +Your future stands before you like a block of unwrought marble. You can +work it into what you will. Neither heredity, nor environment, nor any +obstacles superimposed by man can keep you from marching straight +through to success, provided you are guided by a firm, driving +determination and have normal health and intelligence. + +Determination is the battery that commands every road of life. It is the +armor against which the missiles of adversity rattle harmlessly. If +there is one thing I have tried peculiarly to do through these years it +is to indent in the minds of the youth of America the living fact that +when they give WILL the reins and say "DRIVE" they are headed toward the +heights. + +The institution out of which Temple University, of Philadelphia, grew +was founded thirty years ago expressly to furnish opportunities for +higher education to poor boys and girls who are willing to work for it. +I have seen ninety thousand students enter its doors. A very large +percentage of these came to Philadelphia without money, but firmly +determined to get an education. I have never known one of them to go +back defeated. Determination has the properties of a powerful acid; all +shackles melt before it. + +Conversely, lack of will power is the readiest weapon in the arsenal of +failure. The most hopeless proposition in the world is the fellow who +thinks that success is a door through which he will sometime stumble if +he roams around long enough. Some men seem to expect ravens to feed +them, the cruse of oil to remain inexhaustible, the fish to come right +up over the side of the boat at meal-time. They believe that life is a +series of miracles. They loaf about and trust in their lucky star, and +boldly declare that the world owes them a living. + +As a matter of fact the world owes a man nothing that he does not earn. +In this life a man gets about what he is worth, and he must render an +equivalent for what is given him. There is no such thing as inactive +success. + +My mind is running back over the stories of thousands of boys and girls +I have known and known about, who have faced every sort of a handicap +and have won out solely by will and perseverance in working with all the +power that God had given them. It is now nearly thirty years since a +young English boy came into my office. He wanted to attend the evening +classes at our university to learn oratory. + +"Why don't you go into the law?" I asked him. + +"I'm too poor! I haven't a chance!" he replied, shaking his head sadly. + +I turned on him sharply. "Of course you haven't a chance," I exclaimed, +"if you don't make up your mind to it!" + +The next night he knocked at my door again. His face was radiant and +there was a light of determination in his eyes. + +"I have decided to become a lawyer," he said, and I knew from the ring +of his voice that he meant it. + +Many times after he became mayor of Philadelphia he must have looked +back on that decision as the turning-point in his life. + +I am thinking of a young Connecticut farm lad who was given up by his +teachers as too weak-minded to learn. He left school when he was seven +years old and toiled on his father's farm until he was twenty-one. Then +something turned his mind toward the origin and development of the +animal kingdom. He began to read works on zoology, and, in order to +enlarge his capacity for understanding, went back to school and picked +up where he left off fourteen years before. Somebody said to him, "You +can get to the top _if you will_!" + +He grasped the hope and nurtured it, until at last it completely +possessed him. He entered college at twenty-eight and worked his way +through with the assistance that we were able to furnish him. To-day he +is a respected professor of zoology in an Ohio college. + +Such illustrations I could multiply indefinitely. Of all the boys whom I +have tried to help through college I cannot think of a single one who +has failed for any other reason than ill health. But of course I have +never helped any one who was not first helping himself. As soon as a man +determines the goal toward which he is marching, he is in a strategic +position to see and seize everything that will contribute toward that +end. + +Whenever a young man tells me that if he "had his way" he would be a +lawyer, or an engineer, or what not, I always reply: + +"You can be what you will, provided that it is something the world will +be demanding ten years hence." + +This brings to my mind a certain stipulation which the ambition of youth +must recognize. You must invest yourself or your money in a _known +demand_. You must select an occupation that is fitted to your own +special genius and to some actual want of the people. Choose as early as +possible what your life-work will be. Then you can be continually +equipping yourself by reading and observing to a purpose. There are many +things which the average boy or girl learns in school that could be +learned outside just as well. + +Almost any man should be able to become wealthy in this land of opulent +opportunity. There are some people who think that to be pious they must +be very poor and very dirty. They are wrong. Not money, but the _love_ +of money, is the root of all evil. Money in itself is a dynamic force +for helping humanity. + +In my lectures I have borne heavily on the fact that we are all walking +over acres of diamonds and mines of gold. There are people who think +that their fortune lies in some far country. It is much more likely to +lie right in their own back yards or on their front door-step, hidden +from their unseeing eye. Most of our millionaires discovered their +fortunes by simply looking around them. + +Recently I have been investigating the lives of four thousand and +forty-three American millionaires. All but twenty of them started life +as poor boys, and all but forty of them have contributed largely to +their communities, and divided fairly with their employees as they went +along. But, alas, not one rich man's son out of seventeen dies rich. + +But if a man has dilly-dallied through a certain space of wasted years, +can he then develop the character--the motor force--to drive him to +success? Why, my friend, will power cannot only be developed, but it is +often dry powder which needs only a match. Very frequently I think of +the life of Abraham Lincoln--that wonderful man! and I am thankful that +I was permitted to meet him. Yet Abraham Lincoln developed the splendid +sinews of his will after he was twenty-one. Before that he was just a +roving, good-natured sort of a chap. Always have I regretted that I +failed to ask him what special circumstance broke the chrysalis of his +life and loosened the wings of his will. + +Many years ago some of the students of Temple University held a meeting +in a building opposite the Bellevue-Stratford Hotel. As they were +leaving the building they noticed a foreigner selling peanuts on the +opposite curb. While buying peanuts they got to talking with the +fellow, and told him that any one could obtain an education if he was +willing to work for it. Eagerly the poor fellow drank up all the +information he could get. He enrolled at Temple University and worked +his way through, starting with the elementary studies. He is to-day an +eminent practising physician in the national capital. + +Often I think of an office clerk who reached a decision that the +ambitions which were stirring in his soul could be realized if he could +only get an education. He attended our evening classes and was graduated +with a B.S. degree. He is now the millionaire head of one of the largest +brokerage houses in the country. + +"Where there's a will there's a way!" But one needs to use a little +common sense about selecting the way. A general may determine to win a +victory, but if he hurls his troops across an open field straight into +the leaden sweep of the enemy's artillery he invites disaster and +defeat. The best general lays his plans carefully, and advances his +troops in the way that will best conserve their strength and numbers. So +must a man plan his campaign of life. + +No man has a right, either for himself or for others, to be at work in a +factory, or a store, or anywhere else, unless he would work there from +choice--money or no money--if he had the necessities of life. + +"As a man thinks, so he is," says the writer of Proverbs; but as a man +adjusts himself, so really is he, after all. One great trouble with many +individuals is that they are made up of all sorts of machinery that is +not adjusted, that is out of place--no belts on the wheels, no fire +under the boiler, hence no steam to move the mechanism. + +Some folk never take the trouble to size themselves up--to find out +what they are fitted to do--and then wonder why they remain way down at +the bottom of the heap. I remember a young woman who told me that she +did not believe she could ever be of any particular use in the world. I +mentioned a dozen things that she ought to be able to do. + +"If you only knew yourself," I said, "you would set yourself to writing. +You ought to be an author." + +She shook her head and smiled, as if she thought I was making fun of +her. Later, force of circumstances drove her to take up the pen. And +when she came to me and told me that she was making three thousand +dollars a year in literary work, and was soon to go higher, I thought +back to the time when she was a poor girl making three dollars a week +when she failed accurately to estimate herself. + + + + + There is a deplorable tendency-- + + II + + +There is a deplorable tendency among many people to wait for a +particularly favorable opportunity to declare themselves in the battle +of life. Some people pause for the rap of opportunity when opportunity +has been playing a tattoo on their resonant skulls for years. + +Hardly a single great invention has been placed on the market without a +number of men putting forth the claim that they had the idea first--and +in most cases they proved the fact. But while they were sitting down and +dreaming, or trying to bring the device to a greater perfection, a man +with initiative rose up and acted. The telegraph, telephone, +sewing-machine, air-brake, mowing-machine, wireless, and +linotype-machine are only a few illustrations. + +The most wonderful idea is quite valueless until it is put into +practical operation. The Government rewards the man who first gets a +patent or first puts his invention into practical use--and the world +does likewise. Thus the dreamer must always lag behind the door. + +True will power also predicates concentration. I shall never forget the +time I went to see President Lincoln to ask him to spare the life of one +of my soldiers who was sentenced to be shot. As I walked toward the door +of his office I felt a greater fear than I had ever known when the +shells were bursting all about us at Antietam. Finally I mustered up +courage to knock on the door. I heard a voice inside yell: + +"Come in and sit down!" + +The man at the table did not look up as I entered; he was busy over a +bunch of papers. I sat down at the edge of a chair and wished I were in +Peking or Patagonia. He never looked up until he had quite finished with +the papers. Then he turned to me and said: + +"I am a very busy man and have only a few minutes to spare. Tell me in +the fewest words what it is you want." + +As soon as I mentioned the case he said: + +"I have heard all about it, and you do not need to tell me any more. Mr. +Stanton was talking to me about that only a few days ago. You can go to +the hotel and rest assured that the President never did sign an order to +shoot a boy under twenty, and never will. You may tell his mother that." +Then, after a short conversation, he took hold of another bunch of +papers and said, decidedly, "Good morning!" + +Lincoln, one of the greatest men of the world, owed his success largely +to one rule: whatsoever he had to do at all he put his whole mind into, +and held it all there until the task was all done. That makes men great +almost anywhere. + +Too many people are satisfied if they have done a thing "well enough." +That is a fatal complacency. "Well enough" has cursed souls. "Well +enough" has wrecked enterprises. "Well enough" has destroyed nations. If +perfection in a task can possibly be reached, nothing short of +perfection is "well enough." Governor Talbot of Massachusetts got his +high office because General Swift made a happy application of the truth +in saying to the convention, "I nominate for Governor of this state a +man who, when he was a farmer's boy, hoed to the end of the row." That +saying became a campaign slogan all up and down the state. "He hoed to +the end of the row! He hoed to the end of the row!" When the people +discovered that this was one of the characteristics of the man, they +elected him by one of the greatest majorities ever given a Governor in +Massachusetts. + +Yet we must bear in mind that there is such a thing as overdoing +anything. Young people should draw a line between study that secures +wisdom and study that breaks down the mind; between exercise that is +healthful and exercise that is injurious; between a conscientiousness +that is pure and divine and a conscientiousness that is over-morbid and +insane; between economy that is careful and economy that is stingy; +between industry that is a reasonable use of their powers and industry +that is an over-use of their powers, leading only to destruction. + +The best ordered mind is one that can grasp the problems that gather +around a man constantly and work them out to a logical conclusion; that +sees quickly what anything means, whether it be an exhibition of goods, +a juxtaposition of events, or the suggestions of literature. + +A man is made up largely of his daily observations. School training +serves to fit and discipline him so that he may read rightly the lesson +of the things he sees around him. Men have made mighty fortunes by just +using their eyes. + +Several years ago I took dinner in New York with one of the great +millionaires of that city. In the course of our talk he told me +something about his boyhood days--how, with hardly a penny in his +pocket, he slung a pack on his back and set out along the Erie Canal, +looking for a job. At last he got one. He was paid three dollars a week +to make soft soap for the laborers to use at the locks in washing their +hands. One can hardly imagine a more humble occupation; but this boy +kept his eyes open. He saw the disadvantages of soft soap, and set to +work to make a hard substitute for it. Finally he succeeded, and his +success brought him many, many millions. + +Every person is designed for a definite work in life, fitted for a +particular sphere. Before God he has a right to that sphere. If you are +an excellent housekeeper you should not be running a loom, and it is +your duty to prepare yourself to enter at the first opportunity the +sphere for which you are fitted. + +George W. Childs, who owned the Philadelphia _Ledger_, once blacked +boots and sold newspapers in front of the _Ledger_ building. He told me +how he used to look at that building and declare over and over to +himself that some day he would own the great newspaper establishment +that it housed. When he mentioned his ambition to his associates they +laughed at him. But Childs had indomitable grit, and ultimately he did +come to own that newspaper establishment, one of the finest in the +country. + +Another thing very necessary to the pursuit of success is the proper +employment of waiting moments. How do you use your waiting time for +meals, for trains, for business? I suppose that if the average +individual were to employ wisely these intervals in which he whistles +and twiddles his thumbs he would soon accumulate enough knowledge to +quite make over his life. + +I went through the United States Senate in 1867 and asked each of the +members how he got his early education. I found that an extremely large +percentage of them had simply properly applied their waiting moments. +Even Charles Sumner, a university graduate, told me that he learned more +from the books he read outside of college than from those he had studied +within. General Burnside, who was then a Senator, said that he had +always had a book beside him in the shop where he worked. + +Before leaving the subject of the power of the will, there is one thing +I would like to say: a true will must have a decent regard for the +happiness of others. Do not get so wrapped up in your own mission that +you forget to be kind to other people, for you have not fulfilled every +duty unless you have fulfilled the duty of being pleasant. Enemies and +ignorance are the two most expensive things in a man's life. I never +make unnecessary enemies--they cost too much. + +Every one has within himself the tools necessary to carve out success. +Consecrate yourself to some definite mission in life, and let it be a +mission that will benefit the world as well as yourself. Remember that +nothing can withstand the sweep of a determined will--unless it happens +to be another will equally as determined. Keep clean, fight hard, pick +your openings judiciously, and have your eyes forever fixed on the +heights toward which you are headed. If there be any other formula for +success, I do not know it. + + + + + The biography of that great patriot-- + + III + + +The biography of that great patriot and statesman, Daniel Manin of +Venice, Italy, contains a very romantic example of the possibilities of +will force. He was born in a poor quarter of the city; his parents were +without rank or money. Venice in 1805 was under the Austrian rule and +was sharply divided into aristocratic and peasant classes. He was soon +deserted by his father and left to the support of his mother. He was a +dull boy, and could not keep along with other boys in the church +schools; his mind labored as slowly as did the childhood intellects of +many of the greatest men of history. Daniel seemed destined to earn his +living digging mud out of the canals, if he supported himself at all. No +American boy can be handicapped like that. But the children who learn +slowly learn surely, and history, which is but the biography of great +men, mentions again and again the fact that the great characters began +to be able to acquire learning late in life. Napoleon and Wellington +were both dull boys, and Lincoln often said that he was a dunce through +his early years. Daniel Manin seems to have been utterly unable to learn +from books until he was eight or ten years old. But his latent will +power was suddenly developed to an unexpected degree when he was quite a +youth. Kossuth, who was a personal friend of Manin, said in an address +in New York that the American Republic was responsible for the awakening +of Manin, and through him had made Italy free. + +It appears that an American sea-captain, while discharging a cargo in +Venice, employed Daniel as an errand-boy, and when the ship sailed the +captain made Daniel a present of a gilt-edged copy of the lives of +George Washington and John Hancock in one volume. The captain, who had +greatly endeared himself to Daniel, made the boy promise solemnly that +he would learn to read the book. But Daniel was utterly ignorant of the +English language in print and had learned only a few phrases from the +captain. The gift of that book made Venice a republic, led to the +adoption of sections of the United States Constitution by that state and +carried the principles on into the constitution of United Italy. That +book awakened the sleeping will power of the industrious dull boy. Even +his mother protested against his waste of time in trying to read English +when he was unable to conquer the primers in Italian. But he secured a +phrase-book and a grammar, and paid for them in hard labor. With those +crude implements, without a teacher, he determined to read that book. +Only one friend, a young priest in St. Mark's Cathedral, gave him any +word or look of encouragement. But his candle burned late, and the +returning daylight took him to his book to study until time for +breakfast. Then came the daily task as a messenger, or gondolier. Some +weeks or months after he began his seemingly foolish problem he rushed +into his mother's room at night, excited and noisy, shouting to her: "I +can read that book! I can read that book!" There comes a moment in the +life of every successful student of a foreign language when he suddenly +awakens to the consciousness that he can think in that language. From +that point on the work is always easy. It must have been a similar +psychological change which came into Daniel's intellect. So sudden was +it, so amazing the change, that the priest reported the case as a +miracle, and the little circle of the poor people who knew the boy +looked on him with awe. Consul-General Sparks, who represented the +United States at Venice in 1848, wrote that "Manin often mentions his +intellectual new birth, and his success in reading the life of +Washington in English spurs him on in the difficult and dangerous +undertakings connected with the efforts of Venice to get free." + +When Daniel began to appreciate his ability to determine to do and to +persevere, his ambition and hope brought to him larger views of life. He +resolved to learn in other ways. He took up school books and mastered +them thoroughly, and he became known as "a boy who works slowly, but +what he does at all he does well." He soon found helpers among kind +gentlemen and secured employment in a bookstall. The accounts of his +persistence and his achievements are as thrilling and as fascinating as +any finished romance. He managed to get a college education, recognized +by Padua University; he studied law and was admitted to the bar when he +was twenty-two years of age. The Austrian judges would not admit him to +their courts, and it is said he visited his law-office regularly and +daily for nearly two years before he had a paying client. But his strong +will, shown in his perseverance in the presence of starvation, won the +respect and love of the daughter of a wealthy patrician. They had been +married but a short time when the Austrians confiscated the property of +his father-in-law because of suspicions circulated concerning his secret +connection with the "Americani." That patriotic secret society was +called the "Carbonari" by the Austrians, and Manin became the leading +spirit in the Venetian branch. His will seemed resistless. He refused +the Presidency in 1832, when revolution shook the tyrannies of all +Europe and Venice fell back under Austrian control. But in 1848 he was +almost unanimously elected President of the "American Republic of +Venice"; and in his second proclamation before the great siege began he +issued a call for the election, using, as Consul-General Sparks records, +the following language (as translated): "and until the election is held +and the officers installed the following sections of the Constitution of +the United States of America shall be the law of the City." He was +determined to secure an "American republic" in Italy. He lived to see it +in Venice. Statues of Daniel Manin are seen now in all the great cities +of Italy; and when the statue was dedicated at Venice and a city park +square named after him, he was called the father of the new kingdom of +Italy. General Garibaldi said that when Manin made a draft of the +Constitution he proposed for United Italy, he quoted the American +Declaration of Independence. The general also said that Manin insisted +the Government of Italy should be like the American Republic, and that +it was difficult to convince Manin that a king--so called--could be as +limited as a President. Even Mazzini, the extremist, and both Cavour and +Gavazzi finally came to accept Manin's demands for freedom and equality +as they were set forth in the Constitution of the American Republic. +Manin did not live to see the final union, nor to see his son a general +in the Italian army, but his vigorous will gave a momentum to freedom in +Italy which is still pressing the people on to his noblest ideals. "What +man has done man can do," and what Manin did can be done again in other +achievements. + +The normal reader never was anxious that the North Pole should be +located, and he does not care now whether it has been discovered. +Mathematicians and geographers may find delight in the solution of some +abstract problem, but the busy citizen who seizes his paper with haste +to see if Peary has found the North Pole has no interest in the spot. +He would not visit the place if some authority would give him a thousand +acres or present him with a dozen ice-floes. What the reader desires is +to learn how the will power in those discoverers worked out through +hair-breadth escapes, long winters, and starvation's pangs. It is a +great game, and the world is a grand stand. The man with the strongest +will attracts the admiration of the world. All the world which loves a +lover also admires a hero, and a hero is always a man of forceful will. +When we read of Louis Joliet and James Marquette in their terrible +experience tracing the Mississippi River--Indians as savage as wild +beasts, marshes, lakes, forests, mountains, burdens, illness, wounds, +exhaustion, seeming failures--all testify to their sublime strength of +purpose. Peter Lemoyne, Jonathan Carver, Captain Lewis, Lieutenant +Clark, Montgomery Pike, General Fremont, Elisha Kent Kane, Charles +Francis Hall, David Livingstone, Captain Cook, Paul Du Chaillu, and +Henry M. Stanley carved their names deep in walls of history when +differing from other men only in the cultivation of a mighty will. + +Mary Lyon, the heroine of Mount Holyoke, used to quote frequently the +saying of Doctor Beecher that he once had "a machine admirably +contrived, admirably adjusted, but it had one fault; _it wouldn't go!_" +while Catherine Beecher would retort that Miss Lyon had "too much go for +so small a machine." But what a monumental triumph was the dedication of +the first building of Mount Holyoke College at South Hadley, +Massachusetts. Mrs. Deacon Porter wrote to Henry Ward Beecher: "I wish +you could have seen Miss Lyon's face as the procession moved up the +street. It was indeed the face of an angel." From that immortal hour +when that little woman, peeling potatoes as her brother's housekeeper +at Buckland, Massachusetts, suddenly determined to start a movement for +the higher education of young women, she had written, had traveled, had +begged, had given all her inheritance, had visited colleges and schools, +going incessantly, working, praying, appealing, until the material +embodiment of her martyr sacrifices was opened to women. All women in +all countries are greatly in her debt. Men feel grateful for what the +higher education of women has done for men. One cannot now walk over the +embowered campus of Mount Holyoke College without meditating on what a +forceful will of a frail woman, set toward the beautiful and good, can +do within the severest limitations. Vassar, Wellesley, Smith, Bryn Mawr, +and the thirty-five other colleges for women in Western and Southern +states are the children of Mount Holyoke. One lone woman, one single +will, a large heart! God sees her and orders His forces to aid her! + +Richard Arkwright, Stephenson, and Edison in the pursuit of an +invention, with stern faces and clenched teeth, work far into the +morning. John Wesley, Whitfield, and the list of religious reformers +from St. Augustine to Dwight L. Moody have been men of dynamic +confidence in the triumph of a great idea. Neal Dow, Elizabeth Fry, and +their disciples, urging on the cause of temperance with that motive +force which they discovered in themselves, aroused the people wherever +they went to assistance or to opposition. Fulton said, "I will build a +steamboat." Cyrus Field said, "I will lay a telegraph cable to Europe." +Sir Christopher Wren, imitating the builders of St. Peter's, said, "I +will build the dome of St. Paul's Cathedral." General Washington said, +"I will venture all on final victory," and General Grant said, "I will +fight it out on this line." When Abraham Lincoln gave his eloquent +tribute to Henry Clay in 1852 he said, "Henry Clay's example teaches us +that one can scarcely be so poor but that, if he will, he can acquire +sufficient education to get through the world respectably." To such men +log cabins were universities. Daniel Webster decided, at the end of his +day's work plowing a stony field in the New Hampshire hills, that he +would be a statesman. Thomas H. Benton, when nearly all men supposed the +wilderness unconquerable, decided to push the Republic west to the Rocky +Mountains. Salmon P. Chase, from the time he ran the ferryboat on the +Cuyahoga River, kept in his pocket-book a motto, "Where there is a will +there is a way." Charles Sumner had a disagreeable habit of talking +about himself and boasting of his learning. He was frankly told one day +by James T. Fields that it was a "weakening trait." Mr. Sumner thanked +Mr. Fields and told him that he had determined "to discontinue such +foolish talk." "He fought himself," wrote Mr. Fields, "and he +conquered." James G. Blaine, in college at Washington, Pennsylvania, saw +a student who had been too devoted to football weeping over his failure +to pass an examination. Warned by the failure of this student, James +told his mother that he would not play another game of football while he +was in college. He kept his resolution unbroken throughout the course. +When James A. Garfield was earning his tuition as a bell-ringer at Hiram +College he resolved that the first stroke of the bell should be exactly +on the minute throughout the year. The president of the college stated +that the people in the village set their clocks by that bell, and not +once in the year was it one minute ahead or behind time. Grover +Cleveland at eighteen was drifting about from one job to another, and +men prophesied that he would be a disgrace to his "over-pious" father, +who was a preacher. Mr. Cleveland said in a speech that, "like Martin +Luther, I was stopped in my course by a stroke of lightning." It does +not appear to what he referred, but it does appear that he decided +firmly that he would choose some calling and stick to it. He decided +upon the law, and was so fixed in his determination to know law that he +stayed in his tutor's office three years after he had been admitted to +the bar, and there continued persistently in his studies. + + + + + In a small town in Western Massachusetts-- + + IV + + +In a small town in western Massachusetts, forty years ago, a young, pale +youth was acting as cashier of the savings bank. He was dyspeptic, +acutely nervous, and often ill-natured. One day several large factories +closed their doors, and the corporations to whom the bank had loaned +money gave notice of bankruptcy. The president of the bank was in Europe +and the people did not know that the bank was a loser by the failure. +The cashier was almost overcome by the sense of danger, for he could not +meet a run on the bank with the funds he had on hand. He entered the +bank after a sleepless night, fearing that the people might in some way +learn of the bank's responsibility. He was sleepy, faint, discouraged. +An old farmer came in to get a small check cashed, and the glum cashier +did not answer the farmer's usual salutation. His face was cloudy, his +eyes bloodshot, and his whole manner irritating. He counted out the +money and threw it at the farmer. The old man counted his money +carefully and then called out to the cashier: "What's the matter? Is +your bank going to fail?" When the farmer had left the bank the young +cashier could see that his manner was letting out that which he wished +to conceal. He then paced up and down the bank and fought it all out +with himself. He determined he would be cheerful, brave, and strong. He +forced himself to smile, and soon was able to laugh at himself for +presenting such a ridiculous appearance. He met the next customer with a +hearty greeting of good cheer. All the forenoon he grew stronger in his +determination to let nothing move him to gloom again. About noon the +daily Boston paper came and announced the possible failure of that bank. +Almost instantly the news flew about town, and a wild mob assailed the +bank, screaming for their money. But the cheerful cashier met them with +a smile and made fun of their excitement. The eighteenth man demanding +his money was an old German, who, seeing the cashier count out the money +so coolly and cheerfully, drew back his bank-book and said: "If you have +the money, we don't want it now! But we thought you didn't have it!" +That suggestion made the crowd laugh, and in half an hour the crowd had +left and those who had drawn their money in many cases asked the cashier +to take it back. The cashier now is a most successful manufacturer and +railroad director, stout-hearted and cheerful. He often refers to the +fight he had that morning with his "insignificant, flabby little self." + +To appreciate one's power at command is the first consideration. A man +from Cooperstown, New York, visited St. Anthony Falls, Minnesota, in the +early fifties of the last century and laughed loud and long at the +ridiculous little mill which turned out a few bags of flour and sawed a +few thousand feet of lumber. It was indeed ludicrous. He could think of +no comparison except an elephant drawing a baby's tin toy. His laughter +led to a heated discussion and investigation. An army officer at Fort +Snelling, who was a civil engineer, was asked to make an estimate of the +Mississippi River's horse-power at St. Anthony Falls. His report was +beyond the civilian's belief. He said there was power enough to turn the +wheels to grind out ten thousand barrels of flour a day and to cut logs +into millions of square feet of board every hour. The estimate was below +the facts, but was not accepted for ten years. Then was constructed the +strong dam which built up the great city of Minneapolis and represents +the finest and most vigorous civilization of our age. Nevertheless, +there still runs to waste ten thousand horse-power. In the first +paper-mill erected at South Hadley Falls, Massachusetts, the horse-power +used was less than one hundred, yet an engineer employed by Mr. Chapin, +of Springfield, to determine the possible power of the Connecticut River +at that point reported it so great that unbelief in his figures +postponed for a long time all the proposed enterprises. But one poor +man, determined "to do something about it," promoted a system of canals +which now so utilizes the water that a large city, manufacturing +annually products worth many millions, draws from it comfort and riches. +Massive as are the present works at Holyoke, regret is often expressed +that so much of the water-power still goes over the mighty dam and +ridicules the smallness of the faith of those who tried to harness it. + +Such is the intellectual force in a young person's mind. It is +reasonable to conclude that no mind ever did its very best, and that no +will power was ever exerted continuously to its greatest capacity. But +the first essential in the making of noble character is to gain a full +appreciation of the latent or unused force which each individual +possesses. When one without foolish egotism realizes how much can be +done with his wasting energies, then he must carefully consider to what +object he will turn his power. Great wills are often wasted on unworthy +objects, and the strong current of the mind, which could be applied to +the making of world-enriching machinery, is used to manufacture some +unsalable toy. The mind is often compared to an electric dynamo. The +figure is accurate. It is an automatic, self-charging battery which, +when applied to worthy occupation or to a high purpose, distributes +happiness, progress, and intelligence to mankind, and as a natural +consequence brings riches and honor to the industrious possessor. + +Forty years ago there was on the lips of nearly every teacher and father +a fascinating story of a Massachusetts boy whose history illustrates +forcibly the "power to will" which is latent in us all. I need not state +the details of the life, as it is only the illustration which we need +here. + +A young fellow sat on a barrel at the door of a country grocery-store in +a small village not far from Boston. He was the son of an industrious +mechanic who had opened a small shop for making and repairing farm +utensils, such as rakes, hoes, and shovels. But the son, encouraged by +an indulgent mother, would not work. He gave way to cards, drink, and +bad company. He would not go to school, and was a continual source of +alarm to his parents, and he became the talk of the neighbors. He either +was ill with a cough or pretended to fear consumption; the doctor's +advice to set him at work in the open air was not enforced by his +anxious mother. He was a fair sample of the many thousand young men seen +now about the country stores and taverns. He had, however, the unusual +disadvantage of having his board and clothing furnished to him without +earning them. If he exercised his will, it was to turn it against +himself in a determined self-indulgence. I heard him once refer to those +days and quote Virgil in saying that "the descent to Avernus is easy." + +One evening with his hands in his pockets he strolled up to the store +and post-office to meet some other young men for a game of checkers. +Under the only street lamp near the store a patent-medicine peddler had +opened one side of his covered wagon and was advertising his "universal +cure." The boy--then about nineteen years old--listened listlessly to +the songs and stories, but was not interested enough to learn what was +offered for sale. The vender of medicines held up a chain composed of +several seemingly solid rings which he skilfully took apart. He then +offered a dollar to any one who would put the rings together as they +were before. The puzzle caught the eye and interest of the careless boy; +as the rings were passed from one to another they came to him. He looked +them over and said, "I can't do it," and passed them on. The Yankee +peddler yelled at the boy, "If you talk like that you will land in the +poorhouse!" The young fellow was cut to the heart with the short rebuke. +He was inclined to answer hotly, but lacked the courage. After the +other boys had had their chance to see the rings, he asked to examine +them again; but he still saw no way to cut or open the solid steel and +contemptuously threw them at the peddler and shouted, "You're fooling; +that can't be done!" The smiling vender rolled the rings into a chain in +an instant and, throwing it to the boy, said, sarcastically: "Take it +home to your mother; she can do it!" The young fellow, ashamed, angry, +and crushed, caught the chain and crept out of the crowd and went home, +entering his room by the back stairs. He hated the peddler with a +murderous passion, but despised himself and must have wept great tears +far into the night. The next morning he sat on the side of his bed, +gazing at the chain, long after his father had gone to work. That was a +terrible battle! All who succeed must fight that battle to victory at +some time, or life is a failure. He who conquers himself can conquer +other men. He who does not rule himself cannot control other people. For +the first time that boy was conscious of his lack of WILL. He was +painfully ashamed. He could not again meet the boys, or the one girl who +was at the post-office, unless he solved that riddle. It was far worse +to him than the riddles of the ancient oracles or the questions of +Samson had been to the ancients. No victory so glorious to any man as +that when he rises over his dead self and can shout with unwavering +confidence, I WILL. That young man's battle was furious and a strain on +body and soul; he kept saying over and over again, "I will solve that +riddle." He was sorely tempted by hunger, as he would not stop to eat. +He determined to win out alone, and did not ask aid even of his mother. +That night the rings fell apart in his hands and rolled on the floor. +He had won! Life has few joys like that hour of victory. The rings had +little value as pieces of steel, but his triumph over self was worth +millions to him, and worth a thousand millions to his country. + +The next morning his parents were surprised to see him the first one at +the breakfast-table. He told of his solution of the puzzle, and said to +his astonished but delighted parents that he had loafed around long +enough and that he had determined to take hold and do things. He asked +for an especially hard place in the shop, and entered that week on a +noble, triumphant career, having few equals save those of like +experience. His health became robust, his work became profitable, new +business ideas were developed, and in a few years he controlled the +inside business and far distanced all outside competitors. He said to +his wife, "I will have a million dollars, and every dollar shall be a +clean and honest dollar." In those days a million looked like a mountain +of gold. But he secured the million and steadily raised the pay of his +workmen. He became the sheik of the town, the father and adviser of +every local enterprise. He was sent to Congress by a nearly unanimous +vote. For eleven years he was a safe counselor of the administration at +Washington and was a close friend and trusted supporter of President +Lincoln. + +One day in 1864 the Federal armies had been defeated by the Confederate +forces and gloom shadowed the faces of the people. President Lincoln had +a sleepless night--it looked like defeat and disunion. The danger was +greatly increased by the abandonment of the scheme to hold California to +the Union by building a railroad through the mountainous wilderness of +the Sierra Nevada and Rocky Mountains. The chief engineer who surveyed +the route said that it could not be done because of the great cost. +Three great financiers had been consulted and refused to undertake the +hopeless task. The great Massachusetts Senator told Mr. Lincoln that +there was just one man who could do that gigantic feat. The Senator said +to Lincoln: "If that Congressman makes up his mind to do it, and it is +left to him, he will do it. He is a careful man, but he has a will which +seems to be irresistible." President Lincoln sent for the Congressman +and said: "A railroad to California now will be more than an army, and +it will be an army--in the saving of the Union. Will you build it?" The +Congressman asked for three weeks to think. Before the end of that time +he asked the Secretary of War to take his card to President Lincoln, +then in Philadelphia; on the card was written, "I will." What a +startlingly fascinating story from real life is the history of that +mighty undertaking. Now, when the traveler passes the highest point on +that transcontinental railroad, 8,550 feet above the sea at Sherman, +Wyoming, and lifts his hat before the monument erected to the memory of +that civil nobleman and hero, he is paying his respect to the +self-giving heart and mighty brain of the boy who conquered _the three +links_. + +It may not be necessary to multiply illustrations of this vital +question, but no one who lived in the journalistic circles of Washington +subsequent to the Civil War can forget the power and fame of that +feminine literary genius who, as the Washington correspondent of the +_New York Independent_, wrote such brilliant letters. The fact that she +bore the same name as the Congressman we have mentioned, though no +relative of his, does not account for this reference to her. She was +nearly thirty-three years old when a divorce and the breaking up of her +home left her poor, ill, and under the cloud of undeserved disgrace. Her +acquaintances predicted obscurity, daily toil with her hands, and a life +of lonely sorrow. Poor victim of sad circumstances! She had but little +education, and had been too full of cares to read the books of the day. +Her start in the profession which she later so gracefully and forcibly +adorned was the foremost topic in corners and cloakrooms at her largely +attended literary receptions in Washington. + +She had been told by those who loved her that a divorced woman would be +shunned by all cultured women and be the butt of ridicule for +fashionable men; and that as she must earn a living she should sew or +embroider or act as a nurse. She certainly was too weak to wash clothes +or care for a kitchen. But within her soul there was that yearning to do +something worth while which seems given to almost every woman. Few women +reach old age without feeling that somehow the great object of living +has not been attained. The ambitions to which a man can give free wings, +a woman must suppress or hide in deference to custom or competition. +As yet she has seldom under our civilization seemed to do her best or +accomplish the one great ideal of her heart and intellect. While she has +the same God-given impulses, visions, and sense of power, she builds no +cathedrals, spans no rivers, digs no mines, founds no nations, builds +no steamships, and seldom appears in painting, sculpture, banking, or +oratory. She is conscious of the native talent, sees the ideals, but +must hide them until it is too late. But this woman from the interior +of New York State was an exception; like Charlotte Bronte, she said, +"I will write." Like the same great author, she had her rebuffs and +returned manuscripts, and all the more since at that time women were +unknown in the newspaper business. But her invariable answer to critics +and discouraged friends was, "I will." When in 1883 she said, "I will," +to the great editor who became her second husband, the President of the +United States wrote a personal letter to say that, while he wished her +joy, he could but admit that it would be a "distinct loss to humanity +to have such a brilliant genius hidden by marriage." + +In an automobile ride from Lake Champlain to New York I saw the city +of Burlington, Vermont, with its university, where Barnes had said, +"I will." At St. Johnsbury the whole city advertises Fairbanks, who +said, "I will." At Brattleboro the hum of industry ever repeats the name +of the boy Esty, who said, "I will"; at Holyoke, the powerful canals +seem to reflect the faces of Chase and Whitney, who, when poor men, +said, "I will." At Springfield the signs on the stores, banks, and +factories suggest the young Chapin, who made the city prosperous with +his "I will." At New Haven Whitney's determination stands out in great +streets and university buildings. + +Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles, New Orleans, Atlanta, Raleigh, Niagara, +Pittsburg and a hundred American cities like them are the outcome of +ideas with wills behind them in the heads of common men. If every man +had in the last generation done all that it was in his power to do, what +sublime things would stand before us now in architecture, commerce, art, +manufactures, education, and religion. The very glimpse of that vision +bewilders the mind. But the many will not to do, while the few great +benefactors of the race will to do. My young friend, be thou among those +who will with noble motives to do. + + + THE END + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of What You Can Do With Your Will Power, by +Russell H. 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