life's army, without which we are confused and powerless when called
into action. What a teacher industry is! It teaches patience,
perseverance, forbearance, and application. It teaches method and
system, by compelling us to crowd the most possible into every day and
hour. Industry is a perpetual call upon the judgment and the power of
quick decision; it makes ready and practical men.
Industry is essential for that usefulness by which each man may fill his
place in the world. The lazy, like the wicked, may be made useful. The
Spartans used to send a drunken slave through the city that the sight of
his folly and degradation might disgust young men with intemperance. He
was made useful; he did not make himself useful. From this it will be
seen that the necessity of labor is something at which we should rather
rejoice than complain, and that habits of industry are the great helpers
to virtue, happiness, and usefulness.
Industry is now as important to the woman as to the man. Some years ago,
in an art store in Boston, a group of girls stood together gazing
intently upon a famous piece of statuary. The silence was broken by the
remark, "Just to think that a woman did it." "It makes me proud," said
another. The famous statue was that of Zenobia, the product of Harriet
Hosmer, whose love of knowledge and devotion to art, gave the world a
masterpiece.
Work is difficult in proportion as the end to be attained is high and
noble. The highest price is placed upon the greatest worth. If a man
would reach the highest success he must pay the price. He must be
self-made, or never made.
Our greatest men have not been men of luck and broadcloth, nor of legacy
and laziness, but men accustomed to hardship; not afraid of threadbare
clothes and honest poverty; men who fought their way to their own loaf.
Sir Joshua Reynolds had the passion for work of the true artist. Until
he laid aside his pencil from illness, at the age of sixty-six, he was
constantly in his painting-room from ten till four, daily, "laboring" as
he himself said, "as hard as a mechanic working for his bread."
Laziness is said to be one of the greatest dangers that besets the youth
of this country. Some young men shirk everything that requires effort or
labor. Few people entertain the idea that they are of no use in the
world; or that they are ruining themselves by their laziness. Yet lazy
persons lose the power of enjoyment. Their lives are all holiday, and
they have no interval of leisure for relaxation. The lie-a-beds have
never done anything in the world. Events sweep past and leave them
slumbering and helpless.
Industry is one of the best antidotes to crime. As the old proverb has
it, "An idle brain is the devil's workshop," for by doing nothing we
learn to do ill. The man who does not work, and thinks himself above it,
is to be pitied as well as condemned. Nothing can be worse than active
ignorance and indulged luxury. Self-indulgence saps the foundation of
morals, destroys the vigor of manhood, and breeds evils that nothing but
death can blot out.
No one is very anxious about a young man while he is busy in useful
work. But where does he eat his lunch at noon? Where does he go when he
leaves his boarding-house at night? What does he do after supper? Where
does he spend his Sundays and holidays? The way he uses his spare
moments reveals his character. The great majority of youth who go to the
bad are ruined after supper. Most of those who climb upward to honor and
fame devote their evenings to study or work, or to the society of the
wise and good. The right use of these leisure hours, we would cordially
recommend to every youth. Each evening is a crisis in the career of a
young man.
Rome was a mighty nation while industry led her people, but when her
great conquest of wealth and slaves placed her citizens above the
necessity of labor, that moment her glory began to fade; vice and
corruption induced by idleness, doomed the proud city to an ignominious
overthrow.
There can be no doubt that industry has been the backbone of the English
character. By it her people have made their island respected all over
the habitable globe. By industry our own land has come to be recognized
as the workshop of the world.
It is a rule in the imperial family of Germany that every young man
shall learn a trade, going through a regular apprenticeship till he is
able to do good journeywork. This is required because, in the event of
unforeseen changes, it is deemed necessary to a manly independence that
the heir apparent, or a prince of the blood, should be conscious of
ability of making his own way in the world. This is an honorable custom,
worthy of universal imitation. The Jews also wisely held the maxim that
every youth, whatever his position in life, should learn some trade.
Franklin says, "He that hath a trade hath an estate." Work, however
looked down upon by people who cannot perform it, is an honorable thing;
it may not be very profitable, but honorable it always is, and there is
nothing to be ashamed of about it. The man who has reason to be ashamed
is the one who does nothing, or is always on the lookout for an easy
berth with good pay and no work. Let the young man whose conceit greatly
exceeds his brains, be ashamed of his cane and kid gloves; but never let
a man who works be ashamed of his hard hands. There is an old proverb
which says, "Mere gentility sent to market, won't buy a peck of oats."
A keen but well deserved rebuke was once administered to a Southern
student at Andover who had bought some wood, and who then went to
Professor Stuart to learn whom he could get to saw it. "I am out of a
job of that kind," said Mr. Stuart; "I will saw it myself." It is to be
hoped that the young man learned the lesson which his teacher thus
sought to impress upon his mind.
CORNELIUS VANDERBILT.
"What is the secret of success in business?" asked a friend of Cornelius
Vanderbilt. "Secret! there is no secret about it," replied the
commodore; "all you have to do is to attend to your business and go
ahead."
If you would adopt Vanderbilt's method, know your business, attend to
it, and keep down expenses until your fortune is safe from business
perils. Note the following incidents in his career: In the year 1806,
when about twelve years of age, Cornelius was sent by his father, who
was removing the cargo from a vessel stranded near Sandy Hook, with
three wagons, six horses, and three men, to carry the cargo across a
sandbar to the lighters.
When the work was finished, he started, with but a few dollars in his
pocket, to travel a long distance home over the Jersey sands, and at
length reached South Amboy. He was anxious to get his teams ferried over
to Staten Island, and as the money at his disposal was not sufficient
for the purpose, he went to an innkeeper, explained the situation and
said, "If you will put us across, I'll leave with you one of my horses
in pawn, and if I don't send you back six dollars within forty-eight
hours you may keep the horse." "I'll do it," said the innkeeper, as he
looked into the bright honest eyes of the boy. The horse was soon
redeemed.
In the spring of 1810, he applied to his mother for a loan of one
hundred dollars with which to buy a boat, having imbibed a strong liking
for the sea. Her answer was, "My son, on the twenty-seventh of this
month you will be sixteen years old. If, by that time, you will plow,
harrow, and plant with corn the eight acre lot, I will advance you the
money." The field was rough and stony, but the work was done in time,
and well done. From this small beginning Cornelius Vanderbilt laid the
foundation of a colossal fortune. He would often work all night; and,
as he was never absent from his post by day, he soon had the best
business in New York harbor.
In 1813, when it was expected that New York would be attacked by British
ships, all the boatmen, except Cornelius, put in bids to convey
provisions to the military posts around New York, naming extremely low
rates, as the contractor would be exempted from military duty. "Why
don't you send in a bid?" asked his father. "Of what use?" replied
young Vanderbilt; "they are offering to do the work at half price. It
can't be done at such rates." "Well," said his father, "it can do no
harm to try for it." So, to please his father, but with no hope of
success, Cornelius made an offer fair to both sides, but did not go to
hear the award. When his companions had all returned with long faces,
he went to the commissary's office and asked if the contract had been
given. "Oh, yes," was the reply; "that business is settled. Cornelius
Vanderbilt is the man. What?" he asked, seeing that the youth was
apparently thunderstruck, "is it you?" "My name is Cornelius
Vanderbilt," said the boatman. "Well," said the commissary, "don't you
know why we have given the contract to you? Why, it is because we want
this business done, and we know you'll do it."
Here we see how character begets confidence, and how character rests
upon industry as the house rests upon its foundation.
[Footnote: Consult Appleton's Cyclopedia of American Biography, Vol.
VII., pp. 240, 241; Crofut's "The Vanderbilts and the Story of their
Fortune" (1886); also article in Munsey's Magazine, Vol. VI., p. 34.]
XI.
AMBITION.
MEMORY GEMS.
Hope without an object cannot live.--Coleridge
Have an aim in life, or your energies will all be wasted.
--M. C. Peters
Every one should take the helm of his own life, and steer instead of
drifting.--C. C. Everett
Ambition is to life just what steam is to the locomotive.
--J. C. Jaynes
No toil, no hardships can restrain ambitious men inur'd to pain.--Horace
Ambition is one of the great forces of human life. We may describe it as
a strong, fixed desire in the heart to get honor, or to attain the best
things. It is a kind of hunger or thirst for success that makes men dare
danger and trial to satisfy it. A man is of little use in the world
unless he have ambition to set him in motion. Small talent with great
ambition often does far more than genius without it.
The severest censure that can be passed upon a man is that of the poet,
"Everything by turns and nothing long." The words contain a sad
revelation of wasted opportunities, wasted powers, wasted life. These
words apply, with a painful degree of exactness, to the career of Lord
Brougham. Few men have been more richly endowed by nature. Few men have
exhibited a greater plasticity of intellect, a greater affluence of
mental resources. He was a fine orator, a clear thinker, a ready writer.
It is seldom that a man who sways immense audiences by the power of his
eloquence attains also to a high position in the ranks of literature.
Yet Brougham did this; while, as a lawyer, he gained the most splendid
prize of his profession, the Lord Chancellorship of England; and as a
scientific investigator, merited and received the applause of
scientific men.
All this may seem to indicate success; and, to a certain extent,
Brougham was successful. Nevertheless, having been everything by turns
and nothing long--having given up to many pursuits the powers which
should have been reserved for one or two--he was on the whole, a
failure. Not only did he fail to make any permanent mark on the history
or literature of his country, but he even outlived his own fame. He was
almost forgotten before he died. He frittered away his genius on too
many objects.
It has long been a question of debate whether circumstances make men, or
men control circumstances. There are those who believe that men are
governed by their environments; that their surroundings determine their
lives.
The other school of philosophers boldly assert the opposite view. Men
may control their surroundings. They are not the sport of the winds of
circumstance. Carlyle, who is a member of this school, does not
hesitate, in one of his essays, to say that "there have been great
crises in the world's history when great men were needed, but they did
not appear."
This much is certain, we have many instances in which people have risen
above their surroundings. Warren Hastings's case is one in point.
Macaulay tells the story with his accustomed brilliancy and
attractiveness. When Hastings was a mere child, the ancestral estate,
through some mismanagement, passed out of the hands of the family.
Warren would often go--for the family remained in the neighborhood--and
gaze through the bars upon what had once been his home. He registered a
mental vow to regain that estate. That became the ambition of his life;
the one great purpose to which he devoted all his energies. Many years
passed; Hastings went to other climes; but there was ever with him the
determination to get that estate; and he succeeded.
After all, would it not appear that the true theory is that of a golden
mean between these two extremes? Circumstances sometimes control men or,
at any rate, some kind of men; men, especially men of strong will power
sometimes control their environments. Circumstances give men an
opportunity to display their powers. The fuller study of this subject
clearly shows the need of some principles of morality that are not
dependent upon any chance companionship, and that may belong to the man
himself, and not merely to his surroundings.
An ambition to get on in the world, the steady struggle to get up, to
reach higher, is a constant source of education in foresight, in
prudence, in economy, in industry and courage; in fact is the great
developer of many of the strongest and noblest qualities of character.
The men at the summit fought their way up from the bottom. "John Jacob
Astor sold apples on the streets of New York; A. T. Stewart swept out
his own store; Cornelius Vanderbilt laid the foundation of his vast
fortune with a hundred dollars given him by his mother; Lincoln was a
rail splitter; Grant was a tanner; and Garfield was a towboy on a
canal."
By hard work and unconquerable perseverance you can rise above the low
places of poverty. True, you may never shine in the galaxy of the great
ones of this earth, but you may fill your lives and homes with
blessings, and make the world wiser and better for your having lived in
it. Cash cannot take the place of character. It is far better to be a
man, than merely to be a millionaire.
A man who heard Lincoln speak in Norwich, Connecticut, some time before
he was nominated for the presidency, was greatly impressed by the
closely-knit logic of the speech. Meeting him next day on a train, he
asked him how he acquired his wonderful logical powers and such
acuteness in analysis. Lincoln replied: "It was my terrible
discouragement which did that for me. When I was a young man I went into
an office to study law. I saw that a lawyer's business is largely to
prove things. I said to myself, 'Lincoln, when is a thing proved?' That
was a poser. What constitutes proof? Not evidence; that was not the
point. There may be evidence enough, but wherein consists the proof? I
groaned over the question, and finally said to myself, 'Ah! Lincoln, you
can't tell.' Then I thought, 'What use is it for me to be in a law
office if I can't tell when a thing is proved?' So I gave it up and went
back home.
"Soon after I returned to the old log cabin, I fell in with a copy of
Euclid. I had not the slightest notion what Euclid was, and I thought I
would find out. I therefore began, at the beginning, and before spring I
had gone through that old Euclid's geometry, and could demonstrate every
proposition like a book. Then in the spring, when I had got through with
it, I said to myself one day, 'Ah, do you know now when a thing is
proved?' And I answered, 'Yes, sir, I do.' 'Then you may go back to the
law shop;' and I went."
We may be rightly ambitious in various ways. It is right to be ambitious
for _fame and honor_. The love of praise is not bad in itself, but
it is a very dangerous motive. Why? Because in order to be popular, one
may be tempted to be insincere. Never let the world's applause drown the
voice of conscience.
It is right to be ambitious to excel in whatever you do. Slighted work
and half-done tasks are sins. "I am as good as they are"; "I do my work
as well as they"; are cowardly maxims. Not what others have done, but
perfection, is the only true aim, whether it be in the ball-field or in
the graver tasks of life.
Many people think that ambition is an evil weed, and ought to be pulled
up by the roots. Shakespeare makes Wolsey say,--
"I charge thee, fling away ambition
By that sin fell the angels."
But the great cardinal had abused ambition, and had changed it into a
vice. Ambition is a noble quality in itself, but like any other virtue
it may be carried to excess, and thus become an evil. Like fire or
water, it must be controlled to be safe and useful. Napoleon, while
commanding armies, could not command his own ambition; and so he was
caged up like a wild beast at St. Helena. A millionaire may be so
ambitious for gain as purposely to wreck the fortunes of others. A
politician may sell his manhood to gratify his desire for office. Boys
and girls may become so ambitious to win their games, or to get the
prizes at school, that they are willing to cheat, or take some mean
advantage; and then ambition becomes to them not a blessing but a curse.
We ought now and then to stop and test our ambition, just as the
engineer tries the steam in the boiler; if we do not, it may in some
unexpected moment wreck our lives. There are two ways of finding out
whether our ambition is too strong for safety. First, if we discover
that ambition is hurting our own character, there is danger. Second, if
we find ambition blinding us to the rights of others, it is time to
stop. These are the two tests; and so long as your ambition is harming
neither your own life nor the lives of others, it is good and wholesome,
and will add value and brightness to your life.
GENERAL HAVELOCK.
Henry Havelock, commonly known as "The Hero of Lucknow," was born in
England, 1795, just about the time when Napoleon was beginning his
brilliant career, and all Europe was a battlefield. As a boy he was
rather serious and thoughtful, so that his school fellows used to call
him "Old Phlos," a nickname for Old Philosopher. And yet he loved boyish
sports, and never was behind any of his companions in courage and
daring.
He was not the first scholar in his class, but he was a great reader and
took intense delight in stories of war and descriptions of battles.
Napoleon was his hero, and he watched all his movements with breathless
interest; and soon began to dream of being a soldier, too. Thus was born
in the boy's heart that ambition which afterward lifted the man into
honor and fame.
At the age of sixteen Havelock began to study law, but he soon tired of
it, and three years later obtained an appointment in the army. He now
gave himself, with all the love and enthusiasm of his nature, to his
chosen profession. He was to be a soldier; and he decided that he would
be a thorough one, and would understand the art of war completely. He
studied very hard, and it is said that it was his habit to draw with a
stick upon the ground the plan of some historic battlefield, then, in
imagination fight the battle over again, so that he might clearly see
what made the one side lose and the other win.
After eight years of service in England, he was ordered to go to India.
There he became a soldier in earnest. It would take too long to tell of
the battles he was in, and of the terrible campaigns through which he
served. It is enough to say that he always followed where duty led, and
always seemed to know just what to do amid the confusion of the
battlefield. It was the dream of his life to become a general, but he
was doomed, year after year, to stand still and see untried, beardless
men promoted above his head. This certainly was hard to bear, but he
never lost heart, never sulked, never neglected any opportunity to serve
his government. His ambition was to do his best; and this he did,
whether the world saw and applauded or not.
Until he reached the age of sixty-two, he was scarcely known outside of
India; but then came the occasion that made him famous. All India was in
mutiny. The native soldiers, mad with power, were murdering the English
in every city. Far up in the interior, at Lucknow, was a garrison of
English soldiers, women, and children, hemmed in by thousands of these
bloodthirsty Sepoys. To surrender meant a horrible death. To hold the
fort meant starvation at last, unless rescue should speedily come.
Although, when the news reached him, he was hundreds of miles away,
Havelock undertook to save that little garrison. It seemed an impossible
task, and yet with a few hundred brave soldiers, in a country swarming
with the enemy, through swamps, over swollen rivers, he fought his way
to the gates at Lucknow. And then, beneath a hailstorm of bullets from
every house-top, he marched up the narrow street, and never paused until
he stood within the fortress walls, and heard the shout of welcome from
the lips of the starving men and women. It was a wonderful march, and
put him among the great soldiers of history; but it was the direct
result of that powerful ambition which had influenced his entire career.
The world rang with applause of his heroism; but praise came too late;
for while the queen was making him a baronet, and Parliament was voting
him a princely pension, he was dying of a fever within the very city he
had so bravely stormed. But his life-work was fully completed, and his
name shines brightly among those of the great military heroes of his
native land.
[Footnote: See Marshman's "Life of Havelock" (1860); Headley's "Life of
Havelock" (1864); Brock's "Life of General Sir Henry Havelock" (1854);
Molesworth's "History of England," Vol. III., Chap, ii., and Mitchell's
"History of India" (London, 1895).]
XII.
CONCENTRATION.
MEMORY GEMS.
Success grows out of struggles to overcome difficulties.--Smiles
He who follows two hares is sure to catch neither.--Franklin
The important thing in life is to have a great aim and the determination
to attain it.--Goethe
A healthy definite purpose is a remedy for a thousand ills.
--O. S. Marden
The evidence of superior genius is the power of intellectual
concentration.--B. R. Hayden
Concentration begins with the habit of attention. The highest success in
learning depends on the power of the learner to command and hold his own
attention,--on his ability to concentrate his thought on the subject
before him. By the words "habit of attention," we do not mean here the
outward, respectful attitude of a docile pupil who listens when his
teacher speaks, but something much rarer, much more important, and far
more difficult of attainment. We mean that power of the mind by which a
person is able to give an intelligent account of what is said, whether
in conversation, in lecture, or in sermon; which enables him to grasp at
one reading the important points of a problem or a paragraph; and which
makes it possible for a student or a reader to so concentrate his
attention on what he is doing as to be entirely oblivious, so long as it
does not concern him, of what is going on around him.
This is the age of concentration or specialization of energy. The
problem of the day is to get ten-horse power out of an engine that shall
occupy the space of a one-horse power engine, and no more. Just so
society demands a ten-man power out of one individual. It crowns the man
who knows one thing supremely, and can do it better than anybody else,
even if it be only the art of raising turnips. If he raises the best
turnips by reason of concentrating all his energy to that end, he is a
benefactor to the race, and is recognized as such. The giants of the
race have been men of concentration, who have struck all their blows in
one place until they have accomplished their purpose. The successful men
of today are men of one overmastering idea, one unwavering aim, men of
single and intense purpose. "Scatteration" is the curse of American
business life. Too many are like Douglas Jerrold's friend, who could
converse in twenty-four languages, but had no ideas to express in any
one of them.