“We are very frequently requested to give interviews in regard to our
manufacturing business; but, as it is the settled policy of our house
to simply do our work just as well as we possibly can, and then leave
it to speak for itself, we have felt obliged to decline all these
requests. We have a very pleasant feeling toward the papers and their
representatives, for they have treated us very kindly; but it would be
repugnant to our sense of propriety to talk in public about our special
industry. ‘Let the work show!’ seems to us a good motto.”
“True,” said I. “But the majority of my readers may not care to hear
of cutters or ‘skimming dishes,’ center-boards or fin keels, or copper
coils _versus_ steel tubes for boilers. They are willing to leave the
choice in such matters to you, realizing that you have always proved
equal to the situation. What I want now is advice in regard to the
great international human race—the race of life—the voyage in which
each must be his own captain, but in which the words of others who
have successfully sailed the sea before will help to avoid rocks and
shoals, and to profit by favoring currents and trade winds. You have
been handicapped in an unusual degree, sailing in total darkness and
beset by many other difficulties, but have, nevertheless, made a very
prosperous voyage. In overcoming such serious obstacles you must have
learned much of the true philosophy of both success and failure, and I
think you will be willing, like so many other eminent men and women, to
help the young with suggestions drawn from your experience.”
“I always want to help young people, or old people, either, for that
matter, if anything I can say will do so. But what can I say?”
“What do you call the prime requisite of success?”
“I shall have to answer that by a somewhat humorous but very shrewd
suggestion of another—select a good mother. Especially for boys, I
consider an intelligent, affectionate but considerate mother an almost
indispensable requisite to the highest success. If you would improve
the rising generation to the utmost, appeal first to the mothers.”
“In what way?”
“Above all things else, show them that reasonable self-denial is a
thousandfold better for a boy than to have his every wish gratified.
Teach them to encourage industry, economy, concentration of attention
and purpose, and indomitable persistence.”
“But most mothers try to do this, don’t they?”