THE NEED OF CONSTANT EFFORT.
It matters not what talent or genius a man may possess, no natural
gift can compensate for hard, persistent toil. The Romans had a
maxim as true to-day as it was when first uttered: "_Labor omnia
vincit_," Toil conquers all things. The earliest Christians lived in
communities and had all things in common. One of their precepts--
a precept up to which all lived--was: "_Laborare est orare_," To work
is to pray.
Someone has said that the difference between the genius and the
ordinary man is that the genius has a tireless capacity for patient,
hard work, while the other regards effort as a painful exaction, and
is ever looking forward to the time when he can rest.
It is encouraging to know that the world's hardest workers have lived
the longest lives. In this alone, labor is its own reward; but
enduring success never came to a poor man without an unflagging
patience and an unceasing toil.
Honorable industry, says one, travels the same road with duty; and
Providence has closely linked both with happiness. The gods, says
the poet, have placed labor and toil on the way leading to the
Elysian fields. Certain it is that no bread eaten by man is so sweet
as that earned by his own labor, whether bodily or mental. By labor
the earth has been subdued, and man redeemed from barbarism; nor has
a single step in civilization been made without it. Labor is not
only a necessity and a duty, but a blessing; only the idler feels it
to be a curse. The duty of work is written on the thews and muscles
of the limbs, the mechanism of the hand, the nerves and lobes of the
brain--the sum of whose healthy action is satisfaction and
enjoyment. In the school of labor is taught the best practical
wisdom; nor is a life of manual employment, as we shall hereafter
find, incompatible with high mental culture.
Hugh Miller, than whom none knew better the strength and the weakness
belonging to the lot of labor, stated the result of his experience
to be, that work, even the hardest, is full of pleasure and
materials for self-improvement. He held honest labor to be the best
of teachers, and that the school of toil is the nobles of schools--
save only the Christian one; that it is a school in which the ability
of being useful is imparted, the spirit of independence learned, and
the habit of persevering effort acquired. He was even of opinion that
the training of the mechanic--by exercise which it gives to his
observant faculties, from his daily dealing with things actual and
practical, and the close experience of life which he acquires--better
fits a man for picking his way along the journey of life, and is more
favorable to his growth as a man, emphatically speaking, than the
training afforded by any other condition.
Watt, the inventor of the steam engine, was one of the most
industrious of men; and the story of his life proves, what all
experience confirms, that it is not the man of the greatest natural
vigor and capacity who achieves the highest results, but he who
employs his powers with the greatest industry and the most carefully
disciplined skill--the skill that comes by labor, application, and
experience. Many men in his time knew far more than Watt, but none
labored so assiduously as he did to turn all that he did know to
useful practical purposes. He was, above all things, most persevering
in the pursuit of facts. He cultivated carefully that habit of active
attention on which all the higher working qualities of the mind
mainly depend. Indeed, Mr. Edgeworth entertained the opinion that the
difference of intellect in men depends more upon the early
cultivation of this _habit of attention_, than upon any great
disparity between the powers of one individual and another.
Arkwright, one of the world's greatest mechanics, and the inventor of
the spinning jenny, was famed for his unceasing industry.
Like most of our great mechanicians, he sprang from the ranks. He was
born in Preston in 1732. His parents were very poor, and he was the
youngest of thirteen children. He was never at school; the only
education he received he gave to himself; and to the last he was only
able to write with difficulty. When a boy, he was apprenticed to a
barber, and after learning the business, he set up for himself in
Bolton, where he occupied an underground cellar, over which he put up
the sign, "come to the subterraneous barber--he shaves for a penny."
The other barbers found their customers leaving them, and reduced
their prices to his standard, when Arkwright, determined to push his
trade, announced his determination to give "A clean shave for a half-
penny."
At the close of his life, John Jacob Astor was the wealthiest man in
the United States, and the immense fortune he left has been largely
increased through his wise investments and the habits of business
which he seems to have transmitted with his fortune to his
descendants.
His life is a most interesting one, particularly to the young man who
stands facing the world without friends or fortune to aid him. But
young Astor had one quality to start with, a quality which success
never lessened, and that was the capacity for unceasing industry.
He was born of peasant parents in the village of Waldorf, near the
great university town of Heidelberg in Germany. When sixteen years of
age he was crowded out of the hive by increasing brothers and
sisters, and without education or experience, he started out to make
his way in the world.
In the days of his great prosperity, he used to tell, with delight
mingled with sadness, of the day when he left father, and mother, and
home, which he was never to see together again. He used to say: "I
had only two dollars in my pocket, and all my clothes were tied up in
a handkerchief fastened at the end of a stick. When I had climbed the
high hill above the village, I sat down to rest my heart rather than
my feet, and to look back at the loved scenes of my childhood. Before
leaving home it was decided that I should make my way to London--then
the city of promise to many young Germans. While I sat there, I made
three resolutions, which during my life I have never broken. I had
never gambled, but I had known others to do so, and my first resolve
was not to follow their example. The second resolution was to be
strictly honest in all my dealings, and this I have tried to adhere
to. The third resolution was quite as important as the other two
together; it was that so long as God gave me health and strength I
should be unceasingly industrious."
John Jacob Astor, as a man, faithfully carried out the resolutions he
made as a boy, and the world knows the consequences.
When the impartial historian comes to write the life of Horace
Greeley, no matter how much he may object to his policies and
politics, he will give him credit for honesty, courage, perseverance,
and an industry that knew no fatigue.
While barely in his teens, young Greeley, whose father was making a
desperate effort to support a large family on a poor farm in New
Hampshire, started in to work for himself. His early education
consisted of a few winter terms in a common school. Before he was
seventeen he had learned the printer's trade, and then resolved not
only to support himself, but to help his parents. Realizing his want
of education, he devoted every minute he could spare from work or
sleep to study.
Speaking of these early days, Mr. Greeley said:
"There was many a heavy load placed on my shoulders, but I staggered
on and bore it as best I could. Many an uncongenial task was forced
upon me, but I can honestly say I never shirked it. If I have
succeeded in my chosen profession, it has not been due to my early
advantages, for I had none, but to my strong belief that patient
industry would triumph in the end."
When Horace Greeley was twenty years of age he was working in a
printing office in Erie, Pennsylvania, and determined to better his
fortunes by coming to New York. He had saved up one hundred and
twenty dollars, and of this he sent one hundred to his father, and
with the rest he turned his face to the great city, about six hundred
miles away. He traveled the entire distance on foot, and reached New
York with fifteen dollars, the whole trip having cost him but five.
Poorly clad, tall, gawky, and green-looking, he entered the city
where he had neither friend nor acquaintance. For weeks he tramped
the streets, looking vainly for work, his cash gradually growing
less, but his spirits never failing. At length he found employment at
his trade, where his integrity and unceasing industry soon made him
conspicuous. Step by step, he worked his way up, never forgetting the
poor family in Vermont, till at length he was able to establish the
_New York Tribune_, which survives as a monument of his perseverance
and industry. Although his early training was so defective, he gave
every spare minute to study, and with such success that he became not
only a great leader, but one of the most perfect masters of the
English language. His name will long live after many writers and
statesmen of greater pretensions are forgotten.
As an example of what perseverance, fortitude and energy will do,
Horace Greeley's story of his own life should be studied by every
ambitious young man.
Horace Greelev never laid claim to physical courage, but he had that
higher courage and industry without which enduring success is
impossible. In speaking of this admirable quality, a famous author
says:
"The greater part of the courage that is needed in the world is not
of an heroic kind. Courage may be displayed in everyday life as well
as on historic fields of action. There needs, for example, the common
courage to be honest--the courage to resist temptation--the courage
to speak the truth--the courage to be what we really are, and not to
pretend to be what we are not--the courage to live honestly within
our own means, and not dishonestly upon the means of others.
"A great deal of the unhappiness, and much of the vice, of the world
is owing to weakness and indecision of purpose--in other words, to
lack of courage and want of industry. Men may know what is right, and
yet fail to exercise the courage to do it; they may understand the
duty they have to do, but will not summon up the requisite resolution
to perform it. The weak and undisciplined man is at the mercy of
every temptation; he cannot say no,' but falls before it. And if his
companionship be bad, he will be all the easier led away by bad
example into wrong-doing.
"Nothing can be more certain than that the character can only be
sustained and strengthened by its own energetic action. The will,
which is the central force of character, must be trained to habits of
decision--otherwise it will neither be able to resist evil nor to
follow good. Decision gives the power of standing firmly, when to
yield, however slightly, might be only the first step in a downhill
course to ruin.
"Calling upon others for help in forming a decision is worse than
useless. A man must so train his habits as to rely upon his own
powers and depend upon his own courage in moments of emergency.
Plutarch tells of a king of Macedon who, in the midst of an action,
withdrew into the adjoining town under pretence of sacrificing to
Hercules; whilst his opponent Emilius, at the same time that he
implored the Divine aid, sought for victory sword in hand, and won
the battle. And so it ever is in the actions of daily life.
"Many are the valiant purposes formed, that end merely in words;
deeds intended, that are never done; designs projected, that are
never begun; and all for want of a little courageous decision. Better
far the silent tongue but the eloquent deed. For in life, and in
business, dispatch is better than discourse; and the shortest of all
is _Doing_. 'In matters of great concern, and which must be done,'
says Tillotson, 'there is no surer argument of a weak mind than
irresolution--to be undetermined when the case is so plain and the
necessity so urgent. To be always intending to live a new life, but
never to find time to set about it--this is as if a man should put
off eating and drinking and sleeping from one day to another, until
he is starved and destroyed.'"