CULTIVATE OBSERVATION AND JUDGMENT.
"Look before you leap," old Commodore Vanderbilt used to say. "I like
active men, but I have no use for the fellow who is so much in
earnest that he goes off half-cocked." We all know the danger of a
gun that goes off half-cocked, but it is not so apt to bring disaster
as is the man who goes off without due preparation.
It is fortunate for us that we cannot see into the future, but the
Father who has kept from us the gift of prophecy has blessed us with
a foresight and judgment that enable us to see pretty accurately what
must be the inevitable consequence of certain acts.
The power to observe carefully and judge accurately is a rare gift,
but it is one that can be cultivated. The ancients had a motto "Know
thyself," and the great poet Pope tells us that "the proper study of
mankind is man." A knowledge of human nature is invaluable in every
life-calling that brings us into contact with our fellows, and this
can be gained only by careful observation.
Stephen Girard attributed much of his success to his "ability to read
men at a glance." And so carefully did the great merchant prince,
Alexander T, Stewart, study this, that it is said he rarely made a
mistake in the character of a man he took into his employ.
Cultivate observation. Oliver Wendell Holmes maintained that all the
difference in men, no matter their callings, lay in the difference of
their ability to observe and draw proper conclusions from their
observations. Professor Huxley says that "observation is the basis of
all our scientific knowledge." And Andrew Carnegie attributes his
great success to his cultivation of this faculty.
Every young man, ambitious to win--and what young man worthy the name
is not?--should have a standard of excellence for himself, and then
he should carefully study and observe the methods of the men who he
admires or with whom he is brought into contact. It is the ability to
do this that constitutes the difference between the man drudge and
the man anxious to assume greater responsibilities by mastering his
necessary duties.
In a lecture to young men on this subject, Henry Ward Beecher said:
"The young should begin life with a standard of excellence before
them, to which they should readily conform themselves. There should
be a fixed determination to make the best of one's self, in whatever
circumstances we may be placed. Let the young man determine that
whatever he undertakes he will do well; that he will make himself
master of the business upon which he enters, and always prepare
himself for advancement by becoming worthy of it. It is not
opportunity of rising which is wanting, so much as the ability to
rise. It is not the patronage of friends and the outward helps of
fortune, to which the prominent men of our country owe their
elevation, either in wealth or influence, so much as to their own
vigorous and steady exertions. We hear a great many complaints, both
among young men and old, of the favoritism of fortune, and the
partiality of the world; but observation leads us to believe that, to
a very great extent, those who deserve promotion obtain it. Those who
are worthy of confidence will have confidence reposed in them. Those
who give evidence of ability and industry will find opportunity
enough for their exercise."
Take a familiar illustration. A young man engages in some business,
and is, in ever respect, a beginner in life. A common education is
all that he possesses. He knows almost nothing of the world, and very
little of the occupation on which he has entered. He performs his
duty from day to day sufficiently well, and does what he is expected
to do. But it does not enter into his mind to do anything beyond what
is required, nor to enlarge his capacities by reading or reflection.
He is, at the best, a steady plodding man, who will go forward, if at
all, very slowly, and will rise, if at all, to no great elevation. He
is not the sort of person who is looked for to occupy a higher
position. One opportunity of advancement after another may come
directly within his reach, and he asks the influence of friends to
help him to secure it. They give their aid feebly, because they have
no great hopes of success, and are not confident of their own
recommendation. As a matter of course, some one else, more competent
or more in earnest, steps in before him, and then we hear renewed
complaints of favoritism and injustice. Such a one may say in his
defense that he has been guilty of no dereliction of duty; that no
fault has been found with him, and that, therefore, he was entitled
to advancement. But this does not follow. Something more that that
may reasonably be required. To bestow increased confidence, we
require the capacity and habit of improvement in those whom we
employ. The man who is entitled to rise is one who is always
enlarging his capacity, so that he is evidently able to do more that
he is actually doing.
In every department of business, whether mechanical or mercantile, or
whatever it may be, there is a large field of useful knowledge which
should be carefully explored. An observing eye and an inquiring mind
will always find enough for examination and study. It may not seem to
be of immediate use--it may have nothing to do with this week's or
this year's duty--yet it is worth knowing. The mind gains greater
skillfulness by the intelligence which directs it.
The result is all the difference between a mere drudge and an
intelligent workman; between the mere salesman or clerk and the
enterprising merchant; between the obscure and pettifogging lawyer
and the sagacious, influential counselor. It is the difference
between one who deserves to be, and will be, stationary in the world,
and one who, having determined to make the best of himself, will
continually rise in influence and true respectability. This whole
difference we may see every day among those who have enjoyed nearly
equal opportunities. We may allow something for what are called the
accidents of social influence, and the turns of fortune. But, after
all fair allowance has been made, we shall find that the great cause
of difference is in the men themselves. Let the young man who is
beginning life put away from him all notions of advancement without
desert. A man of honorable feelings will not even desire it. He will
ever shrink from engaging in duties which he is not able fairly to
perform. He will, first of all, secure to himself the capacity of
performing them, and then he is ready for them whenever they come.
Without observation and judgment there can be no permanent advance.
Without observation, experience has no value, and the passing years
add nothing to our fund of useful knowledge. Judgment is the ability
to weigh these observations, and use them for our own protection or
advancement.
Not only in business, but in science and art, observation and good
judgment are necessary. Excellence in art, as in everything else, can
only be achieved by dint of painstaking labor and a close observation
of those whom we regard as our superiors. There is nothing less
accidental than the painting of a fine picture, or the chiseling of a
noble statue. Every skilled touch of the artist's brush or chisel,
though guided by genius, is the product of unremitting study. Sir
Joshua Reynolds was such a believer in the force of industry, that he
held that artistic excellence, "however expressed by genius, taste,
or the gift of heaven may be acquired." Writing to Barry he said,
"Whoever is resolved to excel in painting, or indeed any other art,
must bring all his mind to bear upon that one object from the moment
that he rises till he goes to bed." And on another occasion he said,
"Those who are resolved to excel must go to their work, willing or
unwilling, morning, noon, and, night: they will find it no play, but
very hard labor." But although diligent application is no doubt
absolutely necessary for the achievement of the highest distinction
in art, it is equally true that, without the inborn genius, no amount
of mere industry, however well applied, will make an artist. The gift
comes by nature, but is perfected by self-culture, which is of more
avail that all the imparted learning of the schools. But even genius
without good judgment may be an unbroken steed without a bridle.
All great artists and authors have been famed for their powers of
observation; indeed, it is claimed that it is this power that
distinguishes them from other men.
No matter how generous nature has been in bestowing the gift of
genius, the pursuit of art is nevertheless a long and continuous
labor. Many artists have been precocious, but without diligence their
precocity would have come to nothing. The anecdote related of West is
well known. When only seven years old, struck with the beauty of the
sleeping infant of his eldest sister, whilst watching by its cradle,
he ran to seek some paper, and forthwith drew its portrait in red and
black ink. The little incident revealed the artist in him, and it was
found impossible to draw him from his bent. West might have been a
greater painter had he not been injured by too early success: his
fame, though great, was not purchased by study, trials and
difficulties, and it has not been enduring.
Richard Wilson, when a mere child, indulged himself with tracing
figures of men and animals on the walls of his father's house with a
burnt stick. He first directed his attention to portrait painting;
but when in Italy, calling one day at the house of Zucarelli, and
growing weary with waiting, he began painting the scene on which his
friend's chamber window looked. When Zucarelli arrived, he was so
charmed with the picture that he asked if Wilson had not studied
landscape, to which he replied that he had not. "Then I advise you,"
said the other, "to try; for you are sure of great success." Wilson
adopted the advice, studied and worked hard, and became the first
great English landscape painter.
Sir Joshua Reynolds, when a boy, forgot his lessons, and took
pleasure only in drawing, for which his father was accustomed to
rebuke him. The boy was destined for the profession of physic, but
his strong instinct for art could not be repressed, and he became a
painter. Gainsborough went sketching, when a schoolboy, in the woods
of Sudbury, and at twelve he was a confirmed artist; he was a keen
observer and a hard worker--no picturesque feature of any scene he
had once looked upon escaping his diligent pencil. William Blake, a
hosier's son, employed himself in drawing designs on the backs of his
father's shop-bills, and making sketches on the counter. Edward Bird,
when a child only three or four years old, would mount a chair and
draw figures on the walls, which he called French and English
soldiers. A box of colors was purchased for him, and his father,
desirous of turning his love of art to account, put him apprentice to
a maker of teatrays! Out of this trade he gradually raised himself,
by study and labor, to the rank of a Royal Academician.
Hogarth, though a very dull boy at his lessons, took pleasure in
making drawings of the letters of the alphabet, and his school
exercises were more remarkable for the ornaments with which he
embellished them, than for the matter of the exercises themselves. In
the latter respect he was beaten by all the blockheads of the school,
but in his adornments he stood alone. His father put him apprentice
to a silversmith, where he learnt to draw, and also to engrave spoons
and forks with crests and ciphers. From silver-chasing he went on to
teach himself engraving on copper, principally griffins and monsters
of heraldry, in the course of which practice he became ambitious to
delineate the varieties of human character. The singular excellence
which he reached in this art was mainly the result of careful
observation and study. He had the gift, which he sedulously
cultivated, of committing to memory the precise features of any
remarkable face, and afterward reproducing them on paper; but if any
singularly fantastic form or odd face came in his way, he would make
a sketch of it on the spot upon his thumbnail, and carry it home to
expand at his leisure. Everything fantastical and original had a
powerful attraction for him, and he wandered into many out-of-the-way
places for the purpose of meeting with character. By this careful
storing of his mind, he was afterward enabled to crowd an immense
amount of thought and treasure observation into his works. Hence it
is that Hogarth's pictures are so truthful a memorial of the
character, the manners, and even the very thoughts of the times in
which he live. True painting, he himself observed, can only be learnt
in one school, and that is kept by Nature. But he was not a highly
cultivated man, except in his own walk. His school education had been
of the slenderest kind, scarcely even perfecting him in the art of
spelling; his self-culture did the rest. For a long time he was in
very straitened circumstances, but nevertheless worked on with a
cheerful heart. Poor though he was, he contrived to live within his
small means, and he boasted with becoming pride, that he was "a
punctual paymaster." When he had conquered all his difficulties and
become a famous and thriving man, he loved to dwell upon his early
labors and privations, and to fight over again the battle which ended
so honorably to him as a man and so gloriously as an artist. "I
remember the time," said he on one occasion, "when I have gone
moping into the city with scarce a shilling, but as soon as I have
received ten guineas there for a plate, I have returned home, put on
my sword, and sallied out with all the confidence of a man who had
thousands in his pockets."
Perhaps there is no living man of eminence who so well and forcibly
illustrates these qualities of judgment and observation as that
greatest of living American inventors, Thomas A. Edison.
Mr. Edison, as we have already stated, had only a few weeks at school
in his whole life. He was born in the upper part of New York State in
1847. His parents were poor, and early in life, to use his own
expressive words, he "had to start out and hustle." One would think
that selling newspapers on a railroad train was not a calling that
afforded any educational advantages, but to the man of observation
there is no position in life, whether in the busy haunts of men or
the silence of the wilderness, that is not replete with valuable
information if we but know where to look for it, and have the
judgment to use it after it is obtained.
Through the favor of the telegraph operator, whose child's life he
had saved when the little one was nearly under the wheels of a train,
young Edison was enabled to study telegraphy. During this
apprenticeship, if such it may be called, the boy not only learned
how to send and receive a message, so as to fit himself for the
position of operator, but he learned all about the mechanism and the
batteries of the instrument he operated.
"Nothing escaped Tom Edison's observation," said a man who knew him
at this time. "He saw everything, and he not only saw it, but he set
about learning its whys and wherefores, and he stuck at it till he
had learned all there was to be learned about it."
Said another friend, "I've known Edison since he was a boy of
fourteen, and of my own knowledge I can say he never spent an idle
day in his life. Often when he should have been asleep I have known
him to sit up half the night reading. He did not take to novels or
wild Western adventures, but read works on mechanics, chemistry and
electricity, and he mastered them, too. But in addition to his
reading, which he could only indulge at odd hours, he carefully
cultivated his wonderful powers of observation, till at length, when
he was not actually asleep, it may be said he was learning all the
time. Schools and colleges are all very well, but Mr. Edison's career
goes to show that a man may become famous, prosperous, and well
educated, if he has the necessary capacity for observing and
weighing."
Another illustrious example of the same kind is the late George W.
Childs, of Philadelphia. He was born in Baltimore, Md., in 1829, and
at the age of twelve he had to begin the battle of life by taking the
position of errand boy in a book store. "I had no schooling," he
said, when speaking of his early struggles, "but I had a quenchless
thirst for information. I had no tine to read the books I had to
handle and carry sometimes in a wheelbarrow, but I kept my eyes and
ears open. I studied the binding and manufacture, though I had not
the slightest idea of the contents; and from these early observations
I made up my mind that one day I would become a publisher on my own
account."
How successfully Mr. Childs did this, we all know. While yet in his
teens, he made his way, without money or friends, to Philadelphia,
and found a place in a book store, where the same method of education
by observation was continued.
The first time he saw a copy of the Philadelphia _Ledger_, a time
when he had scarcely the penny to spare that bought it, he made up
his mind that one day he would own that paper--and he carried out his
resolution.
So excellent was his judgment that not only publishers, but statesmen
and bankers sought it. From the humblest beginnings George W. Childs
rose up and up till the greatest men of two continents rejoiced in
his friendship, and his name was on the lips of all who admire a
noble life devoted to philanthropic deeds.
Our American biographies are full of examples of self-taught men--men
who have become educated through observation, and great through good
judgment and increasing effort, but there are not many of them that
commend themselves so warmly to the heart as the life of the good,
wise, and generous George W. Childs.