THE TRIUMPHS OF THE COMMON VIRTUES
The talent of success is nothing more than doing what you can do well,
and doing well whatever you do, without a thought of fame.--LONGFELLOW.
It is not a question of what a man knows but what use he can make of
what he knows.--J. G. HOLLAND.
Seest thou a man diligent in business? He shall stand before
kings.--SOLOMON.
The most encouraging truth that can be impressed upon the mind of youth
is this: "What man has done man may do." Men of great achievements are
not to be set on pedestals and reverenced as exceptions to the average
of humanity. Instead, these great men are to be considered as setting
a standard of success for the emulation of every aspiring youth. Their
example shows what can be accomplished by the practise of the common
virtues,--diligence, patience, thrift, self-denial, determination,
industry, and persistence.
We can best appreciate the uplifting power of these simple virtues
which all may cultivate and exercise, by taking some concrete example
of great success which has been achieved by patient plodding toward a
definite goal. No more illustrious example of success won by the
exercise of common virtues can be offered than Abraham Lincoln,
rail-splitter and president.
Probably Lincoln has been the hero of more American boys during the
last two generations than any other American character. Young people
look upon him as a marvelous being, raised up for a divine purpose; and
yet, if we analyze his character, we find it made up of the humblest
virtues, the commonest qualities; the poorest boys and girls, who look
upon him as a demigod, possess these qualities.
The strong thing about Lincoln was his manliness, his straightforward,
downright honesty. You could depend upon him. He was ambitious to
make the most of himself. He wanted to know something, to be somebody,
to lift his head up from his humble environment and be of some account
in the world. He simply wanted to better his condition.
It is true that he had a divine hunger for growth, a passion for a
larger and completer life than that of those about him; but there is no
evidence of any great genius, any marvelous powers. He was a simple
man, never straining after effect.
His simplicity was his chief charm. Everybody who knew him felt that
he was a man, a large-hearted, generous friend, always ready to help
everybody and everything out of their troubles, whether it was a pig
stuck in the mire, a poor widow in trouble, or a farmer who needed
advice. He had a helpful mind, open, frank, transparent. He never
covered up anything, never had secrets. The door of his heart was
always open so that anyone could read his inmost thoughts.
The ability to do hard work, and to stick to it, is the right hand of
genius and the best substitute for it,--in fact, that is genius.
If young people were to represent Lincoln's total success by one
hundred, they would probably expect to find some brilliant faculty
which would rank at least fifty per cent of the total. But I think
that the verdict of history has given his honesty of purpose, his
purity and unselfishness of motive as his highest attributes, and
certainly these qualities are within the reach of the poorest boy and
the humblest girl in America.
Suppose we rank his honesty, his integrity twenty per cent of the
total, his dogged persistence, his ability for hard work ten per cent,
his passion for wholeness, for completeness, for doing everything to a
finish ten more, his aspiration, his longing for growth, his yearning
for fulness of life ten more. The reader can see that it would be easy
to make up the hundred per cent, without finding any one quality which
could be called genius; that the total of his character would be made
up of the sum of the commonest qualities, the most ordinary virtues
within the reach of the poorest youth in the land. There is no one
quality in his entire make-up so overpowering, so commanding that it
could be ranked as genius.
What an inestimable blessing to the world, what an encouragement, an
inspiration to poor boys and poor girls that his great achievement can
be accounted for by the triumph in his character of those qualities
which are beyond the reach of money, of family, of influence, but that
are within the reach of the poorest and the humblest.
In a speech to the people in Colorado Mountains, Roosevelt said: "You
think that my success is quite foreign to anything you can achieve.
Let me assure you that the big prizes I have won are largely
accidental. If I have succeeded, it is only as anyone of you can
succeed, merely because I have tried to do my duty as I saw it in my
home and in my business, and as a citizen.
"If when I die the ones who know me best believe that I was a
thoughtful, helpful husband, a loving, wise and painstaking father, a
generous, kindly neighbor and an honest citizen, that will be a far
more real honor, and will prove my life to have been more successful
than the fact that I have ever been president of the United States.
Had a few events over which no one had control been other than they
were it is quite possible I might never have held the high office I now
occupy, but no train of events could accidentally make me a noble
character or a faithful member of my home and community. Therefore
each of you has the same chance to succeed in true success as I have
had, and if my success in the end proves to have been as great as that
achieved by many of the humblest of you I shall be fortunate."
McKinley did not start with great mental ability. There was nothing
very surprising or startling in his career. He was not a great genius,
not notable as a scholar. He did not stand very high in school; he was
not a great lawyer; he did not make a great record in Congress; but he
had a good, level head. He had _the best substitute for genius--the
ability for hard work and persistence_. He knew how to keep plodding,
how to hang on, and he knew that the only way to show what he was made
of in Congress was to stick to one thing, and he made a specialty of
the tariff, following the advice of a statesman friend.
The biographies of the giants of the race are often discouraging to the
average poor boy, because the moment he gets the impression that the
character he is reading about was a genius, the effect is largely lost
upon himself, because he knows that he is not a genius, and he says to
himself, "This is very interesting reading, but I can never do those
things." But when he reads the life of McKinley he does not see any
reason why he could not do the same things himself, because there were
no great jumps, no great leaps and bounds in his life from particular
ability or special opportunity. He had no very brilliant talents, but
he averaged well. He had good common sense and was a hard worker. He
had tact and diplomacy and made the most of every opportunity.
Nothing can keep from success the man who has iron in his blood and is
determined that he will succeed. When he is confronted by barriers he
leaps over them, tunnels through them, or makes a way around them.
Obstacles only serve to stiffen his backbone, increase his
determination, sharpen his wits and develop his innate resources. The
record of human achievement is full of the truth. "There is no
difficulty to him who wills."
"All the performances of human art, at which we look with praise and
wonder," says Johnson, "are instances of the resistless force of
perseverance."
It has been well said that from the same materials one man builds
palaces, another hovels; one warehouses, another villas. Bricks and
mortar are mortar and bricks until the architect makes them something
else. The boulder which was an obstacle in the path of the weak
becomes a stepping-stone in the pathway of the resolute. The
difficulties which dishearten one man only stiffen the sinews of
another, who looks on them as a sort of mental spring-board by which to
vault across the gulf of failure to the sure, solid ground of full
success.
One of the greatest generals on the Confederate side in the Civil War,
"Stonewall" Jackson, was noted for his slowness. With this he
possessed great application and dogged determination. If he undertook
a task, he never let go till he had it done. So, when he went to West
Point, his habitual class response was that he was too busy getting the
lesson of a few days back to look at the one of the day. He kept up
this steady gait, and, from the least promising "plebe," came out
seventeenth in a class of seventy, distancing fifty-three who started
with better attainments and better minds. His classmates used to say
that, if the course was ten years instead of four, he would come out
first.
The world always stands aside for the determined man. You will find no
royal road to your triumph. There is no open door to the Temple of
Success.
One of the commonest of common virtues is perseverance, yet it has been
the open sesame of more fast locked doors of opportunity than have
brilliant tributes. Every man and woman can exercise this virtue of
perseverance, can refuse to stop short of the goal of ambition, can
decline to turn aside in search of pleasures that do but hinder
progress.
The romance of perseverance under especial difficulty is one of the
most fascinating subjects in history. Tenacity of purpose has been
characteristic of all characters who have left their mark on the world.
Perseverance, it has been said, is the statesman's brain, the warrior's
sword, the inventor's secret, the scholar's "open sesame."
Persistency is to talent what steam is to the engine. It is the
driving force by which the machine accomplishes the work for which it
was intended. A great deal of persistency, with a very little talent,
can be counted on to go farther than a great deal of talent without
persistency.
You cannot keep a determined man from success. Take away his money,
and he makes spurs of his poverty to urge him on. Lock him up in a
dungeon, and he writes the immortal "Pilgrim's Progress."
Stick to a thing and carry it through in all its completeness and
proportion, and you will become a hero. You will think better of
yourself; others will exalt you.
Thoroughness is another of the common virtues which all may cultivate.
The man who puts his best into every task will leave far behind the man
who lets a job go with the comment "That's good enough." Nothing is
good enough unless it reflects our best.
Daniel Webster had no remarkable traits of character in his boyhood.
He was sent to Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire, and stayed
there only a short time when a neighbor found him crying on his way
home, and asked the reason. Daniel said he despaired of ever making a
scholar. He said the boys made fun of him, for always being at the
foot of the class, and that he had decided to give up and go home. The
friend said he ought to go back, and see what hard study would do. He
went back, applied himself to his studies with determination to win,
and it was not long before he silenced those who had ridiculed him, by
reaching the head of the class, and remaining there.
Fidelity to duty has been a distinguishing virtue in men who have risen
to positions of authority and command. It has been observed that the
dispatches of Napoleon rang with the word glory. Wellington's
dispatches centered around the common word duty.
Nowadays people seem unwilling to tread the rough path of duty and by
patience and steadfast perseverance step into the ranks of those the
country delights to honor.
Every little while I get letters from young men who say, if they were
positively sure that they could be a Webster in law, they would devote
all their energies to study, fling their whole lives into their work;
or if they could be an Edison in invention, or a great leader in
medicine, or a merchant prince like Wanamaker or Marshall Field, they
could work with enthusiasm and zeal and power and concentration. They
would be willing to make any sacrifice, to undergo any hardship in
order to achieve what these men have achieved. But many of them say
they do not feel that they have the marvelous ability, the great
genius, the tremendous talent exhibited by those leaders, and so they
are not willing to make the great exertion.
They do not realize that success is not necessarily doing some great
thing, that it is not making a tremendous strain to do something great;
but that it is just honestly, earnestly living the everyday simple
life. It is by the exercise of the common everyday virtues; it is by
trying to do everything one does to a complete finish; it is by trying
to be scrupulously honest in every transaction; it is by always ringing
true in our friendships, by holding a helpful, accommodating attitude
toward those about us; by trying to be the best possible citizen, a
good, accommodating, helpful neighbor, a kind, encouraging father; it
is by all these simple things that we attain success.
There is no great secret about success. It is just a natural
persistent exercise of the commonest every-day qualities.
We have seen people in the country in the summer time trampling down
the daisies and the beautiful violets, the lovely wild flowers in their
efforts to get a branch of showy flowers off a large tree, which,
perhaps, would not compare in beauty and delicacy and loveliness to the
things they trampled under their feet in trying to procure it.
Oh, how many exquisite experiences, delightful possible joys we trample
under our feet in straining after something great, in trying to do some
marvelous thing that will attract attention and get our names in the
papers! We trample down the finer emotions, we spoil many of the most
delicious things in life in our scrambling and greed to grasp something
which is unusual, something showy that we can wave before the world in
order to get its applause.
In straining for effect, in the struggle to do something great and
wonderful, we miss the little successes, the sum of which would make
our lives sublime; and often, after all this straining and struggling
for the larger, for the grander things, we miss them, and then we
discover to our horror what we have missed on the way up--what
sweetness, what beauty, what loveliness, what a lot of common, homely,
cheering things we have lost in the useless struggle.
Great scientists tell us that the reason why the secrets of nature have
been hidden from the world so long is because we are not simple enough
in our methods of reasoning; that investigators are always looking for
unusual phenomena, for something complicated; that the principles of
nature's secrets are so extremely simple that men overlook them in
their efforts to see and solve the more intricate problems.
It is most unfortunate that so many young people get the impression
that success consists in doing some marvelous thing, that there must be
some genius born in the man who achieves it, else he could not do such
remarkable things.