would not be understood as advising undue haste. There are occasions
when caution and delay are necessary, when to act without long and
careful deliberation would be madness. But when the way is clear, when
there is no doubt as to what ought to be done, then it is that decision
demands that an instant choice be made between the two—not to hesitate
too long as to which, but to decide promptly, and then move ahead. Even
in cases where deliberation and caution are necessary, decision demands
that the mind acts quickly. In a word, decision finds us engaged in a
life-battle. If the victory is ours, success and fortune wait upon us;
if we are overthrown, want and misery stare us in the face; it is well
to make our movements only with caution, but when we see a chance we
must at once improve it, or it is gone. Occasions also arise when we
must rouse our forces on an instant's warning, and to make movements for
which we have no time to calculate the chances. Then is seen the triumph
of the decisive, ready man. To falter is to be lost; to move with
dispatch is the only safety.
[Illustration: SELF-CONFIDENCE.]
[Illustration]
Both poetry and philosophy are prodigal of eulogy over the mind which
rescues itself, by its own energy, from a captivity to custom, which
breaks the common bonds of empire and cuts a Simplon over mountains of
difficulty for its own purposes, whether of good or of evil. We can not
help admiring such a character. It is a positive relief to turn from the
contemplation of those relying on some one else for a solution of the
difficulties that surround them to those who are strong in their own
self-reliance, who, when confronted with fresh trials and difficulties,
only put on a more determined mien, and more resolutely apply their own
powers to remove the obstacle so unexpectedly put in their way. There is
no surer sign of an unmanly and cowardly spirit than a vague desire for
help, a wish to depend, to lean upon somebody and enjoy the fruits of
the industry of others.
In the assurance of strength there is strength, and they are the
weakest, however strong, who have no faith in themselves or their
powers. Men often conquer difficulties because they think they can.
Their confidence in themselves inspires confidence in others. The man
who makes every thing that conduces to happiness to depend upon himself,
and not upon other men, on whose good or evil actions his own doings are
compelled to hinge, has adopted the very best plan for living happily.
This is the man of moderation, the possessor of manly character and
wisdom. By self-reliance is not meant self-conceit. The two are widely
different. Self-reliance is cognizant of all the ills of earthly
existence, and it rests on a rational consciousness of power to contend
with them. It counts the cost of the conflict with real life, and calmly
concludes that it is able to meet the foes which stand in frowning array
on the world's great battle-field. Self-conceit, on the other hand, is a
vainglorious assertion of power. It knows not the real difficulties it
has to contend with, and is too supercilious to inquire into them. It
rejects well-meant offers of counsel or assistance. It feels above
taking advice. The unhappy possessor of such a trait of character is far
from being a self-reliant man.
It has been said God never intended that strong, independent beings
should be reared by clinging to others, like the ivy to the oak, for
support. The difficulties, hardships, and trials of life—the obstacles
one encounters on the road to fortune—are positive blessings. They knit
his muscles more firmly, and teach him self-reliance, just as by
wrestling with an athlete who is superior to us we increase our own
strength and learn the secret of his skill. All difficulties come to us,
as Bunyan says of temptation, like the lion which met Sampson, the first
time we encounter them they roar and gnash their teeth, but once subdued
we find a nest of honey in them. Peril is the very element in which
power is developed. Don't rely upon your friends, nor rely upon the name
of your ancestor. Thousands have spent the prime of life in the vain
hope of help from those whom they called friends, and many thousands
have starved because they had a rich father.
Rely upon the good name which is made by your own exertions, and know
that better than the best friend you can have is unconquerable
determination of spirit, united with decision of character. Seek such
attainments as will enable you to confide in yourself, to rise equal to
your emergencies. Strive to acquire an inward principle of self-support.
Help yourself and heaven will help you, should be the motto of every man
who would make himself useful in the world or carve his way to riches
and honor. It is an old saying, "He who has lost confidence can lose
nothing more." The man who dares not follow his own independent
judgment, but runs perpetually to others for advice, becomes at last a
moral weakling and an intellectual dwarf. Such a man has not self within
him, and believes in no self, but goes as a suppliant to others and
entreats of them, one after another, to lend him theirs. He is, in fact,
a mere element of a human being, and is borne about the world an
insignificant cipher, unless he desperately fastens to other floating
and supplementary elements, with which he may form a species of
incorporation resembling a man. Any young man who will thus part with
freedom and the self-respect that grows out of self-reliance and
self-support is unmanly, neither deserving of assistance nor capable of
making good use of it.
Hardship is the native soil of manhood and self-reliance. Opposition is
what we want and must have to be good for any thing. Men seem neither to
understand their riches nor their own strength. Of the former they
believe greater things than they should; of the latter, much less.
Self-reliance and self-denial will teach a man to drink of his own
cistern, and eat bread from his own kitchen, and learn to labor truly to
get his living, and carefully to expend the good things committed to his
care. Every youth should be made to feel that if he would get through
the world usefully and happily he must rely mainly upon himself and his
own independent energies. Young men should never hear any language but
this: "You have your own way to make, and it depends upon your exertion
whether you starve or not. Outside help is your greatest curse. It
handicaps efforts, stifles aspirations, shuts the door upon emulation,
turns the key upon energy." The custom of making provisions to assist
worthy young men in obtaining an education is often a positive evil to
the recipient. The germ of self-reliant energy, which else would have
done so much for his material good, is stifled in its growth by the
mistaken kindness of benevolent beings. And no mental acquisitions can
compensate any young man for loss of self-reliance.
It is not the men who have been reared in affluence who have left the
most enduring traces on the world. It is not in the sheltered garden or
the hothouse, but on the rugged Alpine cliffs, where the storms beat
most violently, that the toughest plants are reared. Men who are trained
to self-reliance are ready to go out and contend in the sternest
conflicts of life, while those who have always leaned for support on
others around them are never prepared to breast the storms of adversity
that arise. Self-reliance is more than a passive trust in one's own
powers. It shows itself in an active manner; it demonstrates itself in
works. It is not ashamed of its pretentions, but invites inspection and
asks recognition. Because there is danger of invoicing yourself above
your real value, it does not follow that you should always underrate
your worth. Because to be conspicuous, honored, and known you should not
retire upon the center of your own conscious resources, you need not
necessarily be always at the circumference. An excess of modesty is
well-nigh as bad as an excess of pride, for it is, in fact, an excess of
pride in another form, though it is questionable if this be not more
hurtful to the individual and less beneficial to society than gross and
unblushing vanity.
It is true, we all patronize humility in the abstract, and, when
enshrined in another, we admire it. It is a pleasure to meet a man who
does not pique our vanity, or thrust himself between us and the object
of our pretensions. There is no one who, if questioned, would not be
found in the depths of his heart secretly to prefer the modest man,
proportionally despising the swaggerer "who goes unbidden to the head of
the feast." But while such is our deliberate verdict when taken to task
in the matter, it is not the one we practically give. The man who
entertains a good, stout opinion of himself always contrives somehow to
cheat us out of a corresponding one, and we are too apt to acquiesce in
his assumption, even though they may strike us unpleasantly. Nor need
this excite our surprise. The great mass of men have no time to examine
the merits of others. They are busy about their own affairs, which claim
all their attention. They can not go about hunting modest worth in every
nook and corner. Those who would secure their good opinion must come
forward with their claims, and at least show their own confidence by
backing them with vigorous assertions.
If, therefore, a man of fair talents arrays his pretensions before us,
if he duns and pesters us for an admission of his merits, obtruding them
upon us, we are forced at last to notice them, and, unless he fairly
disgusts us by the extravagance of his claims, shocking all sense of
decency, we are inclined to admit them, even in preference to superior
merits, which their possessor by his own actions seem to underrate. It
is too often cant by which indolent and irresolute men seek to lay their
want of success at the door of the public. Well-matured and
well-disciplined talent is always sure of a market, provided it exerts
itself; but it must not cower at home and expect to be sought after.
There is a good deal of cant, too, about the successes of forward and
impudent men, while men of retiring worth are overlooked. But it usually
happens that those forward men have that valuable quality of promptness
and activity, without which worth is a mere inoperative quality.
The conclusion of the whole matter is, that in this busy, bustling
period of the world's history self-confidence is almost an essential
trait of character in one who means to get along well and win his way to
success and fortune. This may exist entirely independent of
self-conceit, the two being by no means necessarily concomitant. He must
remember that he can not expect to have people repose confidence in his
ability unless he displays confidence in them himself. If poverty be his
lot, and troubles and discouragements of all kinds press upon him, let
him take heart and push resolutely ahead, cultivating a strong,
self-reliant disposition. By so doing he will rise superior to
misfortune. He will learn to rely on his own resources, to look within
himself for the means wherewith to combat the ills that press upon him.
By such a course of action he takes the road which most surely leads to
success.
[Illustration]
[Illustration: PRACTICAL TALENTS.]
[Illustration]
It is a common saying that the man of practical ability far surpasses
the theorist. Just what is meant by practical ability is, perhaps, hard
to explain. It is more easy to tell what it is not than what it is. It
recognizes the fact that life is action; that mere thoughts and schemes
will avail nothing unless subsequently wrought out in action. It is an
indescribable quality which results from a union of worldly knowledge
with shrewdness and tact. He that sets out on the journey of life with a
profound knowledge of books, but with a shallow knowledge of men, with
much of the sense of others, but with little of his own, will find
himself completely at a loss on occasions of common and constant
recurrence.
Speculative ability is one thing, and practical ability is another; and
the man who in his study or with his pen in hand shows himself capable
of forming large views of life and policy, may in the outer world be
found altogether unfitted for carrying them into practical effect.
Speculative ability depends on vigorous thinking, practical ability in
vigorous acting, and the two qualities are usually found combined in
very unequal proportions. The speculative man is prone to indecision; he
sees all sides of a question, and his action becomes suspended in nicely
weighing the arguments for and against, which are often found nearly to
balance each other; whereas the practical man overleaps logical
preliminaries and arrives at certain definite convictions, and proceeds
forthwith to carry his policy into action. The mere theorist rarely
displays practical ability; and, conversely, the practical man rarely
displays a high degree of speculative wisdom. If you try to carve a
stone with a razor, the razor will lose its edge, and the stone remain
uncut. A high education, unless it is practical as well as classical,
often unfits a man for contest with his fellow-man. Intellectual
culture, if carried beyond a certain point, is too often purchased at
the expense of moral vigor. It gives edge and splendor to a man, but
draws out all his temper.
In all affairs of life, but more especially in those great enterprises
which require the co-operation of others, a knowledge of men is
indispensable. This knowledge implies not only quickness of penetration
and sagacity, but many other superior elements of character; for it is
important to perceive not merely in whom we can confide, but to maintain
that influence over them which secures their good faith and defeats the
unworthy purpose of a wavering and dishonest mind. The world always
laughs at those failures which arise from weakness of judgment and
defects of penetration. Practical wisdom is only to be learned in the
school of experience. Precepts and instruction are useful so far as they
go; but without the discipline of real life they remain of the nature of
theories only. The hard facts of existence give that touch of truth to
character which can never be imparted by reading or tuition, but only by
contact with the broad instincts of common men and women.
Intellectual training is to be prized, but practical knowledge is
necessary to make it available. Experience gained from books, however
valuable, is of the nature of learning; experience gained from outward
life is wisdom; and an ounce of the latter is worth a pound of the
former. Rich mental endowments, thorough culture, great genius,
brilliant parts have often existed in company with very glaring
deficiencies in what may be called good judgment; while there is a
certain stability of judgment and soundness of understanding often
displayed by those who have not an extensive education. The old sailor
knows nothing of nautical astronomy. Azimuths, right ascensions, and the
solution of spherical triangles have no charm and little meaning to him.
But he can scan the seas and skies and warn of coming danger with a
natural wisdom which all the keen intellect and ready mathematics of the
young lieutenant do not afford. The man who has traveled much
accumulates a store of useful information, and can give hints of
practical wisdom which no deep study of geological lore or of
antiquarian research could afford. The student of life rather than of
books gains an understanding by experience for which no store of
erudition can prove an adequate compensation. The true order of learning
should be, first, what is necessary; second, what is useful; and third,
what is ornamental. To reverse this arrangement is like beginning to
build at the top of the edifice. Practical ability depends in a large
measure on the employment of what is known as common sense, which is the
average sensibility and intelligence of men undisturbed by individual
peculiarities. Fine sense and exalted sense are not half as useful as
common sense. There are forty men of wit for one man of sense, and he
that will carry nothing but gold will be every day at a loss for readier
change.
The height of ability consists in a thorough knowledge of the real value
of things and of the genius of the age we live in, and could we know by
what strange circumstances a man's genius becomes prepared for practical
success, we should discover that the most serviceable items in his
education were never entered in the bills his father paid for. That
knowledge of the world which inculcates strict vigilance in regard to
our individual interests and representation, which recommends the
mastery of things to be held in our own hands, or which enables us to
live undamaged by the skillful maneuvers and crafty plots of plausible
men on the one hand or uncontaminated by the depravities of unprincipled
ones on the other, is of daily acquisition and equally accessible to
all.
The most learned of men do not always make the best of teachers; the
lawyer who has achieved a classical education is not always the most
successful. The men who have wielded power have not always been
graduates. Brindley and Stephenson did not learn to read and write until
they were twenty years old; yet the one gave England her railroads, and
the other her canals. The great inventor is one who has walked forth
upon the industrial world, not from universities, but from hovels; not
as clad in silks and decked with honors, but as clad in fustian and
grimed with soot and oil. It is not known where he who invented the plow
was born, or where he died; yet he has effected more for the happiness
of the world than the whole race of heroes and conquerors who drenched
it in tears and blood, whose birth, parentage, and education have been
handed down to us with a precision proportionate to the mischief they
have done. Mankind owes more of its real happiness to this humble
inventor than to some of the most acute minds in the realm of
literature.
Education, indeed, accomplishes wonders in fitting a man for the work of
success, but we sometimes forget that it is of more consequence to have
the mind well disciplined rather than richly stored,—strong rather than
full. Every day we see men of high culture distanced in the race of life
by the upstart who can not spell. The practical dunce outstrips the
theorizing genius. Life teems with such illustrations. Men have ruled
well who could not define a commonwealth; and they who did not
understand the shape of the earth have commanded a greater portion of
it. The want of practical talent in men of fine intellectual powers has
often excited the wonder of the crowd. They are astonished that one who
has grasped, perhaps, the mightiest themes, and shed a light on the path
to be pursued by others, should be unable to manage his own affairs with
dexterity. But this is not strange. Deep thinking and practical talents
require habits of mind almost entirely dissimilar, and though they may,
and often do, exist conjointly, and while it is the duty of all to
strive to cultivate both, yet such is the constitution of the human mind
that it is apt to go to extremes. And he who accustoms himself to deep
prying into nature's secrets, to exploring the hidden mysteries of the
past, is too apt to forget the practical details of every-day life, to
pass them by with disgust, as altogether beneath his attention. This is
an error, and none the less reprehensible on that account than is the
conduct of those who become so engrossed with the practical affairs of
their calling or profession as to forget that they have a higher nature,
and sink the man in the pursuit of their ambitious dreams.
A man who sees limitedly and clearly is both more sure of himself and is
more direct in dealing with circumstances and with men than is a man who
has a large horizon of thought, whose many-sided capacity embraces an
immense extent of objects, just as the somnambulist treads with safety
where the wide-awake man could not hope to follow. Practical men cut the
knots which they can not untie, and, overleaping all preliminaries, come
at once to a conclusion. Men of theoretical knowledge, on the other
hand, are tempted to waste time in comparing and meditating when they
should be up and doing. Practical knowledge will not always of itself
raise a man to eminence, but for want of it many a man has fallen short
of distinction. Without it the best runner, straining for the prize,
finds himself suddenly tripped up and lying on his back in the midst of
the race. Without it the subtlest theologian will live and die in an
obscure country village, and the acutest legal mind fail of adorning the
bench. The man who lacks it may be a great thinker or a great worker. He
may be an acute reasoner and an eloquent speaker, and yet, in spite of
all this, fail of success. There is a hitch, a stand-still, a mysterious
want somewhere. Little, impalpable trifles weave themselves into a web
which holds him back. The fact is, he is not sufficiently in accord with
his surroundings. He has never seen the importance of adjusting his
scale of weights and measures to the popular standard. In a word, he is
not a man of the world, in a popular sense.
While it may be very difficult to define this practical ability, which
is so all-important, yet the path to be pursued by him who would advance
therein is visible to all. It requires a shrewd and careful observance
of men and things rather than of books. It requires that the judgment be
strengthened by being called upon in apparently trivial affairs. The
memory must be trained to recall principles rather than statements. All
the faculties of the mind must be trained to act with decision and
dispatch. Education must be regarded as a means and not as an end. By
these means, while admitting that practical talents are, in their true
sense, a gift of God, still we can cultivate and bring them to
perfection, and by education and experience convert that which before
lay dormant in the rough pebble into a dazzling diamond.
[Illustration]
[Illustration: EDUCATION.]
[Illustration]
From time immemorial intellectual endowments have been crowned with bays
of honor. Men have worshiped at the shrine of intellect with an almost
Eastern idolatry. Men of more than an average endowment of intellect
have been regarded as superior beings. The multitude have looked upon
them with wonder. With reverent hands the world at large has crowned
intellect with its richest honors. Its pathway has been strewn with
flowers; its brow has worn the loftiest plume; it has held the mightiest
scepter of power, and sat upon the proudest throne. Evidence mightier
than the plaudits of admiring multitudes is every-where found in the
universe proclaiming the worth and power of the human intellect. There
can not be a grander theme to engross the attention of all classes than
that subject which has to do with the training of the intellect. The
subject of education is fraught with a deep interest to all who have a
just appreciation of its merits. It should be of interest to all within
the pale of civilization, inasmuch as the happiness of all classes is
connected with the subject of education.
Education is development. It is not simply instruction, facts, and rules
communicated by the teacher, but it is discipline, a waking up, a
development of latent powers, a growth of the mind. It finds the child's
mind passive; it trains it to think independently; it awakens its powers
to observe, to reflect, to combine. It aims to bring into harmonious
action all the powers of the mind, not, as some suppose, a cultivation
of a few to the neglect of all the rest. Education should have reference
to the whole man—the body, the mind, and the heart. Its object, and,
when rightly conducted, its effect, is to make him a complete creature
of his kind. To his frame it would give vigor, activity, and beauty; to
his heart virtue; to his senses correctness and acuteness. The educated
man is not the gladiator, nor the scholar, nor the upright man alone,
but a well balanced combination of the three. The well-developed tree is
not one simply well rooted, nor with giant branches, nor resplendent
with rich foliage, but all of these together. If you mark the perfect
man you must not look for him in the gymnasium, the university, or the
Church exclusively, but you look for the healthful mind in the healthful
body, with a virtuous heart. The being in whom you find this union is
the only one worthy to be called educated.