Sydney Smith says that “all mankind are happier for having been happy; so that, if you make them happy now, you make them happy twenty years hence by the memory of it.” This being true we should do all in our power to turn men from gloom to gladness; from the shadows to sunshine. With this purpose in mind I have written
BIRTHPLACE OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN BOSTON
“Hitch your wagon to a star!”
Such is the advice Emerson gave to ambitious youth. He meant well, no doubt, and indeed, his words are all right if taken with a pinch of salt. A boy should dream great dreams, of course, but he ought to set his dream-gauge so as to have it indicate a line of endeavor it will be possible for him to follow.
The type of boy the world counts on to do it the most lasting good is the youth that does not permit the wings of fancy to carry him so far into the blue empyrean that he cannot touch the solid earth with at least the tiptoes of reason.
As Wingate truly says: “There is no use in filling young people’s minds with vain hopes; not every one can make a fortune or a national reputation, but he who possesses health, ordinary ability, honesty and industry can at least earn a livelihood.”
If you are striving to be a level-headed boy you will understand that if you keep your eyes fastened on the stars all the while you are likely to overlook a thousand opportunities lying all about your pathway.
Some of the poets and others advise you to aim at the sky or the sun or something of that sort, for by so doing you will shoot higher than you would if you aimed at the ground.
I would advise you to aim directly at the target you wish to hit. Don’t shoot over it or under it; shoot at it.
Dreaming great things is good but doing simple things may be better. There ought to be, and there will be more dreams than deeds, just as there are more blossoms on the tree than can mature and ripen into perfect fruit.
We shall always have to divide our attention between the things we can do and the things we should like to do. Dreaming is an interesting pastime but we should not devote too many precious moments to
When the time arrives for a boy to cease dreaming and to begin doing he should seize upon the highest duty that comes to his hands and waste not a moment in dilatory uncertainties. “Thrift of time,” says Gladstone, “will repay you in after-life with a thousandfold of profit beyond your most sanguine dreams.”
Hopes are good, but patiently worked-out realities are better. Hope is for to-morrow. Work is for to-day. The hope that lulls one into a dreamy inactivity, with the promise that all will be well, whether or no, is sometimes a hindrance in the path toward success. We must not succumb too fully to
Hope is the architect but brawn is the builder. An architect’s most elaborate design for a mansion, on paper, cannot protect one from the elements as well as can the crudest little cabin actually built by hands. Those who spend much time in dreaming wonderful plans and waiting for a ready-made success to come and hunt them up may be interested in learning about
But it is to be remembered that the youth who does not think well of himself is not likely to do well. “Ability, learning, accomplishment, opportunity, are all well,” says Mathews, “but they do not, of themselves, insure success. Thousands have all these, and live and die without benefiting themselves or others. On the other hand, men of mediocre talents, often scale the dizzy steeps of excellence and fame because they have firm faith and high resolve. It is this solid faith in one’s mission—the rooted belief that it is the one thing to which he has been called,—this enthusiasm, attracting an Agassiz to the Alps or the Amazon, impelling a Pliny to explore the volcano in which he is to lose his life, and nerving a Vernet, when tossing in a fierce tempest, to sketch the waste of waters, and even the wave that is leaping up to devour him,—that marks the heroic spirit; and, wherever it is found, success, sooner or later, is almost inevitable.”
The youth who will start out in life’s morning with a well-defined idea of the goal he wishes to gain, and who will keep going in the right direction need have little fear that his journey will finally end in
When we come to observe life very closely we learn that the law of recompense is always in operation, and that when all things are considered, one man’s lot does not seem so much better or another’s so much worse than the fortune of those about him as a superficial glance might lead us to think. Says Hamerton: “I used to believe a great deal more in opportunities and less in application than I do now. Time and health are needed, but with these there are always opportunities. Rich people have a fancy for spending money very uselessly on their culture because it seems to them more valuable when it has been costly; but the truth is, that by the blessing of good and cheap literature, intellectual light has become almost as accessible as daylight. I have a rich friend who travels more, and buys more costly things than I do, but he does not really learn more or advance farther in the twelvemonth. If my days are fully occupied, what has he to set against them? only other well-occupied days, no more. If he is getting benefit at St. Petersburg he is missing the benefit I am getting round my house, and in it. The sum of the year’s benefit seems to be surprisingly alike in both cases. So if you are reading a piece of thoroughly good literature, Baron Rothschild may possibly be as well occupied as you—he is certainly not better occupied. When I open a noble volume I say to myself, ‘Now the only Croesus that I envy is he who is reading a better book than this.’”
There is many a boy who is quite sure the neighbor’s boy has an easier time and a better prospect of success. Grown-ups, too, are frequently of the opinion that they could do so much better if they were in somebody else’s shoes. Between the success which others attain and that which we achieve, we can very readily distinguish
The country boy is sure that if he could get into the large city where there are more and greater chances for doing things he would make a great success. The city boy is quite as certain that if he could get out into a country town where the competition is not so fierce and where there is more room to grow he would do something worth while. In discussing this subject, Edward Bok says: “It is the man, not the place that counts. The magnet of worth is the drawing power in business. It is what you are, not where you are. If a young man has the right stuff in him, he need not fear where he lives or does his business. Many a large man has expanded in a small place. The idea that a small place retards a man’s progress is pure nonsense. If the community does not offer facilities for a growing business, they can be brought to it. Proper force can do anything. All that is needed is right direction. The vast majority of people are like sheep, they follow a leader.”
For the solace and enlightenment of those who think they are the victims of an unkind fortune and that conditions are better elsewhere I herewith offer Deacon Watts’s remarks concerning
WASHINGTON AND LAFAYETTE AT MOUNT VERNON
“Trifles make perfection, but perfection is no trifle.” The saying is old but the truth is ever new.
It is the little things that count, day by day, in the forming of character. The way in which we employ our moments finally becomes the way in which we employ our years.
As a matter of course every boy will, if he can, do some big, beautiful thing out there in the years to come. But it is a foregone conclusion that every boy must do a vast number of little things before he shall do the larger things. The “trifles” are always at hand waiting to be done, day after day, year after year. And it is the way in which a boy does these little things that gives him the standing he holds in the estimation of those with whom he is intimately associated.
“As the twig is bent, the tree’s inclined.” A habit is easy to form but hard to break. Yet the strongest of habits are formed just a little at a time—a small strand is added each day until there is a mighty cable that cannot be broken except by a mighty effort. If it is a good habit, its strength makes it all the better! If it is a bad habit, its strength makes it so much the worse.
Where is the boy who cannot see the fallacy in such illogical reasoning as this: “Now, I will be careless while I am young so that I may be careful when I am older. I will remain ignorant and poorly informed while I am a boy, so that I may be wise when I am a man. I will bend one way while I am a twig so that I shall incline in another direction when I become a tree. I will do wrong things while my character is being formed so that I may do right things when my habits become fixed.” All such reasoning is very, very foolish, isn’t it? And yet there are some illogical youths who deem it will be easy to have one character and disposition as boys and quite a different one when they come to be men. By some strange hocus-pocus they hope to be able to sow a crop of “wild oats” and later on reap a harvest of good wheat. It cannot be done.
Any farmer’s boy will tell you that “as ye sow, so shall ye reap.” When the farmer wishes to harvest wheat he does not sow oats. When he wishes a crop of potatoes he does not plant gourds. He has learned that what he plants in the spring he will harvest in the autumn. It is equally as true of life. That which we sow in youth we reap in our maturer years. We must not try to deceive nature and our own consciences. We shall get back from the years what we give to the years.
The boy who early gets into the habit of doing things right is pretty sure to go on doing them so all his life, and without much effort on his part. The will is strengthened by exercise in the same manner as are the muscles. We learn to do easily that which we do often.
The youth who says “No” to little temptations will, later on in life, be perfectly able to say “No” to temptations of any size. And how many a man’s career has been made glorious simply because he learned, while a youth, to say “No” whenever his moral conscience told him it was the thing he should say! How true are the teachings of the wise moralist who tells us: “A very little word is ‘No.’ It is composed of but two letters and forms only one syllable. In meaning it is so definite as to defy misunderstanding. Your lips find its articulation easy. Diminutive in size, evident in import, easy of utterance, frequent in use, and necessary in ordinary speech, it seems one of the simplest and most harmless of all words. Yet there are those to whom it is almost a terror. Its sound makes them afraid. They would expurgate it from their vocabulary if they could. The little monosyllable sticks in their throat. Their pliable and easy temper inclines them to conformity, and frequently works their bane. Assailed by the solicitations of pleasure they are sure to yield, for at once and resolutely they will not repeat ‘No!’ Plied with the intoxicating cup they seldom overcome, for their facile nature refuses to express itself in ‘No!’ Encountering temptation in the hard and duteous path they are likely to falter and fall, for they have not the boldness to speak out the decided negative ‘No!’ Amid the mists of time, and involved in the labyrinthine mazes of error, they are liable to forget eternal verities and join in the ribald jest, for they have not been accustomed to utter an emphatic ‘No!’ All the noble souls and heroes of history have held themselves ready, whenever it was demanded, to say ‘No!’ The poet said ‘No!’ to the sloth and indolence which was consuming his precious hours, and wove for himself in heavenly song a garland of immortality.”
“No” might seem to be but a mere trifle of a word yet the boy who learns to say it on every right occasion has already conquered many of the foes that are likely to beset him along life’s pathway. Every boy should cultivate his will until it is strong enough for him to depend upon it at all times. With the proper amount of will he is sure to have sufficient “won’t” to resist all the temptations that wrong may offer him.
In developing a strength that enables him to say “No!” to wrong things a boy becomes strong enough to say “Yes!” to right things. His “I won’t!” with which he meets wrong suggestions engenders his “I will!” toward the wholesome and commendable undertakings in which he should be interested.
When a boy has learned to say, and to feel the strength that is in the words, “I will!” he ceases to make use of the words, “I wish,” for his will is sufficient to make his wish a living reality. And what a world of difference there is between the involved meanings of the words,
“Trifles” are the beginnings of things which finally develop into all that is worth while.
The acorn is a trifle, yet within it is hidden an oak tree, and a whole forest of oak trees. The tiny little brooklet is only a trifle yet it flows on and on till it becomes a mighty river.
The first rude little pencil sketch made by the child that has an inborn love of drawing is but a trifle, yet it may be the beginning of an art career that shall brighten the whole world.
The first few lines written by the embryo poet constitute but a trifle, yet with a word of encouragement it may sometime be followed by songs that shall make all mankind happier and better.
It was just a trifling incident that developed one of the greatest vocalists the world has ever known. We are told that Jenny Lind, at the beginning of her life, was a poor, neglected little girl, homely and uncouth, living in a single room of a tumble-down house in a narrow street at Stockholm. When the humble woman who had her in charge went out to her daily labor, she was accustomed to lock Jenny in with her sole companion, a cat. One day the little girl, who was always singing to herself like a canary-bird, “because,” as she said, “the song was in her and must come out,” sat with her dumb companion at the window warbling her sweet child-like notes. She was overheard by a passing lady, who paused and listened, struck by the trill and clearness of the untutored notes. She made careful inquiry about the child and became the patroness of the little Jenny who was at once supplied with a music-teacher. She loved the art of song, and having a true genius for it she made rapid progress, surprising both patroness and teachers, and presently, became the world’s “Queen of Song.”
How trifling was the incident that brought about, by a happy accident, the development of the genius which slept in the soul of the sculptor Canova! A superb banquet was being prepared in the palace of the Falieri family in Venice. The tables were already arranged, when it was discovered that a crowning ornament of some sort was required to complete the general effect of the banqueting board. Canova’s grandfather, who brought him up, was a stone-cutter, often hewing out stone ornaments for architects; and as he lived close at hand, he was hastily consulted by the steward of the Falieris. Canova chanced to go with his grandfather to view the tables, and overheard the conversation. Though but a child his quick eye and ready genius at once suggested a suitable design for the apex of the principal dishes. “Give me a plate of cold butter,” said the boy; and seating himself at a side table he rapidly moulded a lion of proper proportions, and so true to nature in its pose and detail as to astonish all present. It was put in place and proved to be the most striking ornamental feature of the feast. When the guests, on being seated, discovered the lion, they exclaimed aloud with admiration, and demanded to see at once the person who could perform such a miracle impromptu. Canova was brought before them, and his boyish person only heightened their wonder. From that hour the head of the opulent Falieri family became his kind, appreciative, liberal patron. Canova was placed under the care of the best sculptors of Venice and Rome and became a grand master of his art.
But it may be truthfully said that every boy does not possess some latent genius, waiting to be discovered by some one who will foster and develop it. Then there is all the more need of making the very most of the small talents one may possess. One need not be a Canova, or a Shakespeare, in order that he may become something worth while to those with whom he dwells in close association.
Every nook and corner of the world is waiting for the fine characters that are to make it a pleasant place in which to dwell. Blest is that household, however humble, in which there are bright, manly, truthful, kind-hearted boys, ever ready to make the hours brighter, and the home dearer, by their tender thoughtfulness of those about them.
Are you going to win the admiration of the world, by and by?
Have you already won the admiration of that little, all-important world that now lies just about you? Does the mother, or father, or sister, or brother, who knows you best, hold you in the highest esteem? If you do not win the love of those who know you so well, how can you hope to be loved by the world which can never come into such close and tender relations with you?
Do not wait for some big event out there in the years to come. Begin just here and now, by seizing upon the “trifles” that lie all about you. The great wall of solid masonry is not put into place all at once; it is laid patiently and carefully, brick by brick. So manhood must be built a “trifle” at a time until a character is established that temptation cannot totter to the earth.
And every boy ought to thank his lucky stars that he does not have to wait for some special occasion to offer itself before he can begin to develop the traits that shall waken the warmest regard of those about him, and bring to his own sense of well-doing the reward born of all virtue. This very day there are many “trifles” strewn in his pathway. If he shall make the most of them, larger opportunities will be vouchsafed him. The one important consideration is whether he is ready to begin to build at the present moment, and to utilize the splendid “trifles” all about him, or will procrastinate till such time as he can by some great sweep of action, establish his reputation all at once and full-born. If he has decided on the latter course he should be moved to give the most earnest and serious consideration to the startling differences that exist between