Part 11

Among trees the one that attains great proportions and beautiful symmetry is yonder giant oak or elm that grows in the open. It needs room to breathe and grow. It grows better if it is segregated from the crowded forest. The giant tree is not the one that grows in the dense forest.

There are two kinds of men, the kind that lives in the herd and the kind that has strong individuality that needs room to grow. The herd man exists in infinitely greater numbers than the individual man.

We cannot imagine Lincoln, Bismarck, Webster, Clay, Edison or Burbank living in the herd, or spending their time in the boulevard cafes.

The man who lives in a herd, who is ever present where the lights are bright, where gaiety abounds, where excitement reigns, where feasting is present, soon gets himself into the habit of cultivating this excitement. He is never happy when alone.

The brain never sleeps and something must occupy it. The herd man fills his brain with frivolous things, he seeks constant excitement. He is like the plant always in the sun, he burns himself out.

The great man with the individuality is great because he has always spent plenty of tune by himself, sizing up things in solitude. Sizing up things makes the brain grow and makes it stronger.

The universities of this country tend in a great measure to produce the herd man. The students dress alike. All have the same mannerisms, all have the same tilt to their hats, and all the same turned up trousers. They feed at certain restaurants and crowd in flocks. Very few college men learn the benefits of sizing up things in solitude until in after years.

On the other hand the student in the school of practical experience does not copy his fellow students. That is why in this great practical experience school we find Lincolns, Edisons, Jim Hills and Carnegies. Those men have to wrestle with the problems for themselves. They had to size up things in solitude instead of reading the sizing up from text books, as is done in the regular university.

Every man before retiring at night, or even during the day, should take a few minutes to himself and carefully analyze the doings of the day.

He should weigh the positive and negative acts, the good and the bad, the wise and the foolish, the right and the wrong impulses, the gain and loss in achievement. He should strike a balance, and if he sees that the bad, deterrent and backward things in the lead he should resolve to get a move on himself.

The man who goes along without this sizing up things in solitude is like the merchant who keeps no record, who pays his bills from the cash drawer and takes what is left for profit. He will still be running a little shop in twenty years, while his competitor who sized things up each day will be in the wholesale business or will have retired with a competency.

Try this sizing up things for two weeks, and the benefits you will receive will be so manifest it will need no further suggestion to make you keep up the practice.

Competition

The saying is "competition is the life of trade," and this saying is true, or it would not have endured so long.

If it were not for competition we should be living in the woods in a state of savagery.

Ages ago all men and women led the simple life. Their chief vocation was idleness. When the weather was hot the man sat in the shade; as the sunshine crept to him he moved into the shade again. In winter he reversed the process.

When our savage ancestor felt a pain in his stomach, his simple instinct showed him that if he put things in his mouth and swallowed them the pain in the stomach would leave.

This low browed man's whole object in life was to keep from having those hunger pains, and the only energy he expended was in hustling for food and in protecting his food from the other savages.

One day a man observed that the beasts lived on each other, so he conceived the idea that it would be good for him to live on other animals. That it would be easier than digging roots and gathering herbs, so this man caught and ate slow-moving animals. He used a club to do the killing.

Along about here competition began, for another man learned to throw a club and kill his game. Then another competitor discovered that a round stone was a more effective weapon than a club.

These hairy forbears of ours lived in caves until competition led up to the building of huts.

One day a savage discovered that while the skins of animals were hard to eat, they nevertheless made a good body covering. Another discovered that if the skins were tied about him it left his arms free to act. This man was the first tailor. He punched holes in the skin and tied the rude garment together with strips of skin. This first tailor was quite an important man among his fellows on account of his great discovery.

Some of these wild men were fleet of foot and had well developed cunning. They became expert hunters. On the other hand some of the less active, by the law of compensation, became more expert tailors, so trade was formed. The hunter killed enough for himself and the tailor, while the tailor made clothes for both of them.

In these days the woodsman lived on animals and the plainsman on vegetables mostly. So the woodsman traded skin clothing with the plainsman for grains and herbs, and this marked the birth of commerce.

Then dugouts and canoes were built, and thus our ancestors crossed lakes and seas and developed maritime commerce.

From away back in those dark ages up to the present time competition has stimulated mankind and spurred him on towards better conditions. The whole human race has benefited by each improvement which competition has brought about.

We have in mind a certain mail order house that up to 1894 had things its own way. Then it sold two to three million dollars worth of merchandise annually. A competitor came into the field, stirred things up, and now the old mail order house is doing eight to ten times as much business per annum as they did before they had the competition.

In the matter of competition we must early learn not to worry over competition, but to derive as much good from it as possible.