Stepping Stones to Manhood

CHAPTER I. Be Neat

Be Neat

INTRODUCTION TO CHAPTER I

BY ROBERT J. BURDETTE

You can make yourself look an inch taller by neat, well-fitting dress. You can actually make yourself taller by an erect, manly carriage. Slovenliness is contagious. It communicates itself from the dress to the character. The boy who slouches and slumps in figure and gait, is dangerously apt to slump morally. The dust and grime on your clothes is liable to get into your brain. The dirt under your finger-nails is likely to work into your thoughts. Grease spots down the front of your coat will destroy self-respect almost as quickly as a habit of lying. Tidiness is one of the cheapest luxuries in the world. It is also one of the most comfortable. When you know, when you are “dead sure” that you are just right—“perfectly correct”—from hat to shoe-tie, the King of England couldn’t stare you out of countenance; he couldn’t embarrass you, and, he wouldn’t if he could.

CHAPTER I. Be Neat

BE NEAT

A high column was to be built. The workmen were engaged, and all went to work with a will. In laying a corner, one brick was set a trifle out of line. This was unnoticed, and as each course of bricks was kept in line with those already laid, the tower was not built exactly erect. After being carried up about fifty feet, there was a tremendous crash. The building had fallen, burying the men in the ruins. All the previous work was now lost, the material wasted, and several valuable lives sacrificed, all through the misplacement of one brick at the start. The workman at fault little thought what mischief he was making for the future. It is so with the boy, building character. He must be careful in laying the foundation. Just so far as he governs, guards and trains himself, just so far will he succeed or fail in the estimation of others. Tennyson wisely wrote:

“Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control, These three alone lead life to sovereign power.”

AMERICAN BOYS.

Never in the history of any people did boys have so much in their favor to assist them in reaching the pinnacle of success as American boys. Back of them is an ancestry of the best blood of the leading nations of the world, an ancestry noted for persistence, reverence, piety and patriotism.

The educational institutions of the land have “turned out” thousands of young men who have beaten their pathway upward in spite of adverse circumstances, all of which seems to say to the boy to-day, “There’s room at the top in whatever profession you may follow.” A good beginning is the most necessary thing, for “it is half the battle.” In any race a man can well afford to miss applause at the starting-line, if he gets it at the goal. A slow but determined start is not incompatible with a swift conclusion. Experienced mountain-climbers seem almost lazy, so calmly do they put one foot in front of the other; but they stand well-breathed on the summit, while their comrades are panting at the halfway station. One must not swerve to the right or left, but, setting his face toward duty, like Marcus Curtius who rode to death in the Roman Forum, he must push forward, with an honest ambition to reach the goal of success. It is not always the boy of aristocratic birth, wealthy parentage or social standing that wins the world’s laurels, but usually those boys who are unfortunately situated, who hew their way in the world instead of having it laid out and smoothed for them.

One of our Presidents, when asked what was his coat-of-arms, remembering that he had been a chopper of wood in his youth, replied, “A pair of shirt-sleeves.” Lord Tenterden was proud to point out to his son the shop in which his father had shaved for a penny. A French doctor once taunted Flechier, bishop of Nimes, who had been a tallow-chandler in his youth, with the meanness of his origin, to which Flechier replied, “If you had been born in the same condition that I was, you would still have been a maker of candles.”

Where is the boy with nobility of soul and purpose, who, though poor, is not tidy; who, being of humble origin, is not industrious; who, ridiculed by others, is not kind; and who, cramped by circumstances, is not heroic? That boy will rise to honor and fill an important place in life. He, like other boys of this country, may be a star rather than a flashing meteor in the realm of society.

ASPIRING BOYS.

From a farm to the Presidential chair seems a long distance, but Abraham Lincoln traveled it, and left behind him a name and reputation never to die. Andrew Johnson began life as a tailor and subsequently rose to be the chief officer of the nation. George Peabody was an apprentice in a country store, and ended as a millionaire philanthropist. Cyrus W. Field was in early life a clerk, but the world is indebted to him for the successful completion of the Atlantic cable. Samuel F. B. Morse, from an artist, became the inventor of the electric telegraph. Charles Dickens, the great novelist, began life as a newspaper reporter. Levi P. Morton was a clerk, John Wanamaker a messenger-boy, Lyman J. Gage a night-watchman and James Whitcomb Riley a wandering sign-painter. The record, instead of being in the tens, could be increased to thousands of statesmen, governors, generals, business and professional men who have risen from the farm, the shop, the store, to important offices within the nation’s gift. There is no reason why a boy cannot make his way in the world. He may not be President, or banker, or lawyer, but he can fill an honorable position. He may be a master mechanic, a model business man, a useful educator, if he is willing to begin at the lowest round in the ladder, namely, neatness.

Boys are men of a smaller growth, and if they fail to cultivate self-respect, it means the blighting of manhood, the ostracism of society, and the closing of the gate of opportunities to success. Self-respect is a robe with which every boy should clothe himself. It lies at the root of all virtues. It begets a stability of character, is the sentinel of the soul as the eyelid of the eye, and the corner-stone of all virtues.

NEATNESS SHOWS ITSELF BY CLEANLINESS.

There is no need in this day and country for a boy to go around with dirty face and hands. It is injurious to health, unbecoming and repulsive to any self-respecting person. On the other hand from

“The body’s purity, the mind Receives a secret, sympathetic aid.”

When Isaac Hopper, the Quaker, met a boy with dirty face or hands, he would stop him, and inquire if he ever studied chemistry. The boy, with a wondering stare, would answer, “No.” “Well then, I will teach thee how to perform a curious chemical experiment. Go home, take a piece of soap, put it in water, and rub briskly on thy hands and face. Thou hast no idea what a beautiful froth it will make, and how much whiter thy skin will be. That’s a chemical experiment; I advise thee to try it.” There is great virtue in soap and water vigorously applied, which doubtless gave rise to the old adage, “Cleanliness is next to godliness,” for virtue never dwells long with filth. An eminent man said, “I believe there never was a person scrupulously attentive to cleanliness who was a consummate villain.”

The singing birds are remarkable for the neatness and cleanliness of their plumage. The gay and cheerful animals of the fields avoid filth, and are usually of a clean appearance. The beauty and fragrance of the flowers owe all to this characteristic, and so also does the boy who is bright, intelligent, moral and ambitious. You will not find his finger nails long, but carefully trimmed and devoid of dirt, his ears and neck will be spotless, and his teeth clean and white like “drops of snow in banks of pretty pink roses.”

NEATNESS IN DRESS.

Self-respect will also show itself in neatness of dress. “It has,” says Barrington, “a moral effect upon the conduct of mankind. Let any gentleman find himself with dirty boots, soiled neck-cloth, and a general negligence of dress, he will, in all probability, find a corresponding disposition by negligence of address.” To be tidy does not mean to have costly attire. It is no mark of neatness for a boy to deck his fingers with rings, to sport a gold-headed cane, to wear flashy neck-wear, to have a bouquet of flowers on the lapel of his coat, for while these are not unbecoming in themselves, they give the impression of that sin which overthrew the angels, pride.

Dean Swift was an enemy of extravagance in dress, and particularly of that destructive ostentation in the middle classes, which led them to make an appearance above their condition in life. Of his mode of reproving this folly in those persons for whom he had an esteem, the following instance has been recorded:

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