Part 29

A good many young men excuse themselves from ever becoming anything, or doing anything, by the fact that they always live where it is low tide. Perhaps that is because it is always low tide where they live. At any rate, the more we learn of the history of the men who have succeeded, the more apparent it becomes that if they were born in low water, they patched up their tattered circumstances, and beat out to sea on a tide of their own making.

If you would be a success in the business world, then you must master everything that you lay your hands upon. Bear in mind that this is your own interest, as well as your duty toward your employer. Think nothing below your attention; do not be afraid of drudgery. Investigate all, comprehend all, grasp all, and master all. Business, like an ingenious piece of machinery, is made up of many complicated parts. Analyze it, therefore, thoroughly search all its parts, and know for yourself how they are put together.

You may cherish the hope that you will one day be an employer yourself. It would be very desirable if we could repose unlimited confidence in the words and acts of our fellow-men; but, unfortunately, the condition of the world is not as yet sufficiently advanced to enable us to do so. Where you will find one that you can trust, you will find many that need watching. If you should be unacquainted with some of your business details, you must trust to others, and may in consequence be deceived. A few months of careful attention to it at the commencement of your career will secure you against deception throughout the whole of your life as an employer.

Then you must also be careful to remember that dividends in life are not paid until the investment of personal effort has been made. Sowing still antedates reaping; and the amount sowed determines pretty closely the size of the harvest. Whether it be young men or wheat fields the interest can be depended upon to keep up with the capital, and empty barns in October are the logical consequence of empty furrows in spring. The young man may as well understand that there are no gratuities in this life, and that success is never reached "across lots."

Success means, all the way through to the finish, a victory over difficulties; and if the young aspirant lacks the grit to face and down the difficulty that happens to confront him at the start, there is little reason to expect that his valor will show to any better advantage in his encounter with enemies that get in his way later.

Young men are apt to imitate each other. Let your conduct be such as to bear imitation; otherwise you will lead those who are younger than you to form injurious habits, and be the means of leading them away from the path of duty. It is an obligation you owe your seniors. In the discharge of their duties they will have to depend upon you to a certain extent; and if your part is not properly performed, the whole system must unavoidably suffer derangement.

If the mind is temperate in feeling, deliberate in choosing, and robust in its willing, character becomes set and enduring. If, on the contrary, feeling is volatile, choice fickle, and the will flabby, one quality after another awakens momentary admiration and impulse; ideals succeed each other as the vanishing visions of a dream; life is passed in a state of perpetual inward contradiction; and failure, both for yourselves and for your imitators, is almost sure to follow.

No young man can remain long in this unsettled or transition state; but he must become something. You will therefore do well to be careful how you tread this probationary ground; for it is really the one great opportunity of your lives so far as concerns the formation of your general characters. Use it thoughtfully and well, and your manhood will be stronger, richer, and more helpful, all through your later years.

XXVII.

ORDER.

MEMORY GEMS.

Accuracy is the twin brother of honesty.--C. Simmons

Without method, little can be done to any good purpose.--Macaulay

A place for everything, and everything in its place.--Old Proverb

Order is the law of all intelligible existence.--Blackie

Order is the sanity of the mind, the health of the body, the peace of the city, and the security of the state.--Southey

The two words "order" and "method" are so closely akin to each other that it is quite difficult to separate them, even in the mind. "Order is heaven's first law," it is said; also, "Method consists in the right choice of means to an end." Here a distinction is made; but the two words taken together, cover the line of thought we now wish to follow.

Children nowadays do not learn to read as they once did. They go to kindergartens; but order is the rule even in such play-schools, and it is the one great reason why they succeed. All schools and colleges depend upon order for successful work.

"He who every morning plans the transactions of the day," says Victor Hugo, "and follows out that plan, carries a thread that will guide him through the labyrinth of the most busy life. The orderly arrangement of his time is like a ray of light which darts itself through all his occupations. But where no plan is laid, where the disposal of time is surrendered merely to the chance of incidents, all things lie huddled together in one chaos, which admits of neither distribution nor review."

There is no talent like method; and no accomplishment that man can possess, like perseverance. These two powers will usually overcome every obstacle; and there is no position which a young man may not hope to secure, when, guided by these principles, he sets out upon the great highway of life. In after years, the manners and habits of the man are not so readily adapted to any prescribed course to which they have been unaccustomed. But in youth habits of system, method, and industry, are as easily formed as others; and the benefits and enjoyments which result from them, are more than the wealth and honors which they always secure.

"Never study on speculation," says Waters; "all such study is vain. Form a plan, have an object; then work for it, learn all you can about it, and you will be sure to succeed. What I mean by studying on speculation, is that aimless learning of things because they may be useful at some time; which is like the conduct of the woman who bought at auction a brass door-plate with the name Thompson on it, thinking it might some day be of service."

Orderly boys and girls are fair scholars, firm friends, and good planners; they make few mistakes, and succeed pretty well in all they do. Order does not make a genius; but a genius without order is exasperating when he is a man, and is only pardoned for his want of order when he is a boy because he is expected to do better each day. Begin with orderly habits; next day try order in thought; and then will follow naturally order in principles.

"You would be the greatest man of your age, Grattan," said Curran, "if you would buy a few yards of red tape and tie up your bills and papers." Curran realized that methodical people are accurate as a rule, and successful.

The celebrated Nathaniel Emmons, whose learning made him famous through all New England, claimed that he could not work at all, unless order reigned about him. For more than fifty years the same chairs stood in the same places in his study; his hat hung on the same hook; the shovel stood on the north side of the open fireplace, and the tongs on the south side; and all his books and papers were so arranged that he claimed to be able to find any information he needed in three or four minutes.

The demand for perfection in the make-up of Wendell Phillips was wonderful. Every word must express the exact shade of his thought; every phrase must be of due length and cadence; every sentence must be perfectly balanced before it left his lips. Exact precision characterized his style. He was easily the first legal orator America has produced. The rhythmical fullness and poise of his periods are remarkable.

A. T. Stewart was extremely systematic and precise in all his transactions. Method ruled in every department of his store, and for every delinquency a penalty was rigidly enforced. His eye was upon his business in all its various branches; he mastered every detail and worked hard.

It has also been repeatedly asserted that Noah Webster never could have prepared his dictionary in thirty-six years, unless the most exacting method had come to the rescue. He himself claimed that his orderly methods saved him ten or twenty years, and a vast amount of anxiety and trouble.

Good habits are the first steps in order for children,--punctuality, neatness, a place for everything. Yet, do not let habits master you, so that you never can do anything except in a fixed manner at a fixed time, and cannot give up your way of doing for the sake of something greater.