CHAPTER XI. The World and the Young Man

THE WORLD AND THE YOUNG MAN

There has been much counseling of the young man respecting the world. But what of counseling the world respecting the young man? Do not men and women riper in years and richer in experience need to have their attention called to the young man and the potentialities of him. He faces the world with vigor, courage, and faith--this stout-hearted, hopeful young fellow with To-morrow and all its possibilities coiled up in his brain and heart.

The young man is the future incarnate. His soul is the abiding-place of uplifting ideals, and the world--that vast collective individuality to which you and I belong--too often dispels those sensitive enthusiasms by its neglect or disapproval. Do we not find in our daily speech a certain cynicism toward youth? Does not our skeptic wisdom paste the label "illusions" over the word "ideals" written on the young man's brow? Is there not a refusal to recognize young manhood's force until it compels recognition by sheer mastery?

If so, it is a fault that the world should remedy. Not that the young man should not prove himself before the world accepts him; not that he should not win his spurs before he is knighted. No one insists that he shall "make good" more than I do. But in the testing of him, let us give him the help of our kindly attention. Let us lend him the encouragement of our applause as he rides into the lists.

Countless young men have been needlessly discouraged by the indifference of the occupied and the sneers of the calloused. Let us not be so chary of our sympathy. Faith in most young men is a much safer hazard than infidelity. For all things strong and pure and helpful to the world may be possible of those young fellows who must, in any event, very soon possess the earth.

So let not the frost of the world's unconcern fall upon young manhood's unfolding powers. Let us beware how we extinguish the feeblest of youth's idealisms. Let us check not the onset of his knight-errantry. And the world does these things--not purposely, not even knowingly, but thoughtlessly. Many a young man has had his life's work kept back and the ardor of it chilled by rebuff at the beginning.

Many another has had his faith in God and humanity and the effectiveness of the eternal verities in the world's work enfeebled and even shattered by what he felt was the world's disbelief in them. No statistician can collect and classify the instances of young lives impaired by the heedlessness and insensibility of the mature to the beatitudes which glorify all youth.

This attitude of the world toward young men is not caused by any distrust of them or by any undervaluing of the high qualities of the true, the beautiful, and the good which the young man brings to it. Let no young man get the idea that the world of society and affairs is "down on him," to borrow the phrasing of the people again. Let him never for a moment feel that this world of experience and present power does not believe in him.

For the world does believe in you, young man. It is not "down on" you. It is busy, that is all. It is engaged with the numberless and pressing concerns of its from-day-to-day existence. It is forgetful, no doubt, but its apathy does not go deeper than that.

With this caution to the young man that he may not misunderstand what is here written, I appeal to men and women, in whose faces the years have etched the lines and wrinkles of knowledge and understanding, to give more attention to young men; to encourage the nobilities of them; to reach down a helping hand from your secure station on the heights to him who struggles upward toward you.

It will not hurt you, sir or madam, to closely watch for signs of developing power in the young men of your acquaintance and to cultivate that growing strength by your active and aggressive faith in the young giant whom you have thus discovered.

Men and women there are who search minutely for unknown powers in plant-life, and by infinite pains in the use of that power, when found, evolve newer, higher, and better types of fruit and flower. And this is a good work. Men and women there are who sweep the infinitudes of the skies that they may find a star hitherto unseen, or steal unawares upon a hidden planet or a flying comet swiftly, yet stealthily, emerging upon the field of the telescope's vision.

And that is a good work, too--yet fruitless, for the immensities of the universe will never be measured, nor the mysteries of the skies be solved, nor the stars give up their secrets. Most of us are on some quest which requires the very infinitesimalities of patience, quests that are grand and quests that are foolish, searchings that are useful and explorations that are frivolous.

But the noblest of all prospecting is for strength and high purpose and thoroughbred quality among the young manhood of our Nation. For any one who helps some young man to make his life righteously successful has enriched humanity more than he who reveals a Klondike to the uses and the greed of the clans of trade.

Yes; and he or she who, in the search for strong minds and pure hearts among young men, discovers to the world a great man has in that achievement wrought immortality for himself and herself, while rendering to mankind a service like that of a Columbus or a Pasteur. For Columbus discovered a new continent; but what of the man or woman who while looking through all the immaturities of his youth "discovers" a Columbus.

Thus would I direct the divining keenness of our men of affairs, so swift and sure to detect advantages in business, to the young men who wait at their outer gates for recognition and service. I would invite the world, whose hearing is so sensitive to the material things of commerce, to the exalted and eternal subject of human characters and human destinies as they are developing daily, hourly, all about us. In a word, I ask the ear of the world for its young men.

I read in some sermon--I think it was by Myron Reed--that the most pathetic thing in life is that a man of either thought or action must spend two-thirds of his time getting a hearing. "During this time," said the preacher, "the man of thought speaks his immortal word; the man of action does his immortal deed; all the time the World is refusing to listen or to heed; but finally, when the fires of genius have burned low, when the great thoughts have been uttered and the great works wrought, then it is willing to give ear and eye to the necessarily feebler acts and thoughts of the great man's later days."

It refuses to come near the fire when in full glow; it comes and puts its hands into the ashes after the flame has died out and the ashes themselves are growing cold. Do we not find ourselves worshiping echoes and ghosts in the persons of men who once wrought splendidly, and denying the real forces of the present hour until they compel recognition by their overwhelmingness; and then, having exhausted themselves, become in their turn ghosts and echoes.

It is all right to honor those who have done big things and are "living on their reputations"; but it is all wrong to deny to those young men who are doing and will do big things, now and in the future, full and glad recognition of their power and possibilities.

The first thing that the world should remember about the young man who is confronting it, asking his daily bread of it, is the inestimable value of the qualities of freshness, of innocence, of faith, of confidence, of high honesty, of Don Quixote courage which the young man brings to it. These are qualities which in human character are worth all the wisdom of the market-place many million times multiplied. They are the qualities which, in spite of itself, keep the world young and tolerable.

The young man comes to the world fresh from his mother's knee. The Lord's Prayer is still in his mind; his mother taught it to him. The glorious fable of Washington and the cherry-tree is still in his heart; his mother taught it to him. A beautiful honor that makes him very foolish on the stock exchange and causes the shrewd ones to say, "He will know more after a while"--the splendid honor that makes him throw over what the world calls "advantages"--still glorifies his soul; his mother taught him that honor. The confidence that God is just, and that success is surely his if he will but do right, still beautifies him like the rose-tinted clouds of morning; it is the influence of his mother's teaching.

Let the world understand that these qualities with which the mother labors to endow her child, from the time the blessing of maternity is hers to the time the bright-eyed young fellow steps out from the old home, are more valuable to the world itself than all its gold-mines, all its scientific discoveries, all its electric railroads, all its games of politics, all its commerce. "Il mondo va da se," said a cynical Italian statesman--"the world goes by itself." But it does not.

If the world were not each year renewed, refreshed, glorified by the magnificent honor and fine expectancies of its young men, it would soon become simply fiendish in its sordidness, selfishness, and baseness. Let the world, then, preserve these fine qualities at which it too often idly sneers; not for the young man's sake--no, that is not to be expected--but for its own sake.

Let the world turn to the Master and think of what he said: "Except ye become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven." I am pleading for the tolerance of what, by a certain class of men, are called impracticable business defects in youthful character, which in reality are the vital blood by which the world is kept morally alive.

The first attitude that the world ought really to take toward the young man is charity. How parrot-like one is! Charity! "And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity." I defy any man who talks about the practical affairs of this life to get away from the Bible.

Let the world then have charity for the young man. Let it realize that for the particular moment there is nothing conceivable so helpless as he. He is just as helpless as, in time, he will become irresistible. I have already earnestly advised every young man, as a practical matter, to do at least one thing each day not only free from any selfish motive, but from which no possible material benefit could come to himself.

And now this is the reverse side of that shield. Let the world give to the young man a little start, a little help, a little foothold, a little encouragement. And I repeat that by the world I mean the great mass of men who have ceased to be young men, or who, still young in years, have achieved places of power--those who hold the reins of affairs and business, of industrial and social conditions.

I heard of a banker once who saw to it that at least once each week he hunted up some young man, bravely struggling, bravely fighting, and gave him some little assistance--a piece of business, an opportunity, needful and kindly counsel--something that moistened his parched lips, dry and hot from running the hard race that all youth must run for success. I said to myself: "There is something in reincarnation; the soul of Abou-ben-Adhem is dwelling in that banker's heart."

For years the greatest pleasure of my life has been that young boys have come to me from all over my State to talk about how they should proceed in life's battle. You, too, may have the pleasure of helping young men. But beware how you do this, saying in your heart, "I will help this young man, and when he succeeds I will reap my reward." Such a selfish thought will utterly poison your advice, deflect your moral vision, distort your intellectual perceptions.

That man who advises a young man with the thought that some day he will be able to harvest personal advantage from that young man's success, has probably by that very thought been rendered incapable of giving sound advice or profitable help. Help the young man for his sake, for the sake of the great humanity of which he is a fresh and beautiful part, for the sake of that abstract good which, after all, is the only reward in this life worthy the consideration of a serious man.

I heard not long ago of a brilliant and crafty young politician who was and is an earnest champion and helper of a very successful and highly practical man in public life. He had acquired some unfortunate traits. He was suspicious, distrustful. He feared betrayal here, a Judas there. The caution increased his cunning but was impairing his character. The man to whose fortunes he was attached called him in, in the midst of a great political battle on which the fortunes of that man depended, and said to his young lieutenant:

"Success in this fight is important to me, but it is not so important as the impairing of your character which I see going on. You are becoming permanently distrustful, suspicious. You think one friend will fail us here, that that friend is untrue, that the other one may be influenced improperly. Very soon you will begin to suspect me, then you will suspect yourself, and then--then, you are utterly lost. Stop it. I would rather lose the fight than see your character become negative."

That man was right, and the attitude he took in his advice to the young man was right. Let the world quit encouraging young men to think that guile succeeds. Let it encourage the faith that nothing but the noble and the good really succeed in the end. Let every one point out to the young man confronting the world that it is not so great a thing after all to be "smart," not so great a thing after all to be capable with the little tricks of life, but that it is everything to be good and trustful and fearless and constructive.

It will not do for the world to reply that it does, in words, encourage these fine qualities of youth. It does not, except in formal and meaningless utterances--preachments that have not the vitality of individuality in them. Words are very little, almost less than nothing; but attitude and action are everything. The young man would not feel that he had to be "slick," or crafty, or cunning, if the world's attitude did not invite him to such a conclusion. It is the nature of young men the world over, and particularly of young Americans, to be open in life, direct in method, lofty in purpose, and fearless in action.

A very successful lawyer once told me the following--it illustrates my point: "I remember," said he, "that when I was a law student one of the most brilliant young men I ever met--one of the most brilliant young or old men I ever met--one day received a client of the firm with a luxury of attention and a sumptuousness of courtesy that deeply aroused my ignorant and rural admiration.

"When the consultation had been finished and the rich client had left the office, this young lawyer, who had bowed him out with a deft compliment which made the client feel that he was the point about which the universe was revolving, turned and said, as he went to his desk, 'There goes the shallowest fool and most stupid rascal in the state.'

"When asked how he could say such a thing after having treated the client with such distinction, he turned with a wink of his eye, and said: 'That is the way to work them. You don't know the world yet. Wait till you get on in the world; it will teach you how to handle them.'

"That young man had become thoroughly saturated with the opinion that Ferrers, in "Ernest Maltravers," is the type to be imitated--a character of crafty cunning, playing on the weaknesses of men. He had gotten his opinion from the apparent success of the tricks and sharp practises of the law. He had not seen the broader horizon above which only those who are as good as they are capable ever rise.

"It was a fatal method for him. He finally failed. It was a fatal method for at least two young students upon whom his ideals and influences fell with determining power."

Of course; and it is a fatal view of life for any young man to get. The young man who comes out from the ennobling influence of the American mother will not take this view if the world does not compel him to do so. The world, then, should not applaud any feat of smartness or cunning on the part of the young man. It should not wink its eye and pat him on the shoulder and say, "That was very 'smooth,' very 'smooth' indeed; I congratulate you."

The young man confronts the world with mingled courage and timidity. It is so vast. It seems so unconquerable. And yet he has been taught to believe that if he meets it with a high fearlessness he will conquer. That is what his mother taught him. Out of this thought and his nervous timidity combined comes what appears to the world to be a senseless courage, a foolish daring. He is very much afraid; he wants to make the world think he is not afraid; he has been told to put up a bold front--and men think him rash and adventurous. He is not--he is only trying to keep you from seeing how scared he is.

In the campaign of 1898 a young man with all of these qualities, and gifted with considerable oratorical power, was seeking an opportunity to get a little hearing. He had just graduated from college, had opened a law office, had never had the shadow or substance of a client, but he had that fresh confidence and the ability back of it which the world neglects until, finally, it is forced to accept it.

I secured for him an invitation to make some speeches in a neighboring State. He was delighted. He went, but returned wounded in spirit by the heedlessness of the State Committee and the indifference of the men of prominence who had refused to notice him. And yet the fine courage that dared take part in the great struggle just beginning was a quality which was more valuable to his party and to the world and to humanity, than all of the schemes of the men who rejected him.

It is this courage constantly injected into the veins of the world which, little by little, is lifting mankind up to a more and still more endurable estate. I shall never be able to perform a higher service than to light again, as I did, the fires of his confidence and young daring.

Let the world not suppose that by encouraging these great qualities of youth which it now heedlessly represses, and only too often kills, it will spoil the young man. The intrinsic difficulties of life are great enough to keep him within bounds, no matter how much encouragement he receives. The very nature of things, and the constitution of society as he comes to examine it in its concrete manifestations, will chasten his illusions.

The rarity of the air as he mounts upward in life will weight his wings at last. The limitations of Nature and of affairs will in themselves be all the chastisement he needs to correct abnormal hope, courage, faith, or honor--yes, even more than enough. Let the world, then--the men and women who have won their places in life--let them nourish the enthusiasms and the elemental "illusions" of youth wherever they see them.

After all, they are not illusions; they are the only true things in this universe. The houses that men construct will in time decay. The remorseless elements will rot the noblest trees down to the earth from which they grew. The laws that men make will lose their force and be succeeded by other statutes, equally temporary and futile. Reputations men build will vanish almost before they are made. Civilizations they erect will pass from their flowering into the seeds of future civilizations and be forgotten, too.

But the "illusions" with which the young man confronts the world at the beginning of his career are as everlasting as God's word: "Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one little shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled." The "illusions" of the young man--of the young American particularly--are the manifestations of that law, the eternal law of the eternal verities.

"The lyrical dream of the boy is the kingly truth. The world is a vapor and only the Vision is real-- Yea, nothing can hold against hell but the Winged Ideal."

Let the world look to it, then, that the exalted qualities of youth which make it indiscreet, audacious, exhilarant--yes, and spotless, too--be not discouraged, repressed, destroyed; for these qualities are "the salt of the earth; but if the salt have lost its savor, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men."

Speaking to the world of business and of society, I therefore plead for tolerance of all the fresh, clean, high, and splendid--absurd, if you will--"illusions" of the young man seeking his seat at the table where all men eat, and where all, at the end, must drink the same hemlock cup.

For if these "illusions" are destroyed and replaced with the wisdom of the serpent, Tennyson's "Locksley Hall" will, sure enough and in sad reality, be replaced by the "Locksley Hall Sixty Years After." Take the young man, then, by the hand, take him to your heart, and, instead of destroying, catch, if you can, some of the glory, the faith, the freshness, the "illusions" of his youth; remembering that Wordsworth uttered an ultimate note when he said:

"Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting; The soul that rises with us, our life's star, Hath had elsewhere its setting, And cometh from afar. Not in entire forgetfulness, And not in utter nakedness, But trailing clouds of glory, do we come From God, who is our home."

And it is these clouds of glory that still surround the young man when he stands brave and sweet and full of faith, and with his mother's precious precepts and counsels ringing in his ears, before the great old world, wrinkled by its infinite centuries.

But you, young man, you for whom I am asking the world's helpful regard--when you read this do not go to pitying yourself. That is fatal. Do not get the notion that the world is not giving you your just due. If you have such an idea, thrust it instantly from you. If you think the world has downed you, up and at it again. If, a second time, it knocks you out, still up and at it again. And keep smiling. Never whine--you deserve defeat if you do that.

Be a "thoroughbred," as the expression of the hour has it. After "you conquer and prevail," you will find that the world has a kindly and even a loving heart. All you have to do is to keep in condition and keep fighting. And that ought to be pleasant to any male creature--what more can he want? Just go right ahead with faith in God, believing in all the virtues and keeping up your nerve. But if you get to pitying yourself, you are lost, and ought to be.

Furthermore, do not succumb to the fiction that there are fewer "chances" for young men now than there used to be. Never was there a period when there were so many opportunities as there are this very day--high-grade opportunities. They are for high-grade men--and that is what you are, is it not? If not, why not? The calls for men of fine equipment daily rise from every business, and are never satisfied.

And these calls are for young men, too. Indeed, it is not the young man, but the old and middle-aged man who has the right to complain. The exactions of modern business are discriminating in favor of the man under forty. There are calls for all kinds of men. But the fiercest demand is for first-class men. You have only to be a first-class man in order to be sought for by scores of firms and corporations--and on your own terms. No! it is not the fact that there are no chances for young men to-day. The chances are all around you.