Young Men

CHAPTER V.. Other Conditions of Success 32

Other Conditions of Success 32

INTRODUCTION.

Several years ago a man, now venerable for age and character, gave the writer some valuable hints about boys and young men in relation to business. He had himself begun life a poor boy, and achieved large success. Coming to New York more than sixty years ago, he was familiar with all the changes in methods of doing business up to the time then present. Nor has he ceased to be active in the affairs of a large concern at this later day. The passing years have made him old and have not left me young. The thoughts he gave me, supplemented by my own reading, observation and reflection, move me to set down some things that may be helpful not only to the classes of persons already referred to, but to others as well.

The great change in business methods does not warrant any change in the characters and habits of those who have a right to expect success in any true meaning of the word.

I would gladly speak a helpful word to the thousands of boys and young men who are looking hopefully into the future, and yet may not have in mind the true conditions of well-doing for themselves or their employers.

Boys and Young Men in Relation to Business.

CHAPTER I.. _boys._

BOYS.

If there were no boys there would be no young men and no old men. To this truism add the saying, “The boy is the father of the man,” and our subject has dignity and greatness at the outset. There may be aspects of it that provoke merriment; but there are more of a different character, and we are kept sober-minded in view of them.

The boy on shipboard is the “monkey.” The boy among types and presses is the “printer’s devil.” The boy at school is “Jack,” or “Bill,” or “Dick,” “hail-fellow well met,” and a peer among peers. The boy in college, if any boys go to college, is a “Freshman,” bound—if not happily emancipated of late—to serve the learned “Sophomore,” or take a ducking, or something worse, for his disobedience.

In business the boy is just what his character, his companions and his employers make of him. He may be a butt of ridicule, or a greenhorn to be ripened into smartness and wickedness by those who are older and wiser and worse than himself. He may be a poor drudge, to sweep and run of errands, which may be all right; or to suffer untold indignities and cruelties, with no uplifting to a better future and very little pay for very much work, which is all wrong.

Or, by way of contrast, he may be treated from the start as having in him the germ of real greatness, the undeveloped qualities of a man yet to be acknowledged as the peer of those he serves, and the possible superior of them all. No one but God knows what may be hid and struggling for opportunity and recognition and reward in the obscurest little fellow who takes the lowest place in any store or office or shop.

CHAPTER II.. _employers in Relation to Boys._

EMPLOYERS IN RELATION TO BOYS.

I do not think the first thing to be considered is what a boy may do for his employers, but rather what they may do for him, and so, at last, for themselves through him. In all ordinary circumstances they can mould him to their will. They are the masters, he is the servant. They are strong, he is weak. If they do not recognize their obligation to him, in the relation to which they invite and receive him, they ought not to complain of his failures in duty to them. As well expect a son to know and meet his duties to his parents while they utterly fail to recognize theirs to him.

If an employer requires a boy to do what in his home or the sanctuary he has learned he must not do, and if he requires him to do the forbidden thing on pain of losing his place or his pay, the requirement is not only a grievous wrong in itself, but an outrage upon the inalienable rights of the boy. Children are required to obey their parents only “in the Lord.” No man is great enough to lord it over his own child’s conscience. And this great principle holds in the relation of employers to their servants of all ages and grades.

Boys sell their time and service to their masters. They cannot sell their conscience, soul, and body. They must do right if they lose a thousand places in succession and starve to death for want of work. I can think of no persecution more cruel and infamous than that which is practised upon boys just starting on their career for life, here and hereafter, when they are required to practise deceit; to say things that are not true about goods to be sold, or in any other way to debauch conscience. The penalty of disobedience may be sending them home to widowed mothers or orphaned sisters without recommendation to any other place of business. This is martyrdom with a vengeance, and it is by no means uncommon. I have in mind glaring instances that have come under my own observation. A man now belonging to an old and wealthy business house was thrust out of his place when a youth because he refused to sell goods damaged in a vital though hidden part as goods in perfect order.

Another, in a position of great responsibility and usefulness for a number of years in a heathen land, when a boy served his employer faithfully six days in the week, and was required to sell his goods on the Sabbath. His conscience forbade this and he was discharged, with very serious consequences for a time.

These are specimens of classes. But it is always safe and wise for boys firmly and respectfully to resist human authority in all such cases.

There is another great wrong to boys, to wit, leaving them at the mercy of subordinates who hold positions grading all the way from those held by the boys themselves, to those just below the high positions of the employers. I have seen something of this petty tyranny; good boys harried into desperation or pushed and badgered into immoralities and the loss of self-respect.

Happy are the boys who go from their homes to the care of good men, and to the companionship of co-workers who help them to success by instruction and example.

CHAPTER III.. _boys in Relation to Employers._

BOYS IN RELATION TO EMPLOYERS.

Thus far I have written some plain things about employers in relation to boys. With equal plainness I now write of boys in relation to their employers.

Clearly they must always do right even if the stars fall. It is weak and contemptible to be eye-servants, showing all diligence in the presence of employers, but lapsing into idleness, carelessness or mischief when they disappear. In the long run boys that always do right will do well. The hearts of their employers can safely trust in them. If for no higher reason than their own interests they will advance them from one position to another of responsibility and emolument.

But other reasons will prevail. Personal attachments will be formed. Men of business are commonly men of heart. They have sons of their own and cannot help admiring the excellencies of other people’s sons. It is not uncommon to hear them boast of the virtues of boys employed by them. Some time ago I was in an office and within a few moments two gentlemen of the firm called my attention to a lad who was moving quietly about, absorbed in the duties of his calling. They spoke with great interest of his fidelity and efficiency in relation to them; of his great self-denial in order to minister to the comfort of his family; and of his brilliant prospects.

There is a proverb as true as when written, “A wise servant shall have rule over a son that causeth shame, and shall have part of the inheritance among the brethren.” There is another which is not infrequently verified, and suggests a very pleasant way in which boys grown to manhood sometimes share in the “inheritance among the brethren;” it is this: “He that delicately bringeth up his servant from a child shall have him become his son at length.”

Again, boys must give their best thought and energies in business hours to the interests of their employers. Nor should they forget or in any way endanger those interests out of business hours. They are in and of the concern. They represent it. Its reputation attaches to them and theirs to it. It may be amusing, but it is pleasant, and suggestive of a bright future, to hear a boy just beginning his business life speaking loftily of “our house.” He belongs to its personnel. His life mingles with its life. It is for his interest to give much thought, at all proper times, to the duties of his station. If, by extra labor adding to his qualifications for business, he can become more useful than he was expected or is required to be, he may cut off weary months and even years that must otherwise lie between him and higher service and better pay. I knew a boy who in this way passed over the heads of several older than himself, and in early manhood fairly won a position which others never reached. As a rule, I think boys may count on being promoted when they have outgrown the places which they wish to leave. If they can sweep stores and set things in order better than others, and run of errands with swifter feet, and acquaint themselves with streets and places of business quicker than others, they will not have to do these things for a long time. Higher service awaits them, and they will find that the habits of thoroughness and dispatch already formed are worth more and more as they advance to higher and more responsible positions.

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