HOW TO WIN SUCCESS.
May 27, 1888.
I wish to speak to you to-day about some of the plainest duties of life—of what you must be, of what you must do, if you would be good men and succeed.
It would be strange if one who has lived as long as I have should not have learned something worth knowing and worth telling to those who are younger and less experienced. I have had much to do with young people here and elsewhere, and I have seen many failures, much disappointment, many wrecks of character, and have learned many things; and I speak to you to-day in the hope that I may say such things as will help some boy, at least one, to determine, while he is here this morning, to do the best he can, each for himself, as well as for others. My remarks are particularly appropriate to those just about to leave the college.
It is convenient for me to consider the whole subject—
As to health.As to improvement of the mind.As to business or work of any kind.As to your duties to other people.As to your duty to God.
As to health. You cannot be happy without good health, and you cannot expect to have good health unless you observe certain conditions. You must keep your person cleanly by bathing, when that is within reach, or by other simple methods (such as a common brush) which are always within your reach. Be as much in the open air as possible. This is, of course, to those whose work is within doors and sedentary, such as that of a clerk in any shop or office. Pure, fresh air is Nature’s own provision for the well-being of all her creatures, and is the best of all tonics.
Be careful of your diet; for it is not good to eat food that is too highly seasoned or too rich. Don’t be afraid of fruit in season and when it is ripe. But don’t eat much late at night. Late hot suppers are apt to do great harm. The plain, wholesome food provided here, accounts for the extraordinarily good health which almost all of you enjoy.
Have nothing whatever to do with intoxicating drinks. And the only way to be absolutely safe is not to drink even a little, or once in a while. Don’t drink at all.
Be sure you get plenty of sleep. Be in bed not later than eleven o’clock, and, better still, at ten. A young fellow who goes to work at seven o’clock in the morning can’t afford to keep late hours. Youngpeople need more sleep than older ones, and you cannot safely disregard this hint. Late hours are always more or less injurious, especially when you are away from home or in the streets. Beware of the temptations of the streets and at the theatres.
As to public entertainments or recreations in the evening, go to no place of seeing or hearing where you would not be willing to take your mother or sister. If you keep to this rule you are not likely to be hurt. If you play games, avoid billiard saloons, and gambling houses, or parties. You cannot be too careful about your recreations; let them be simple and healthful as to mind and body, and cheap.
Have no personal habits, such as smoking, or chewing, or spitting, or swearing, or others that are injurious to yourselves or disagreeable to other people. All these are either injurious or disagreeable. Have clean hands and clean clothes, not while you are at work—this is not always possible—but when going and coming to and from work.
Always give place to women in the streets, in street-cars, or in other places. Do not rush into street-cars first to get seats. A true gentleman will wait until women get in before he goes. Do not sit in street-cars, while women are standing, unless you are very, very tired. Here is a temptation before you every day almost in our city. Hardly anything is more trying than to see sturdy boys sitting in cars while women are standing and holding on to straps.And yet I see this every day. What is a boy good for, that will not stand for a few minutes, if he can give a woman or an old man a seat?
If you are so favored as to have a few days or two weeks holiday in summer, go to the country or to the sea-shore, if your means will allow. The country air or sea air is better for you than almost any other change.
Do not be extravagant in dress; but be well dressed—not, however, at your tailor’s expense. It is the duty of all to be well dressed, but don’t spend all your money on dress, and especially don’t buy clothing on credit. It is particularly trying to pay for clothing when it is nearly or quite worn out. By all means keep out of debt, for your personal or family expenses, unless you are sure beyond any doubt that you can very soon repay your dealer the money you owe. The difference between ease and comfort, and distress, in money matters, is whether you spend a little more than you make, or a little less than you make. Don’t forget the “rainy day” that is pretty sure to come, and you must lay up something for that day.
Very much of the crime that is committed every day (and you cannot open a paper without seeing an account of some one who has gone wrong) is because people will live beyond their means; will spend more than they earn. They hope for an increase of pay, or that they will make money in some way or other,and then when that good time does not come, and as they can’t afford to wait for it, they take something, only borrowing it as they say, but they take it and spend it, or pay some pressing debt with it, and then, and then—they are caught, and sent to court, and tried and sent to—well, you know without my telling you.
As to the mind.
You have fine opportunities for education here, but they will soon be over, and if you leave this college without having a good knowledge of the practical branches of study pursued here, and which Mr. Girard especially enjoined should be taught, you will be at a great disadvantage with other boys who are well educated. I had a letter in my pocket a few days ago written by a Girard boy, and dated in the Moyamensing Prison, full of bad spelling and bad grammar; and next to the horror of knowing he was in prison, I felt ashamed, that a boy so ignorant of the very commonest branches of English education should have ever been within the walls of this college.
I think I have told you before of a man who employs a large number of men, whose business amounts to perhaps hundreds of thousands of dollars in a year, who is entirely ignorant of accounts, and who a few years ago was robbed and almost ruined by his book-keeper, and who would now give half of what he is worth, and that is a good deal, if he couldunderstand book-keeping; for he is entirely dependent upon other people to keep his accounts.
As to books, be careful what you read. How it grieves me to see errand boys in street-cars, and sometimes as they walk in the streets, reading such stuff as is found in the dime novels. Not merely a waste of time, though that is bad enough, but a positive injury to the mind, filling it with the most improbable stories, and often, also, with that which is positively vicious. Read something better than this. Do not confine yourselves to newspapers, and do not read police reports. Attractive as this class of reading is, it is for the most part hurtful to the young mind. There is an abundance of cheap and good reading, magazines and periodicals; and books and books, good, bad, indifferent; and you will hardly know which to choose unless you ask others who are older than you, and who know books. Most boys read little but novels; and there are many thoroughly good novels, humorous, and pathetic, and historical. Don’t buy books unless you have plenty of money; for you can get everything you want out of the public libraries; and this was not so, or at least to this extent, when I was a boy.
As to work or business.
Set out with the determination that you will be faithful in everything. Only last week a Girard boy called on me to help him get employment. I asked him some questions, and he told me that he had beenout of the college five or six years, and had five or six situations. Do you think he had been faithful in anything? If he had been, he would not have lost place after place. When you get a place, and I hope every one of you will have a place provided for you before you leave here, be among the first to arrive in the morning, and be among the last to leave at the end of the day’s work. Do not let any fascination of base ball or anything else lead you to forget that your first duty is to your employer. Be quick to answer every call. Don’t say to yourself, “It is not my place to answer that call, it is the other boy’s place,” but go yourself, if the other fellow is slow, and let it be seen that you are ready for any work. And be very prompt to answer. Do whatever you are told. Say “yes, sir,” “no, sir” with hearty good-will, and say “good-morning” as if you meant it. In short, do not be slovenly in anything you have to do; be alive, and remember all the time that no labor is degrading.
Be sure to treat your employers with unfailing respect, and your fellow-clerks or workers, whether superiors, inferiors or equals, with hearty good-will.
Do not tell lies directly or indirectly, for even if your employer do so, he will despise you for doing so. No matter if he is untruthful, he will respect you if you tell the truth always. Do not indulge in or listen to impure talk. No real gentleman does this, and you can be a real gentleman even if youare poor, for you will be educated. Make yourself indispensable to your employer; this, too, is quite possible, and it will almost certainly insure success. Be ambitious in the highest sense. Remember, that if not now, you will hereafter have others dependent upon you for support or help. It is a splendid thing for a boy to go out from this college with the determination to support his mother; and some that I know and you know are doing this, and many others will do it.
I pause here to say that, so far, my words have been spoken as to your duties to the world, to yourselves. I have supposed that you boys would rather be bosses than journeymen, that you would rather own teams than drive them for other people, that you would rather be a contractor than carry the pick and shovel, that you would rather be a bricklayer than carry the hod, that you would rather be a house-builder than a shoveler of coal into the house-builder’s cellar. Is it not so?
Now, I say that if you should do everything I tell you, and avoid everything I have warned you against, you cannot succeed in the best sense, you cannot become true men, such men as the city has a right to expect you to be, unless you seek the blessing of God; for he holds all things in his hands. “The silver and the gold are mine, and the cattle upon a thousand hills.” If God be for us, who can be against us?
In these closing words, then, I would speak to you as to your duty to God.
What shall I say about this? I can hardly tell you anything that you do not already know, so often have you been talked to about this subject. But nothing is so important for you to be reminded of, though I fear that to some of you hardly anything is so uninteresting. Naturally the heart is disinclined to think of God and our duty to him. But we cannot do without him, though many people think they can, or they act as if they thought so. Such people are not wise; they are very foolish.
He made us, he preserves us, he cares for us with infinite love and care, he has appointed the time for our departure from this life, and he has prepared a better life than this for those who love him here. We cannot afford to disregard such a being as this, for all things are in his hands. If you will think of it, some of the best men and women you know are believers in God, and are trying to serve him. Do you think you can do without him?
Cultivate, then, the companionship, the friendship of those who love and fear God, both men and women. You are safe with such; you are not quite so sure of safety in the society of those who openly say they can do without God. When I speak of those who fear God, I do not mean merely professors of religion, not merely members of meeting or members of church, but I mean people who live such lives aspeople ought to live, who fear God and keep his commandments. You know there are such, you have met with them, you will meet many more of them, and you will meet also those who call themselves Christians, but whose lives show that they have no true knowledge of God, who are mere formalists, mere professors.
Become acquainted with your Bible. I mean, read it, a little of it at least, every day. You need not read much, it is well sometimes that you read but a little; but read it with a purpose—that is, to understand it. The literature of the Bible as you grow older will abundantly repay your careful and constant reading even before you reach its spiritual treasuries. In reading a few days ago the argument of Horace Binney, Esq., in the Girard will case, I was surprised to see how familiar Mr. Binney was with the Bible, and he was one of the ablest lawyers that has ever lived in our own or any other country. Yet Mr. Binney thought it quite worth his while to read and study the Bible. Don’t you think it is worth your while also?
Be a regular attendant at some church. I do not say what church it shall be. That must be left to yourselves to determine, and many circumstances will arise to aid you in your choice. But let it be some church, and, when you become more interested in the subject than you are now, join that church, whatever it may be, and so connect yourselves withpeople who believe in and love God. If there be a Bible class there, connect yourselves with it, and so learn to study the Scriptures systematically.
Do not be ashamed to kneel at your bedside every night and every morning and pray to God. You are not so likely to be ashamed if you have a room to yourself; but you must not be ashamed to do this even if there are others in the room with you, as will be the case with many of you. This is a severe test, I know, but he who bears it faithfully will already have gained a victory.
Commit to memory the fifteenth verse of the twelfth chapter of the Gospel according to St. Luke: “Take heed and beware of covetousness, for a man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of the things he possesseth.”
On last Monday, Founder’s Day, there were gathered here many men, a great company, who were trained in this college, and who, after graduation, went out into the world to seek their fortune. It is always a most interesting time, not only for them but for the teachers and officers who have had charge of them.
Some of them are successful men in the highest and best sense, and have made themselves a name and a place in the world. Bright young lawyers, clerks, mechanics, railroad men—men representing almost all kinds of business and occupations—came here in great numbers to celebrate the anniversary of the birth of the Founder of this great school. It wasa grand sight. Hardly anything impresses me more. I do not know their names; for many of them had left before I began to come here; but from certain expressions that fell from the lips of some of them I am persuaded that they, at least, are walking in the truth.
It would be very interesting if we could know their thoughts, and see with what feelings they look back on their school-life. I wonder if any of them regret that they did not make a better use of their time while here. I wonder if any feel that they would like to become boys again and go to school over again, being sure that, with their present experience of life, they would set a higher value on the education of the schools. I wonder if any feel that they would have reached higher positions and secured a larger influence if they had been more diligent at school. I wonder if there are any who can trace evil habits of thought to the companions they had here. I wonder if any are aware of evil impressions which they made on their classmates and so cast a stain and a dark shadow on other young lives, stains never obliterated, shadows never wholly lifted. I wonder if there are any among them who regret that the opportunity of seeking God and finding God in their school-days was neglected, and who have never had so favorable an opportunity since. “If some who come back here on these commemoration days were to tell you all their thoughts on such subjects,they would be eloquent with a peculiar eloquence.”
I wish I could persuade you, especially you larger boys, to give most earnest attention to the duties which lie before you every day. You will not misunderstand me, nor be so unjust to me as to suppose that I would interfere in the least degree with the pleasures which belong to your time of life. I would not lessen them in the least; on the contrary, I would encourage you, and help you in all proper recreation, in all sports and plays. The boy who does not enjoy play is not a happy boy, and is not very likely to make a happy man, or a useful man. But it is quite possible, as some of you know, to enjoy in the highest degree all healthful sports, and at the same time to be industrious and conscientious in your studies. I am deeply concerned that the boys in this college shall be boys of the best, the highest type; that they “shall walk in the truth.” There are, alas, many boys who have gone through this college, and fully equipped (as well as their teachers could equip them), have been launched out into life and come to naught. I do not know their names nor do you, probably, though you do not doubt the fact.
Whatever others say, who speak to you here, I want to discharge my duty to you as faithfully as I can. I know some of the difficulties of life, for they have been in my path. I know some of the fiercetemptations to which boys and young men are exposed, for I have felt these assaults in my own person. I know what it is to sin against God, for I am a sinner; so, with my sympathies quick towards you, I come with these plain, earnest words, and I urge you to look up to God, and ask him to help you. He can help you, and he will, if you ask him.