CHAPTER VIIBe Studious

“It’s the boys to shape the path for men,Boys to guide the plow and pen,Boys to forward the task begun,For the world’s great task is never done.“It’s the boys who’ll work that are neededIn sanctum or office or shop,Remembering the low lands are crowdedBut there’s room for the industrious, on top.”

“It’s the boys to shape the path for men,Boys to guide the plow and pen,Boys to forward the task begun,For the world’s great task is never done.

“It’s the boys to shape the path for men,

Boys to guide the plow and pen,

Boys to forward the task begun,

For the world’s great task is never done.

“It’s the boys who’ll work that are neededIn sanctum or office or shop,Remembering the low lands are crowdedBut there’s room for the industrious, on top.”

“It’s the boys who’ll work that are needed

In sanctum or office or shop,

Remembering the low lands are crowded

But there’s room for the industrious, on top.”

CHAPTER VIIBe Studious

INTRODUCTION TO CHAPTER VII

By George S. Cull

The boy who would be an intelligent and wise man needs to be studious. What may now seem irksome employment will prove a delight in after years. Through study he will not be a burden to himself, nor will “his society be,” as Seneca said, “insupportable to others.”

Study whenever and wherever you can. Pliny in one of his Letters relates how he used spare moments. “Sometimes I hunt; but even then I carry with me a pocket-book, that whilst my servants are busied in disposing of nets and other matters, I may be employed in something that may be useful to me in my studies; and that if I miss of my game, I may at least bring home some of my thoughts with me, and not have the mortification of having caught nothing.”

In choosing subjects you will not have to combat with the difficulties our forefathers met, for in these days of cheap paper and cheap printing the whole world of literature is open to you. But here, my lad, let me warn you against the worthless, the pernicious trash with which the literary market is flooded.

Study history with its descriptions of growth and decay of nations; science with its marvels and recent revelations, biographies of good and great men and nature whose pages are always open to view. Study everything which will lead you to look higher and feel nobler.

G. S. Cull.

CHAPTER VIIBe Studious

The impression that study is only for those who attend school is decidedly wrong. If carried into practice it would prove disastrous to one’s success. There is no period in life when one can afford to be otherwise than studious. Had Henry Clay after learning to write by filling a box with sand and tracing letters with a pointed stick, or had young Daniel Webster, after plucking his pen out of the wings of his mother’s pet goose and making ink out of the soot scraped from the fireplace, ceased to go farther, their names as great speakers and writers would not be known.

John Quincy Adams was considered the most learned man of his day. When his parents intended to keep him in school, he plead so earnestly to leave that they gave him his choice between two things, work on the farm or school. John said he thought he would work and he was therewith assigned with other help in ditching. After working three days he became weary of his job and coming to his father said: “Father, if you are willing I guess I’ll go back to school.” In after life he confessed, “If I have accomplished anything as a scholar, I owe it to those three days’ work in the abominable ditch.”

General Lew Wallace, according to his own words, was a poor student in his young manhood. He grewtired of his college course after six weeks, and returned home. Calling him into his office, his father took from a pigeonhole in his desk a package of papers neatly folded and tied with red tape. These were the receipts for his tuition. After reading the items the father said, “That sum represents what I have expended to provide you with a good education. After mature reflection I have come to the conclusion that I have done for you, in that direction, all that can reasonably be expected of any parent; and I have, therefore, called you in to tell you that you have now reached an age when you must take up the lines yourself. If you have failed to profit by the advantages with which I have tried so hard to surround you, the responsibility must be yours. I shall not upbraid you for your neglect, but rather pity you for your indifference which you have shown to the golden opportunities you have been enabled to enjoy through my indulgence.”

Lew left the office thinking. The next day he set out with a determination to accomplish something for himself. He secured employment of the County Clerk to copy the records of the courts. For months he worked in a dingy, half-lighted room, receiving as compensation ten cents per hundred words. The tediousness and regularity of the work was a splendid drill besides teaching him the virtue of persistence as one of the avenues of success. He had a desire to become a lawyer, but realizing his deficiency in education he was compelled to study evenings. “I was made to realize,” said he, “the time I had spent with such lavish prodigality could not be recovered, and that I must extract every possible good out of the golden moments then flying by all too fast.” This he did until “Ben Hur,” one of the greatest books ever published, show how well he did it.

WHAT IT IS.

To be studious is to be ambitious, to excel, to be anxious for the acquisition of such knowledge as will be beneficial. From any source it will be gathered as the bee gathers honey from any flower. “Drink deep or taste not the Pierian spring of knowledge,” wrote an eminent poet. “Study chiefly,” said Lord Bacon to Cecil, “what you can turn to good account in your future life.” James Russell Lowell once counselled his nephew, “A man is valuable in our day for what he knows, and his company will be always desired by others in exact proportion to the amount of intelligence and instruction he brings with him.” William E. Gladstone in counselling boys said, “Get all the knowledge you can.” And Theodore Roosevelt declared, “Shiftlessness, slackness, indifference to studying are all most certain to mean inability to get on in other walks of life.”

A boy accompanied an old hunter through the woods in search of game. Suddenly a partridge whirred from before their feet. The huntsman with steady nerve, quick eye and calculating brain brought the bird down at the first shot. “How could you aim so quickly?” the lad inquired. “I didn’t wait till I got into the woods to learn,” was his chaffing reply. He had done what Stone, the author of “The Mathematical Dictionary” did when perusing scientific works while aiding his father, who was gardener to the Duke of Argyll, had done; what David Livingstone did before he became Africa’s explorer, while in the old Blantyre cotton works with a Latin grammar on his spinning jenny; had done, what Ezra Cornell did before he built a two-story dwelling for his father’s family when only seventeen years of age; had done, what Henry Clay did with“these off-hand efforts” as he called his speeches in the corn field before he stirred the country with his orations,—made careful preparation beforehand.

What one will be in manhood depends largely on what he is in boyhood. The loftiest attainments are nothing more than fruits of earnest study. There is no perfection, no great excellence without great labor. “It is the deepest soil,” said Dewey, “that yields not only the richest fruits, but the fairest flowers; it is the most solid body which is not only the most useful, but which admits of the highest polish and brilliancy; it is the strongest pinion which not only carries the greatest burden, but which soars to the highest flight.” It is the best education which fits a person for a responsible position. If a man succeeds who has had no education he does so in spite of his misfortune and not by reason of it. Dickens owed less to education than probably any literary man. He was not in school two years in his whole life, but he was a genius by right divine. Few are so richly endowed, hence “a good education is a young man’s best capital.”

He was called the dunce. His teacher would stand him apart from his class, for he could not or would not learn. One day a gentleman came into the room and seeing the lad standing, inquired the reason. “Oh, he is good for nothing,” replied the teacher. “There’s nothing in him. I can make nothing out of him. He is the most stupid boy in the school.” The gentleman was stirred to pity. Going to him, he placed his hand on the head of the humiliated lad and said, “One of these days, you may be a fine scholar. Don’t give up, but try, my boy, try.” The boy’s soul was aroused. His dormant intellect awoke. A new purpose was formed. Clinching his teeth, he said, “I will.” From that hourhe became ambitious and studious. He became a great scholar, an author of a well-known commentary on the Bible, and was beloved and honored by many. This dunce was the celebrated Adam Clarke.

The same was true of others. Isaac Newton was kicked by the brightest boy in the school because he was the most ignorant, but he said, “Never mind, I’ll repay him by beating him in my studies.” After a long time of earnest effort he did it. Oliver Goldsmith in his boyhood was very stupid, but he resolved to surprise his fellow students, and this he did by writing that popular book, the “Traveller.” Sir Walter Scott was nicknamed the “blockhead” when a student, but he declared, “I’ll make them change it,” and change it they did. Through close study he attained such eminence that he was afterward styled, “The Wizard of the North.” Sir William Jones, the greatest scholar of Europe, was not a bright student. He was put into a class beyond his years, and where all the scholars had the advantage in that they had previous instruction that had been denied him. The teacher accused him of dullness, and all his efforts could not raise him from the foot of the class. He was not daunted. Procuring for himself grammars and other elementary text books, which the rest of the class had gone through in private terms, he devoted the hours of play, and some of the hours of sleep, to the mastering of them. By this he soon shot ahead of his fellow pupils, and became the leader of the class and the pride of Harrow School. Dean Stanley was declared by Mr. Rawson, his schoolmaster, to be the stupidest boy at figures who ever came under his care, save only one, who was yet more hopeless, and was unable to grasp simple addition and multiplication, yet Arthur Stanley rose like a rocket at Rugby, achieved fame in Oxford and became a blessing to mankind. The other developed a phenomenal mastery of arithmetic. Yearsafter he would make a budget speech of three hours’ length and full of figures. He is known throughout the world as William E. Gladstone.

Boys of studious mind may achieve an education if they desire. It may not be such as will enable them to secure a diploma from a college, but such as will make them successful and useful. All should strive for a college education. It is an investment, the returns of which in after years will be worth more and may do more than gold. Kitto, who was one of the greatest Biblical scholars in the world, receiving from the University of Geissen the degree of Doctor of Divinity, craved for the greatest knowledge of his day. Notwithstanding his affliction of deafness he begged his drunken father to take him from the poor-house and let him struggle for an education. Said he, “I know how to stop hunger. Hottentots live a long time on nothing but gum. Sometimes when hungry they tie a band around their bodies. Let me go. I can do as they do. There are blackberries and nuts in the hedges, and turnips in the fields and hay-ricks for a bed. Let me go.” And go he did with the already mentioned result.

Should circumstances, however, prevent a college education, every boy should use the margins of time in reading books and studying principles until he attains a cultured mind. Reading is one of the great means of education, and whether it be a blessing or curse, depends on what is read. By reading one communes with the mightiest and wisest minds. Great men have usually been great readers. Abraham Lincoln and James A. Garfield used to read and study lying flat upon the floor before the fire. Hugh Miller, after working from early morn to night as a stone-mason, managed to findtime after his hours of work to read every good book he could secure, pondering over them during the day. In this way he became eminent as a scholar, and when the time came in Scotland’s history that some man should plead for her ecclesiastical freedom from State domination, Hugh Miller stepped to the front, though until he was thirty-three years old he was nothing more than a studious stone-mason.

To remember what one reads is of great importance. It is not the amount of matter read but the amount remembered. Lord Macaulay always stopped at the foot of each page and gave a verbal account of what he read. Said he, “At first I had to read it three or four times before I got my mind firmly fixed. But I compelled myself to comply with the plan, until now, after I have read a book once through, I can almost recite it from beginning to end. It is a very simple habit to form early in life, and is valuable as a means of making our reading serve the best purpose.”

Granville Sharp was only an apprentice to a linen draper in London. To know the exact meaning of the Scriptures he mastered the Greek and Hebrew languages. A poor lame and almost blind African who had been cured by his brother’s medical skill was recognized on the streets of the metropolis by his old master and claimed as a slave. Granville resolved that the negro shall never more be in bondage. But what can he do? Slavery was then a legal right. Lord Chief Justice Mansfield was of the opinion that a slave did not become free by coming to England. Granville Sharp soon decided on his course. For two years he read and memorized law. Then came the tract from his pen, “Injustice of Tolerating Slavery in England,” which changed the mind of Mansfield and eventually made the slave-trade of England illegal.

Every boy should study by concentrating his mind.The reason of so much ignorance is not through a lack of educational facilities, but lack of will force and mental force to master a subject in hand. Many a boy commits his lessons parrot-like, with little or no disposition to understand thewhysandwherefores, while another studies and inquires until he comprehends thereasonof all that he learns. The result is, one masters his study, the other is mastered by his study. When Sir Isaac Newton was asked “how he had discovered the true system of the universe” he replied, “By continually thinking upon it.”

Every boy should study with eyes open. The inspired penman declared, “The wise man’s eyes are in his head,” not in his elbows or feet, though multitudes act as if they were. But “in his head,” just where they ought to be. In other words, the “wise man” is a careful observer; he possesses this faculty of comprehending the nature and reason of things. Not that observation alone insures success but this is one of the leading, indispensable elements of it.

Professor Morse, who was judge of pottery at the World’s Fair, Chicago, being asked to what he attributed his knowledge, answered, “To the habits of close inspection acquired in my boyhood when collecting shells.” General Sherman explains his victorious march to the sea by saying that during his college days he spent a summer in Georgia. While his companions were occupied with playing cards and foolish talk the young soldier tramped over the hills, made a careful map of the country and years later his expert knowledge won the victory.

Many persons go through life without an observation that is educative. Ten men will observe a steam engine only to admire its novelty, one studies each valveand screw until he understands the principle on which it is constructed. Ten travelers will pass through the country without noticing special peculiarities, one observes each tree, flower, hill, valley and river. Ten readers will skim over a book, catching only its general drift, one criticises style, expression and thought and is rapt with its beauties and sensitive to its faults. These are they who profit themselves and benefit others.

Every boy should study by utilizing the moments. As success in business depends upon the small margin of profit secured and retained, rather than upon the large volume done, so success in life may depend upon our ability to save the moments, the precious “margin” that is left after we have done the things which are necessary in order to discharge our duties or earn our daily bread.

Dr. Cotton Mather would express his regret after the departure of a visitor who had wasted his time, “I would rather have given my visitor a handful of money than have been kept so long out of my study.” Cæsar, it is said, would not permit a campaign, however exacting, to deprive him of minutes when he could write his Commentaries. Schliemann standing in line at the post-office and waiting for his letters when a boy, saved the fragments of time by studying Greek from a pocket grammar. Heine, the noted classicist of Germany, while shelling peas with one hand for dinner, held his book in the other. Matthew Hale’s “Contemplations” was composed while he was traveling as circuit judge. Henry Kirke White learnt Greek while walking to and from a lawyer’s office. Elihu Burritt is said to have mastered eighteen languages and twenty-two dialects by improving the fragments of time in his blacksmith’s shop. William E. Gladstone and Lord Lyttelton intheir younger days always carried one of the smaller classics in their pockets to read if they had a leisure moment. Sir James Paget, in his youth, made tables of Cuvier’s classifications while dressing, which he posted in his bedroom. Cardinal Manning, when an undergraduate at Oxford, acquired a satisfactory Italian vocabulary during the time spent in shaving. Phillips Brooks combined the processes of shaving and study, and, it is said that Theodore Roosevelt carries constantly a small volume of Plutarch or Thucydides to read in spare moments. Fifteen minutes thus saved, or utilized, four times a day, gives us thirty hours in a month, the working time of about sixty days of six hours each in a year, or about five years’ study in thirty years’ time, and five years well used yield more fruit than a whole lifetime squandered.

Every boy should study for the pleasure and profit there is in it. Knowledge is power, and sometime, somewhere, the information will come useful. When Sherman’s troops were passing through a critical experience during the Civil War, they captured a telegraph line of the enemy. Hastily cutting the wire, the General inquired if any of his men understood telegraphy. A young officer stepped forward saying, “One vacation I studied this art just for the pleasure of it.”

When Bishop Whipple came to Chicago to preach he was anxious to reach the many artisans and railway operatives. He called upon William McAlpine, the chief engineer of the Galena Railway, and asked his advice as to the best way of approaching the employes of the road. “How much do you know about a steam engine?” asked McAlpine. “Nothing.” “Then,” said McAlpine, “read ‘Lardner’s Railway Economy’ until you are able to ask an engineer a question about a locomotiveand he not think you a fool.” The clergyman had the practical sense to see the justice of that advice. So he “read up,” and in due season went to the round-house of the Galena Railway, where he found a number of engineers standing by a locomotive which the firemen were cleaning. He saw that it was a Taunton engine with inside connections, and asked, at a venture, “Which do you like best, inside or outside connections?” This brought out information about steam heaters and variable exhausts, and in half an hour he had learned more than his book had ever taught him. When he said good-by, he added: “Boys, where do you go to church? I have a free church in Metropolitan Hall, where I shall be glad to see you, and if at any time you need me, shall be glad to go to you.” The following Sunday every man was in church.

Years ago, when Mr. Gladstone was in active political service, he made some public addresses during a parliamentary recess that gave offence to the leaders of the opposite party. They thought it necessary to discipline him by what would be regarded as an official rebuke, when Parliament should reassemble. He was to be convicted of breach of courtesy and violation of constitutional rights. In due course the reprimand was administered. A Conservative statesman of distinction was set up to chastise the offending lion. He rejoiced as a strong man to run a race. A splendid audience was present to see the thing done properly, and the Conservative orator’s wife had taken with her a party of friends to the House of Commons to aid in swelling the triumph. Through a long speech Mr. Gladstone sat in silence. He was accused of ignorance of English history and disregard for the English Constitution, rightly so sacred to every Englishman. After midnight he arose to reply. For two hours he poured forth his matchless eloquence. Not a point had escaped him. Not afact or a sentiment of the arraignment had been overlooked or misplaced. He did not indulge in invective. He made no counter charges. He emptied out his stores of history. He unfolded and eulogized the provisions of the British Constitution. He left no loophole of retreat for his adversaries. He overwhelmed them with the fulness of his knowledge and his oratory, and routed them most ignominiously. The noble lady and her friends had no occasion to celebrate a triumph. Mr. Gladstone’s victory was largely due to his marvellous power of early study.

My boy, be studious. You will find sometime a market for everything you know. Be patient in your studies. If things do not seem clear, do not give up. A dull, hazy morning often turns out a bright day. Dryden would think for two weeks in the composition of one of his odes. There are few things which patient labor will not enable one to accomplish. Difficulties like spectres melt when approached. It is not one stroke of the axe that fells the tree, or one blow of the hammer that demolishes the rock, but the repetition. Study everything of advantage, but bend energy and mind mostly in the line of your life work. Study for what it will do for you. Study for what you can do for others, and never give up study.

“The boy that by addition grows,And suffers no subtraction;Who multiplies the thing he knows,And carries every fraction;Who well divides his precious time,The due proportions giving,To secure success aloft will climb,Interest compound receiving.”

“The boy that by addition grows,

And suffers no subtraction;

Who multiplies the thing he knows,

And carries every fraction;

Who well divides his precious time,

The due proportions giving,

To secure success aloft will climb,

Interest compound receiving.”

CHAPTER VIIIBe Temperate

INTRODUCTION TO CHAPTER VIII

By George W. Bain

Intoxicants are like anger, they make us strong,Blind and impatient, and they lead us wrong;The strength is quickly lost, we feel the error long.Crabb.

Intoxicants are like anger, they make us strong,

Blind and impatient, and they lead us wrong;

The strength is quickly lost, we feel the error long.

Crabb.

Temperance is reason’s girdle and passion’s bridle, the strength of the soul, and the foundation of virtue.

Jeremy Taylor.

In all the world there is not to be found an old man, who has been a total abstainer from intoxicating liquors through all his life, who regrets the rule he adopted and kept. Such a man was never heard to say: “I am sorry I did not learn to love wine, whiskey, ale, beer or brandy when I was young.” This is a very safe rule for young men, that has not a single exception in all the wide world. On the other hand, how many have said: “Drink has been my curse”? Take the pledge, boys, keep it, and you will find it a jewel in nature, a comfort through life, and a consolation in death.

Geo. W. Bain.

CHAPTER VIIIBe Temperate

One of the great curses, if not the greatest in our land, is intemperance. It is productive of murder, lawlessness and crime; the chief agency in the corruption of the ballot, legislation and administration of the law; the voracious consumer of purity, reputation and health, and the chief architect in establishing mad-houses, orphan asylums, prisons and county farms. It demands and controls annually more than a billion dollars by which bread, meat, clothing, shoes and sugar could be purchased for the poor, and all schools and Christian missions supported. In silver dollars this money could be laid side by side on the equator till it formed a band around the earth, while the liquor it purchased would fill a canal twenty feet wide, twenty feet deep and forty-six miles long. The grain alone used by distilleries in the manufacture of the destructive drink is fifty million bushels, enough to furnish three hundred one-pound loaves of bread to each family in the United States. No wonder that “ninety-nine of every hundred men,” as John B. Gough said, “are ruined morally, intellectually and religiously by the use of drink,” and that fifty of every hundred insane persons, seventy-five of every hundred prisoners, and ninety-six of every hundred tramps are made thus by this evil. Far better that every boy “touch not, taste not.” Longfellow said:

“It will make thy heart soreTo its very core!Its perfume is the breathOf the angel of death.And the light that within it liesIs the flash of his evil eyes.Beware! Oh, beware!For sickness, sorrow and careAre all there.”

“It will make thy heart sore

To its very core!

Its perfume is the breath

Of the angel of death.

And the light that within it lies

Is the flash of his evil eyes.

Beware! Oh, beware!

For sickness, sorrow and care

Are all there.”

In one of the older colleges in Massachusetts years ago, there was a boy of great promise, bearing an honored name, and concentrating in his own intellect the mental power of generations of ancestors. He was a prodigy in learning. He seized a language almost by intuition. His person was faultless; his hair like the raven’s wing, his eye like the eagle’s. On the day of his graduation he married a charming young lady. His profession, the law, led him to the highest office of advocacy in the State. He was Attorney General at an age when most students are admitted to the bar. Suddenly, when as yet no one knew the cause, he resigned his high appointment, giving no reasons. He was a secret drunkard. Too high was his sense of honor, and the importance of his station, to intrust himself longer with the destinies of society. As years rolled by he sunk like a mighty ship in mid-ocean, not without many a lurch, many a sign of righting once more to plow the proud seas that were destined to entomb him forever. His lovely wife left him, and, returning to her parents, died of a broken heart. With bowed head at the grave, he wept bitterly on the head of a dear boy she had left behind. Friends of his, men of talent and piety, prayed over him, and at times he would get the better of the demon that ruled him, and again put forth his giganticpowers. The greatest effort he exerted during this period was in an important case before the Supreme Court of the United States. Marshall, the patriarch of American judges, gazed with wonder on the barrister, as burst after burst of eloquence and oratory followed. George Briggs, member of Congress from Massachusetts, seeing his splendid portrait hanging in a conspicuous place at Washington, inquired who it was, and was told “that is the portrait of Talcott, the brilliant genius, the most talented man in the United States.” In his last spasm of temperance he wrote a beautiful tract: “The Trial and Condemnation of Alcohol.” After a fatiguing argument before a court in the city of New York, he was over-persuaded by a friend to take a glass of beer. It was his last sober moment till he was in the agonies of death. Down, down he went and never rose to assume manliness again. As the fabled phœnix is said to rise from the ashes of its parent, one of the most noble and eloquent advocates of temperance proved to be the son of this ruined genius.

It is a great delusion for boys to think it manly to drink. Manliness implies strength and courage. A drunkard lacks both. He might be brutal, but he is a coward. Manliness also implies reason, and when we consider that liquor robs one of this, a boy shows his manliness by letting it alone and helping others do the same. Liquor is a poison. Incorporated in it is a deadly drug known as alcohol. Drop a little on the eye and it destroys the sight. Sprinkle a few drops on the leaf of a plant and it will kill it. Immerse a tadpole in it and it ceases to live. Drink it and its action produces weakness, and its reaction nervousness. In a word, alcohol is the devil’s best drug and the boy’s worst enemy. Said General Harrison, “I was one of a classof seventeen young men who graduated at college. The other sixteen now fill drunkards’ graves. I owe all my health, my happiness and prosperity to a resolution I made when starting in life, that I would avoid strong drink. That vow I have never broken.”

In 1812 the town of Farmington, New Hampshire, saw a poor boy. When old enough he was bound out to a farmer. Afterward he learned a trade. He worked well and studied evenings. A friend took an interest in him and encouraged him to attend and speak at a political meeting. “How can I be anything when my father is a drinking man?” he was wont to say. He solemnly signed the pledge of total abstinence and began speech-making. Soon the young men said: “Let us send him to the Legislature.” At every step he did his best. Finally Massachusetts sent a petition by him to Congress. John Quincy Adams invited him to dinner. While at dinner, Mr. Adams filled his glass, and turning to the young man, said: “Will you drink a glass of wine with me?” He hated to refuse, there was the ex-President of the United States, and a company of great men. All eyes were upon him, and so he hesitated and grew red in the face, but finally stammered: “Excuse me, sir, I never drink wine.” The next day the whole account came out in the Washington papers. It was copied all over Massachusetts, and the people said: “Here is a man who stands by his principles. He can be trusted. Let us promote him.” He was made Congressman and Senator. Finally he became Vice-President of the country. That farmer-boy was Henry Wilson.

When elected to this office, he gave his friends a dinner. The table was set without one wine-glass upon it. “Where are the glasses?” asked several of the guests,merrily. “Gentlemen,” said Mr. Wilson, “you know my friendship and my obligation to you. Great as they are, they are not great enough to make me forget the rock whence I was hewn and the pit whence I was dug. Some of you know how the curse of intemperance overshadowed my youth. That I might escape I fled from my early surroundings. For what I am, I am indebted to God, to my temperance vow and to my adherence to it. Call for what you want to eat, and if this hotel can provide it, it shall be forthcoming; but wine and liquors can not come to this table with my consent, because I will not spread in the path of another the snare from which I escaped.” At this, three rousing cheers rent the room for the man who had the courage to stand by his noble convictions.

It pays to be a total abstainer. “Abstinence,” said Bishop Spalding, “is but negative, a standing aloof from what hinders or hurts.” The tendency of drink is to deaden the moral sensibilities. It weakens the nerves, impairs the brain, feeds disease and at last “bites like a serpent and stings like an adder.” On the other hand, “temperance is a bridle of gold, and he who uses it rightly is more like a god than a man.” Nothing is so conducive to one’s happiness and success in life. Burdette said, “Honor never has the delirium tremens; glory does not wear a red nose; fame blows a horn, but never takes one.”

There is a story told of Hannibal, the great Carthaginian, who fought so long and so successfully against the Romans, that when he was still a boy of nine years, his father Hamilcar asked him if he would like to go to the wars with him. The child was delighted at the thought. “Then,” said his father, “you must swear that you will, as long as you live, hate the Romans and fightagainst them.” Young Hannibal took the oath, and all through life was the bitter enemy of Rome. He took sides with his father and his country against the proud foes. The boy who wishes to succeed in life must incorporate “no liquor” in his resolutions, and under all circumstances refuse it, choosing rather to be an advocate of ennobling temperance.

It pays to be a total abstainer, because it is right. It is not so much a question of dollars saved or happiness promoted as a question of right. Said Amos Lawrence, “Young men, base all your actions upon a sense of right, and in so doing, never reckon the cost.” In the army, drinking and treating were common occurrences. One noble captain had the heroism to decline the oft-proffered treat. An observer asked, “Do you always reject intoxicating liquor?” “Yes.” “Do you not take it to correct this Yazoo water?” “Never.” “You must have belonged to the cold water army in your youth.” “Yes, but I learned something better than that; my mother taught me that what is right is right, and coming to Mississippi makes no difference. It would not be right for me to accept an invitation to drink at home, it is no more right here; therefore I don’t drink.” Some time after an officer met a lady who wanted to see one who had met her boy, naming his office and regiment. He told her of the noble examples of piety which were found in the army and related the case of the captain. She exclaimed, “That’s beautiful! That’s beautiful! His mother must be proud of him.” “Yes, she is, and you are that mother.” Amid grateful tears she exclaimed, “Is that my boy? Is that my Will? It’s just like him; I knew he would do so. He was a good boy. He told me he always would be and I knew he would.” Beautiful trust. Excellent commendation. Would that it could be said of every boy.

It pays to be a total abstainer for the sake of thosewho suffer through intemperance. The good and wise Governor Buckingham, of Connecticut, gave as his reason for being a total abstainer, “If I indulge, I am not safe. There is no degradation so low that a man will not sink to it, and no crime so hellish that he will not commit it, when he is drunk. But if it could be proved conclusively to my own mind that I could drink and never be injured, yet I could not be certain but others, seeing me drink, might be influenced to drink also, and, being unable to stop, pass on in the path of the drunkard.” Were many more as considerate there would be less drinking husbands, and less despised and taunted children because of drunken fathers.

Who would ever think of a two-dollar bill relating a sad story and giving a pathetic warning? Yet such a bill was brought to the office of a Temperance Union recently. Written in red ink a poor man told what liquor had done for him, and what it would do for others. Here is what it said, “Wife, children and $40,000 all gone. I alone am responsible. All have gone down my throat. When I was twenty-one I had a fortune. I am now thirty-five years old. I have killed my beautiful wife, who died of a broken heart; have murdered my children with neglect. When this bill is gone I do not know how I am to get my next meal. I shall die a drunken pauper. ’Tis my last money and my history. If this bill comes into the hands of any man who drinks, let him take warning from my ruin.”

When Colonel Alexander Hogeland was sitting in his room at Louisville some years ago, a lame boy knocked at the door. Said he, “My father is to be hung to-morrow. The Governor will not pardon him. He killed my mother when he was drunk. He was a good father, and we were always happy only when he drank.Won’t you go and talk and pray with him, and then come to our house when his body is brought to us?” The Colonel did as requested, and found that the demon drink was the sole cause of that family’s ruin. The father was hung, and when the body was taken to the home, he was there. Six worse than orphans were curled up on a bundle of straw and rags, crying with a grief that would make the stoutest heart quail. The crippled boy but fourteen years of age was the sole support of the little family. The father’s body was brought in by two officers. The plain board coffin was rested upon two old chairs, and the officers hurried out of the room and away from the terrible scene. “Come,” said the crippled boy, “come and kiss papa’s face before it gets cold;” and all six children kissed the face of that father, and, smoothing the brow, sobbed in broken accents, “Whiskey did it. Papa was good, but whiskey did it.”

My boy, be temperate. Do your best to stop another such scene. Sign the pledge. Talk against, work against, and when able, vote against the liquor interests. “Woe to the man or boy who becomes a slave to liquor,” said General Phil. Sheridan. “I had rather see my son die to-day than to see him carried to his mother drunk. One of my brave soldier-boys on the field said to me just before a battle, ‘Tell mother, if I am killed, I have kept my promise to her. Not one drink have I ever tasted.’ The boy was killed. I carried the message with my own lips to the mother. She said, ‘General, that is more glory for my boy than if he had taken a city.’”

CHAPTER IXBe Free of the Weed

INTRODUCTION TO CHAPTER IX

By Asa Clark

The influence of example is always a powerful one. With such wide-spread habits as those of tobacco smoking and chewing it is little wonder why so many boys indulge. They see only the pleasureable side of these habits; but it devolves upon us, from our daily experience with “the ills that flesh is heir to” to make known to you young friend the dangers lurking in these seductive vices. We doctors are often consulted by victims of these habits, who are quite surprised upon stopping the use of tobacco to find to what a degree they have become enslaved. That the baneful effect from the use of tobacco is universally recognized is evidenced by the fact of its prohibition in schools and naval academies, and by the laws now in force in several of the States and also in Germany, making it illegal to sell tobacco to any under sixteen years of age.

Tobacco is especially injurious to those subjected to severe mental strain or physical training, and to such as are engaged in delicate manual work. The symptoms are many. Digestion is sometimes greatly impaired. On the heart the effect is very noticeable. My advice to boys is, not to use tobacco in any form.

Asa Clark

CHAPTER IXBe Free of the Weed

An old monk was once walking through a forest, with a scholar by his side. He suddenly stopped and pointed to four plants that were close at hand. The first was just beginning to peep above the ground, the second had rooted itself well into the earth, the third was a small shrub, while the fourth was a full-sized tree. Turning to his young companion he said: “Pull up the first.” The boy easily did so. “Now pull up the second.” The youth obeyed, but not so easily. “And now the third.” The boy had to put forth all his strength, and use both arms, before he succeeded in uprooting it. “And now,” said the master, “try your hand upon the fourth.” But although the lad grasped the trunk of the tree in his arms, he scarcely shook its leaves, and found it impossible to tear its roots from the earth. Then the wise old man explained to his scholar the meaning of the four trials.

“This, my son, is just what happens with our bad habits and passions. When they are young and weak, one may, by a little watchfulness over self, easily tear them up; but if we let them cast their roots deep down into our souls, no human power can uproot them. Only the almighty hand of the Creator can pluck them out. For this reason, my boy, watch your first impulses.”

ORIGIN AND POISON OF TOBACCO.

Tobacco-using is frequently the beginning and stepping-stone to other vices. Many who have hesitated in entering a saloon or gambling place have not done so in the use of tobacco.

The origin of tobacco is shrouded in mystery. Mezen was of the opinion that the Chinese used it from antiquity. Dr. Lizards says it existed in Asia from early times. Columbus in his discovery of Cuba tells how he found the natives “carrying with them firebrands, puffing smoke from their mouths and noses, which he supposed to be the way they had of perfuming themselves.”

An ancient tradition relates that there was once a Mohammedan passing along who found a viper lying in his path, almost chilled to death. In pity the Moslem stooped, picked up the serpent, and put it into his bosom to warm it. After a while the viper fully revived and became aware of its situation. He said to the man, “I’m going to bite you.” “O, no! please don’t,” said the man. “If I had not taken you up and warmed you, you would even now have been chilled to death.” The viper replied, “There has been a deadly enmity existing between your race and mine ever since the world began, and by Allah, I am going to bite you.” “Very well,” said the man, “since you have sworn by Allah I will not prevent you, but bite me here on my hand.” He did so, and the man immediately placed the wound to his lips and sucked the venom out and spit it on the ground; and from the place where he spit the poison a little plant sprang up which was—tobacco.

Though this story be not true, yet true it is that tobacco contains a very strong poison, known as nicotine, supposed to be “the juice of cursed Hebanon,” referred to in Hamlet. In one pound of Kentucky and Virginia tobacco, there is, according to Dr. Kellog, an average of three hundred and eighty grains of this poison, which isestimated to kill two hundred and fifty people if applied in its native form. “A single leaf of tobacco dipped in hot water,” said Dr. Coles, “and laid upon the pit of the stomach will produce a powerful effect by mere absorption from the surface. By being applied to a spot where the scarf skin, or external surface of the skin is destroyed, fearful results are liable to follow, and no man can use it without being affected by it.”

Tobacco injures physically. “No less,” said Dr. Shaw, “than eighty diseases arise from it, and twenty-five thousand lives perish annually from it.” A young man asked Wendell Phillips if he should smoke, and that statesman answered: “Certainly not. It is liable to injure the sight, to render the nerves unsteady, to enfeeble the will and enslave the nature to an imperious habit likely to stand in the way of duty to be performed.” Many professors of leading colleges have asserted with figures to prove that boys who begin the tobacco habit are stunted physically and never arise to the normal bodily development.

Tobacco injures mentally. Beecher said, “A man is what he is, not in one part, but all over.” And to have a strong mind, one needs a strong stomach. By the use of tobacco, the stomach is outraged and the brain becomes narcotized, “the intellect of which,” said Prof. Gause, “becomes duller and duller until at last it is painful to make any intellectual effort and one sinks into a sensuous or sensual animal, whose greatest aspiration is to benumb the nerves and befog the intellect.” Such assertions may be ridiculed, but as two and two make four, they are facts. The French government prohibits its use by students in the public schools. The Swiss government prohibits its sale to juniors. During the last fifty years no user of it has graduated fromYale, Harvard or Amherst at the head of his class. Professor Seely, of the Iowa State Normal, said, “I have not met a pupil who is addicted to the habit who will go through a single day’s work and have good lessons. I have had numbers of cases in which they have remained in the same grade for four successive years and then they were not ready to be advanced into the next higher grade.” Dr. Herbert Fisk, of the Northwestern University, Chicago, declared, “A somewhat careful observation of facts has convinced us that students who get low marks do so through the use of tobacco. Last year not one of the boys who used tobacco stood in the first rank of scholarship. This has been the usual rule. One year, out of thirty-three pupils in the first rank of scholarship, there was but one user of tobacco.” Dr. Charles A. Blandchard, President of Wheaton College, said, “Among our former students who are now physicians, the one who has the largest income never touched tobacco. Two are now judges of courts in large cities, with salaries of six or seven thousand dollars. They do not and have not for years used tobacco. Other men, who after graduation, became smokers, do not exhibit the same mental ability. They are, some of them, very able men, but they suffer in mind from the use of tobacco.”

Tobacco injures morally. It heads the list of vices. It is the first step to bad companionship, lewd conversation and liquor drinking. The latter and tobacco-using are twin habits; and do you wonder at it when tobacco is saturated with Jamaica rum; while “plug” tobacco which is composed of licorice, sugar, cabbage, burdock and the refuse of tobacco leaves and other weeds, is often found nailed at the bottom of whiskey barrels? Said Horace Greeley, “Show me a drunkard who does not use tobacco, and I will show you a white blackbird.” Many medical witnesses testify that tobaccousing and drinking are kindred habits. When an investigation was made in the State prison at Auburn, N. Y., some years ago, out of six hundred prisoners confined there for crimes committed when they were under the influence of strong drink, five hundred testified that they began their intemperance by the use of tobacco. “In all my travels,” said John Hawkins, “I never saw but one drunkard who did not use tobacco.” “Pupils under the influence of the weed,” said Professor Seely, “are not truthful, practice deception and can not be depended upon. The worst characteristic of the habit is a loss of personal self-respect and of personal regard for the customs and wishes of ladies and gentlemen, especially when among strangers.”

Tobacco is used in two ways, smoking and chewing. Both are filthy, sickening habits, the latter being the more disgusting. For any boy to chew is to exemplify bad manners doubtless influenced by bad morals. A few years ago a call was issued from London, to the scientists of the world to assemble for the discussion of whatever scientific subjects might be presented, every statement to undergo rigid scrutiny. One member said: “Tobacco is not injurious. I have chewed it for fifty years, and my father for sixty years, without perceptible damage. All this cry about it is nonsense.” The chairman answered: “Step forward, sir, and let us canvass this matter thoroughly. How much do you chew?” “I chew regularly three quids per day, of about this size,” cutting off three pieces from his plug. One of these was given to a Russian and another to a French chemist, with “please return the extract.” Then the presiding officer said, “Will any young man unaccustomed to the use of tobacco, chew this third quid before the audience? Here are four pounds ($20) toanyone who will.” A young man stepped forward. The audience was requested to scan his looks, cheeks, eyes and general appearance, before he took it, and closely watch its effects. He soon became pale from sickness, then vomited and fainted before the assembly. The extract from one quid was given to a powerful cat. He flew wildly around, and died in a few minutes. The other extract was put upon the tongue of a premium dog, which uttered a yelp, leaped frantically, laid down and expired.

Smoking tobacco is used in three ways, in the pipe, cigar and cigarette. Neither adds beauty to the face or is conducive to health. It is stated on good authority that Senator Colfax was stricken down in the Senate chamber as the result of excessive smoking and from that time smoked no more. It caused the death of Emperor Frederick through cancer of the lip, killed Henry W. Raymond, of the New YorkTimes, through heart failure, and struck President Orton and General Dakin down with paralysis of the heart. Rousseau says, “Excessive smoking cut short the life of the poet Berat through nervous effect.” It wielded its sceptre over Royer Collard who died in the dawn of a most brilliant career through his loved cigar. It produced cancer of the throat, which ended the life of President Grant and Robert Louis Stevenson. “Out of one hundred and twenty-seven cancers cut from the lips of persons in a short time,” says theMedical Times, “nearly all were from the lips of smokers.” What a dangerous luxuriant weed! How quaintly yet truthfully “Billy” Bray, the Cornish miner, said: “If God intended a man to smoke, He would have placed a chimney at the top of his head to let the smoke out!”

Tobacco smoke is poisonous. It contains one ofthe deadliest vapors known to man, which so frequently injures the throat. It has also a poisonous oil which secretes itself in the stem of the pipe. Dr. Brodie says that he applied two drops of this oil to the tongue of a cat, which killed it in fifteen minutes. Fontana made a small incision in the leg of a pigeon and paralyzed it by applying a drop of this oil. The reason for so many pale-faced, nervous men can be traced to this cause.

But supposing that smoking a pipe is not injurious, is it not unbecoming a gentleman? Napoleon said, “It was only fit for sluggards.” Gouverneur Morris, being asked if gentlemen smoked in France, replied, “Gentlemen, sir! Gentlemen smoke nowhere!” Horace Mann when addressing the teachers of an Ohio school, said, “The practice is unfit fora scholar or a gentleman.”

To smoke a cigar may be considered more refined than the use of a pipe. But whoever heard of refining a vice? Horace Greeley, when addressing a class of young men on the subject, said, “A cigar is a little roll of tobacco leaves with a fire at one end and a fool at the other.” At which end should refinement begin? The cigar is more directly injurious than the pipe because the user inhales more of the smoke, sucks the weed, and a greater proportion of the poisonous substance is drawn into the mouth and filtered through the system, causing dyspepsia, vitiated taste, congestion of the brain, loss of memory, nervousness and many other diseases.

The worst of all, however, is the cigarette. Sometime ago in New York, an Italian boy was brought before a justice as a vagrant. He was charged with picking up cigar stumps from the streets and gutters. To prove this the policeman showed the boy’s basket, half full of stumps, water-soaked and covered with mud. “What do you do with these?” asked his honor. “Isell them to a man for ten cents a pound, to be used in making cigarettes.” This is not all. In the analysis of cigarettes, physicians and chemists have been surprised to find opium, which is used to give a soothing effect, and creates a passion for strong drink. The wrapper warranted to be rice paper is manufactured from filthy scrapings of rag pickers, and is so cheap that a thousand cigarettes can be wrapped at a cost of two cents. By the use of this dangerous thing, thousands of boys have been mentally and morally ruined. A distinguished French physician investigated the effect of cigarette-smoking in thirty-eight boys between the ages of nine and fifteen. Twenty-seven presented distinct symptoms of nicotine poisoning. Twenty-two had serious disorders and a marked appetite for strong drink. Three had heart affection. Eight had very impure blood. Twelve were subject to bleeding of the nose. Ten had disturbed sleep and four had ulceration of the mouth.

Several years ago Representatives Cockran, Cummings and Stahlnecker, of New York, petitioned the Government to suppress cigarettes by imposing an internal revenue tax upon them. During one year they cut clippings from the papers concerning one hundred young men, mostly under sixteen, who died from the effects of these murderous things, while another hundred were consigned to insane asylums for the same cause. Because of such harmful effects Germany has legislated against it. France, West Point and Annapolis have closed their doors to the boy that uses it and more than a score of States in the Union have prohibited their sale.

A young man who had failed by only three points in an examination for admission to the marine corps appealed to his representative in Congress for assistance,and together they went to see the Secretary of the Navy, in the hope of securing what is known as a “re-rating” of his papers. “How many more chances do you want?” asked Secretary Long. “This is your third time.” And before the young man had a chance to answer, the Secretary continued, “How do you expect to get along in the world when you smoke so many cigarettes? Your clothes are saturated with their odor. Pull off your gloves and let me see your fingers. There, see how yellow they are!” pointing to the sides of the first and second fingers. Before the young man found his tongue to offer an explanation the Secretary asked if he drank. “Only once in a while,” was his sheepish reply. Mr. Long then invited the Congressman into his private office, and while offering to do everything that he could added, “I am sick of trying to make anything of these boys that are loaded with cigarette smoke and ‘drink once in a while.’ They are about hopeless, it seems to me.” As they left the department building the young man, half apologizing for his poor showing, remarked, “Drinking, my father says, is the bane of the navy.” “I guess it is,” replied the Congressman. “It is the bane everywhere else, and I should think quite likely it would be in the navy.”

My boy, let tobacco in any form alone. It is a dirty, dangerous, expensive habit. It costs this country six hundred and fifty million dollars annually. Worse than the cost, however, is the injury to body, mind and soul. Figures cannot enumerate nor scales estimate the evil it produces. A story is told of a giant who fell in with a company of pigmies. He roared with laughter at their insignificant stature and their magnificent pretensions. He ridiculed with fine scorn and sarcasm their high-sounding threats. When he fell asleep they bound him with innumerable threads and when he awoke he found himself a helpless captive.

My boy, ridicule not the contents of this chapter. They are all important. Heed the warning cry and shun the weed. Many a fair lad has been stunted in development, lost to ambition, sunk to all appeals to honor when once in its grasp; therefore let it alone. The God that made your mouth made the weed, but He did not make the mouth for the tobacco, nor the tobacco for the mouth. If addicted to it, I charge you stop right now.

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