How to Get on in the World

M >> Major A.R. Calhoon >> How to Get on in the World

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Economy also means to power of resisting present gratification for
the purpose of securing a future good, and in this light it
represents the ascendancy of reason over the animal instincts. It is
altogether different from penuriousness: for it is economy that can
always best afford to be generous. It does not make money an idol,
but regards it as a useful agent. As Dean Swift observes, "we must
carry money in the head, not in the heart." Economy may be styled the
daughter of Prudence, the sister of Temperance, and the mother of
Liberty. It is eminently conservative--conservative of character, of
domestic happiness, and social well-being. It is, in short, the
exhibition of self-help in one of its best forms.

Francis Horner's father gave him this advice on entering life:
"Whilst I wish you to be comfortable in every respect, I cannot too
strongly inculcate economy. It is a necessary virtue to all; and
however the shallow part of mankind may despise it, it certainly
leads to independence, which is a grand object to every man of a high
spirit."

Every man ought to contrive to live within his means. This practice
is of the very essence of honesty. For if a man does not manage
honestly to live within his own means, he must necessarily be living
dishonestly upon the means of somebody else. Those who are careless
about personal expenditure, and consider merely their own
gratification, without regard for the comfort of others, generally
find out the real uses of money when it is too late. Though by nature
generous, these thriftless persons are often driven in the end to do
very shabby things. They waste their money as they do their time;
draw bills upon the future; anticipate their earnings; and are thus
under the necessity of dragging after them a load of debts and
obligations, which seriously affect their actions as free and
independent men.

It was a maxim of Lord Bacon, that when it was necessary to
economize, it was better to look after petty savings than to descend
to petty gettings. The loose cash which many persons throw away
uselessly, and worse, would often form a basis of fortune and
independence for life. These wasters are their own worst enemies,
though generally found amongst the ranks of those who rail a the
injustice of "the world." But if a man will not be his own friend,
how can he expect that others will be. Orderly men of moderate means
have always something left in their pockets to help others; whereas,
your prodigal and careless fellows who spend all, never find an
opportunity for helping anybody. It is poor economy, however, to be a
scrub. Narrow-mindedness in living and in dealing is generally short-
sighted, and leads to failure. Generosity and liberality, like
honesty, always prove the best policy after all. Though Jenkinson, in
the "Vicar of Wakefield," cheated his kind-hearted neighbor
Flamborough in one way or another every year, "Flamborough," said he,
"has been regularly growing in riches, while I have come to poverty
and a jail." And practical life abounds in cases of brilliant results
from a course of generous and honest policy.

The proverb says that "an empty bag cannot stand upright;" neither
can a man who is in debt. It is also difficult for a man who is in
debt to be truthful; hence, it is said that lying rides on debt's
back. The debtor has to frame excuses to his creditor for postponing
payment of the money he owes him, and probably also to contrive
falsehoods. It is easy enough for a man who will exercise a healthy
resolution, to avoid incurring the first obligation; but the facility
with which that has been incurred often becomes a temptation to a
second; and very soon the unfortunate borrower becomes so entangled
that no late exertion of industry can set him free. The first step in
debt is like the first step in falsehood; almost involving the
necessity of proceeding in the same course, debt following debt, as
lie follows lie. Haydon, the painter, dated his decline fro the day
on which he first borrowed money. He realized the truth of the
proverb, "Who goes a-borrowing, goes a-sorrowing." The significant
entry in his diary is: "Here began debt and obligation, out of which
I have never been and never shall be extricated as long as I live."
His autobiography shows but too painfully how embarrassment in money
matters produces poignant distress of mind, utter incapacity for
work, and constantly recurring humiliations. The written advice which
he gave to a youth when entering the navy was as follows: "Never
purchase any enjoyment if it cannot be procured without borrowing of
others. Never borrow money; it is degrading. I do not say never lend,
but never lend if by lending you render yourself unable to pay what
you owe; but under any circumstances never borrow." Fichte, the poor
student, refused to accept even presents from his still poorer
parents.

Dr. Johnson held that early debt is ruin. His words on the subject
are weighty, and worthy of being held in remembrance. "Do not," said
he, "accustom yourself to consider debt only as an inconvenience; you
will find it a calamity. Poverty takes away so many means of doing
good, and produces so much inability to resist evil, both natural and
moral, that it is by all virtuous means to be avoided. . . . Let it
be your first care, then, not to be in any man's debt. Resolve not to
be poor; whatever you have, spend less. Poverty is a great enemy to
human happiness; it certainly destroys liberty, and makes some
virtues impracticable and others extremely difficult. Frugality is
not only the basis of quiet, but of beneficence. No man can help
others that wants help himself; we must have enough before we have to
spare."

It is the bounden duty of every man to look his affairs in the face,
and to keep an account of his incomings and outgoings in money
matters. The exercise of a little simple arithmetic in this way will
be found of great value. Prudence requires that we shall pitch our
scale of living a degree below our means, rather than up to them. But
this can only be done by carrying out faithfully a plan of living by
which both ends may be made to meet. John Locke strongly advised this
course: "Nothing," said he, "is likelier to keep a man within compass
than having constantly before his eyes the state of his affairs in a
regular course of account." The Duke of Wellington kept an accurate
detailed account of all the moneys received and expended by him. "I
make a point," said he to Mr. Gleig, "of paying my own bills, and I
advise every one to do the same; formerly I used to trust a
confidential servant to pay them, but I was cured of that folly by
receiving one morning, to my great surprise, duns of a year or two's
standing. The fellow had speculated with my money, and left my bills
unpaid." Talking of debt, his remark was, "It makes a slave of a man.
I have often known what it was to be in want of money, but I never
got into debt." Washington was as particular as Wellington was, in
matters of business detail; and it is a remarkable fact, that he did
not disdain to scrutinize the smallest outgoings of his household--
determined as he was to live honestly within his means--even when
holding the high office of President of the United States.

There is a dreadful ambition abroad for being "genteel." We keep up
appearances, too often at the expense of honesty; and though we may
not be rich yet we must seem to be so. We must be "respectable,"
though only in the meanest sense--in mere vulgar outward show. We
have not the courage to go patiently onward in the condition of life
in which it has pleased God to call us; but must needs live in some
fashionable state to which we ridiculously please to call ourselves,
and to gratify the vanity of that unsubstantial genteel world of
which we form a part. There is a constant struggle and pressure for
front streets in the social amphitheatre; in the midst of which all
noble self-denying resolve is trodden down, and many fine natures are
inevitably crushed to death. What waste, what misery, what bankruptcy
come from all this ambition to dazzle others with the glare of
apparent worldly success, we need not describe.

The young man, as he passes through life, advances through a long
line of tempters ranged on either side of him; and the inevitable
effect of yielding is degradation in a greater or a less degree.
Contact with them tends insensibly to draw away from him some portion
of the divine electric element with which his nature is charged; and
his only mode of resisting them is to utter and act out his "No"
manfully and resolutely. He must decide at once, not waiting to
deliberate and balance reasons; for the youth, like "the woman who
deliberates, is lost." Many deliberate, without deciding; but "not to
resolve, _is_ to resolve." A perfect knowledge of man is in the
prayer, "Lead us not into temptation." But temptation will come to
try the young man's strength; and once yielded to, the power to
resist grows weaker and weaker. Yield once, and an element of virtue
has gone. Resist manfully, and the first decision will give strength
for life; repeated it will become a habit. It is in the outworks of
the habits formed in early life that the real strength of the defense
must lie; for it has been wisely ordained that the machinery of moral
existence should be carried on principally through the medium of the
habits, so as to save the wear and tear of the great principles
within. It is good habits which insinuate themselves into the
thousand inconsiderable acts of life, that really constitute by far
the greater part of man's moral conduct.

Many popular books have been written for the purpose of communicating
to the public the grand secret of making money. But there is no
secret whatever about it, as the proverbs of every nation abundantly
testify. "Take care of the pennies and the pounds will take care of
themselves." "Diligence is the mother of good luck." "No pains, no
gains." "No sweat, no sweet." "Work and thou shalt have." "The world
is his who has patience and industry." "Better go to bed supperless
than rise in debt." Such are specimens of the proverbial philosophy,
embodying the hoarded experience of many generations, as to the best
means of thriving in the world. They were current in people's mouths
long before books were invented; and like other popular proverbs they
were the first codes of popular morals. Moreover, they have stood the
test of time, and the experience of every day still bears witness to
their accuracy, force, and soundness. The Proverbs of Solomon are
full of wisdom as to the force of industry, and the use and abuse of
money: "He that is slothful in work is brother to him that is a great
waster." "Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be
wise." Poverty, says the preacher, shall come upon the idler, "as one
that traveleth, and want as an armed man;" but of the industrious and
upright, "the hand of the diligent maketh rich." "the drunkard and
the glutton shall come to poverty; and drowsiness shall clothe a man
with rags." "Seest thou a man diligent in his business? he shall
stand before kings." But above all, "It is better to get wisdom than
gold; for wisdom is better than rubies, and all the things that may
be desired are not to be compared to it."

Simple industry and thrift will go far toward making any person of
ordinary working faculty comparatively independent in his means. Even
a working man may be so, provided he will carefully husband his
resources, and watch the little outlets of useless expenditure. A
penny is a very small matter, yet the comfort of thousands of
families depends upon the proper spending and saving of pennies. If a
man allows the little pennies, the results of his hard work, to slip
out of his fingers--some to the beer-shop, some this way and some
that--he will find that his life is little raised above one of mere
animal drudgery. On the other hand, if he take care of the pennies--
putting some weekly into a benefit society or an insurance fund,
others into a savings' bank, and confiding the rest to his wife to be
carefully laid out, with a view to the comfortable maintenance and
education of his family--he will soon find that this attention to
small matters will abundantly repay him, in increasing means, growing
comfort at home, and a mind comparatively free from fears as to the
future. And if a working man have high ambition and possess richness
in spirit--a kind of wealth which far transcends all mere worldly
possessions--he may not help himself, but be a profitable helper of
others in his path through life.

While credit is the soul of trade, improperly used it is the death of
business. No man should run into debt for a luxury, and every prudent
man will have money in his purse for life's necessities. Remember,
the man who is in debt without seeing his way out is a slave.
Speaking of this Jacob Abbott says:

"There is, perhaps, nothing which so grinds the human soul, and
produces such an insupportable burden of wretchedness and
despondency, as pecuniary pressure. Nothing more frequently drives
men to suicide; and there is, perhaps, no danger to which men in an
active and enterprising community are more exposed. Almost all are
eagerly reaching forward to a station in life a little above what
they can well afford, or struggling to do a business a little more
extensive than they have capital or steady credit for; and thus they
keep, all through life, _just above_ their means--and just above, no
matter by how small an excess, is inevitable misery.

"Be sure, then, if your aim is happiness, to bring down, at all
hazards, your style of living, and your responsibilities of business,
to such a point that you shall easily be able to reach it. Do this, I
say, at all hazards. If you cannot have money enough for your purpose
in a house with two rooms, take a house with one. It is your only
chance for happiness. For there is such a thing as happiness in a
single room, with plain furniture and simple fare; but there is no
such thing as happiness with responsibilities which cannot be met,
and debts increasing without any prospect of their discharge."

"After I had earned my first thousand dollars by the hardest kind of
work," said Commodore Vanderbilt, "I felt richer and happier than
when I had my first million. I was out of debt, every dollar was
honestly mine, and I saw my way to success."

CHAPTER XXII

A SOUND MIND IN A SOUND BODY.

Gibons, the historian, says: "Every person has two educations--one
which he receives from others, and one, the most important, which he
gives to himself."

"The best part of every man's education," said Sir Walter Scott, "is
that which he gives to himself." The late Sir Benjamin Brodie
delighted to remember this saying, and he used to congratulate
himself on the fact that professionally he was self-taught. But this
is necessarily the case with all men who have acquired distinction in
letters, science, or art. The education received at school or college
is but a beginning, and is valuable mainly inasmuch as it trains the
mind and habituates it to continuous application and study. That
which is put into us by others is always far less ours than that
which we acquire by our own diligent and persevering effort.
Knowledge conquered by labor becomes a possession--a property
entirely our own. A greater vividness and permanency of impression is
secured; and facts thus acquired become registered in the mind in a
way that mere imparted information can never effect. This kind of
self-culture also calls forth power and cultivates strength. The
solution of one problem helps the mastery of another; and thus
knowledge is carried into faculty. Our own active effort is the
essential thing; and no facilities, no books, no teachers, no amount
of lessons learnt by rote, will enable us to dispense with it.

The best teachers have been the readiest to recognize the importance
of self-culture, and of stimulating the student to acquire knowledge
by the active exercise of his own faculties. They have relied more
upon _training_ than upon _telling_, and sought to make their pupils
themselves active parties to the work in which they were engaged;
thus making teaching something far higher than the mere passive
reception of the scraps and details of knowledge. This was the spirit
in which the great Dr. Arnold worked; he strove to teach his pupils
to rely upon themselves, and develop their powers by their own active
efforts, himself merely guiding, directing, stimulating, and
encouraging them. "I would far rather," he said, "send a boy to Van
Diemen's Laud, where he must work for his bread, than send him to
Oxford to live in luxury, without any desire in his mind to avail
himself of his advantages." "If there be one thing on earth," he
observed on another occasion, "which is truly admirable, it is to see
God's wisdom blessing an inferiority of natural powers, when they
have been honestly, truly, and zealously cultivated." Speaking of a
pupil of this character, he said, "I would stand to that man hat in
hand." Once at Laleham, when teaching a rather dull boy, Arnold spoke
somewhat sharply to him, on which the pupil looked up in his face and
said, "Why do you speak angrily, sir? _indeed_, I am doing the best I
can." Years afterward, Arnold used to tell the story to his children,
and added, "I never felt so much ashamed in my life--that look and
that speech I have never forgotten."

From the numerous instances already cited of men of humble station
who have risen to distinction in science and literature, it will be
obvious that labor is by no means incompatible with the highest
intellectual culture. Work in moderation is healthy as well as
agreeable to the human constitution. Work educates the body, as study
educates the mind; and that is the best state of society in which
there is some work for every man's leisure, and some leisure for
every man's work. Even the leisure classes are in a measure compelled
to work, sometimes as a relief from _ennui_, but in most cases to
gratify and instinct which they cannot resist. Some go fox-hunting in
the English counties, others grouse shooting on the Scotch hills,
while many wander away every summer to climb mountains in
Switzerland. Hence the boating, running, cricketing, and athletic
sports of the public schools in which our young men at the same time
so healthfully cultivate their strength both of mind and body. It is
said that the Duke of Wellington, when once looking on at the boys
engaged in their sports in the playground at Eton, where he had spent
many of his own younger days, made the remark, "It was there that the
battle of Waterloo was won!"

Daniel Malthus urged his son when at college to be most diligent in
the cultivation of knowledge, but he also enjoined him to pursue
manly sports as the best means of keeping up the full working power
of his mind, as well as of enjoying the pleasures of intellect.
"Every kind of knowledge," said he, "every acquaintance with nature
and art, will amuse and strengthen your mind, and I am perfectly
pleased that cricket should do the same by your arms and legs; I love
to see you excel in exercises of the body, and I think myself that
the better half, and so much the most agreeable part, of the
pleasures of the mind is best enjoyed while one is upon one's legs."
But a still more important use of active employment is that referred
to by the great divine, Jeremy Taylor. "Avoid idleness," he says,
"and fill up all the spaces of they time with severe and useful
employment; for lust easily creeps in at those emptinesses where the
soul is unemployed and the body is at ease; for no easy, healthful,
idle person was ever chaste, if he could be tempted; but of all
employments bodily labor is the most useful, and of the greatest
benefit for driving away the devil."

Practical success in life depends more upon physical health than is
generally imagined. Hodson, of Hodson's Horse, writing home to a
friend in England, said, "I believe if I get on well in India, it
will be owing, physically speaking, to a sound digestion." The
capacity for continuous working in any calling must necessarily
depend in a great measure upon this; and hence the necessity for
attending to health, even as a means of intellectual labor. It is
perhaps to the neglect of physical exercise that we find amongst
students so frequent a tendency toward discontent, unhappiness,
inaction, and reverie--displaying itself in contempt for real life
and disgust at the beaten tracks of men--a tendency which in England
has been called Byronism, and in Germany Wertherism. Dr. Channing
noted the same growth in our land, which led him to make the remark,
that "too many of our young men grow up in a school of despair." The
only remedy for this green-sickness in youth is physical exercise--
action, work and bodily occupation.

The use of early labor in self-imposed mechanical employments may be
illustrated by the boyhood of Sir Isaac Newton. Though comparatively
a dull scholar, he was very assiduous in the use of his saw, hammer,
and hatchet--"knocking and hammering in his lodging room"--making
models of windmills, carriages, and machines of all sorts; and as he
grew older, he took delight in making little tables and cupboards for
his friends. Smeaton, Watt, and Stephenson were equally handy with
tools when mere boys; and but for such kind of self-culture in their
youth it is doubtful whether they would have accomplished so much in
their manhood. Such was also the early training of the great
inventors and mechanics described in the preceding pages, whose
contrivance and intelligence were practically trained by the constant
use of their hands in early life. Even where men belonging to the
manual labor class have risen above it, and become more purely
intellectual laborers, they have found the advantages of their early
training in their later pursuits. Elihu Burritt says he found hard
labor _necessary_ to enable him to study with effect; and more than
once he gave up school teaching and study, and taking to his leather
apron again, went back to his blacksmith's forge and anvil for the
health of his body and mind's sake.

The training of young men in the use of tools would at the same time
that it educated them in "common things," teach them the use of their
hands and arms, familiarize them with healthy work, exercise their
faculties upon things tangible and actual, give them some practical
acquaintance with mechanics, impart to them the ability of being
useful, and implant in them the habit of persevering physical effort.
This is an advantage which the working classes, strictly so called,
certainly possess over the leisure classes--that they are in early
life under the necessity of applying themselves laboriously to some
mechanical pursuit or other--thus acquiring manual dexterity, and the
use of their physical powers. The chief disadvantage attached to the
calling of the laborious classes is, not that they are employed in
physical work, but that they are too exclusively so employed, often
to the neglect of their moral and intellectual faculties. While the
youths of the leisure classes, having been taught to associate labor
with servility, have shunned it, and been allowed to grow up
practically ignorant, the poorer classes, confining themselves within
the circle of their laborious callings, have been allowed to grow up,
in a large proportion of cases, absolutely illiterate. It seems,
possible, however, to avoid both these evils by combining physical
training or physical work with intellectual culture; and there are
various signs abroad which seem to mark the gradual adoption of this
healthier system of education.

The success of even professional men depends in no slight degree on
their physical health; and a public writer has gone so far as to say
that "the greatness of our great men is quite as much a bodily affair
as a mental one." A healthy breathing apparatus is as indispensable
to the successful lawyer or politician as a well-cultured intellect.
The thorough aeration of his blood by free exposure to a large
breathing surface in the lungs is necessary to maintain that vital
power on which the vigorous working of the brain in so large a
measure depends. The lawyer has to climb the heights of his
profession through close and heated courts, and the political leader
has to bear the fatigue and excitement of long and anxious debates in
a crowded House. Hence the lawyer in full practice and the
parliamentary leader in full work are called upon to display powers
of physical endurance and activity even more extraordinary than those
of the intellect--such powers as have been exhibited in so remarkable
a degree by Brougham, Lyndhurst and Campbell; by Peel, Graham and
Palmerston--all full-chested men.

Though Sir Walter Scott, when at Edinburgh College, went by the name
of "The Greek Blockhead," he was, notwithstanding his lameness, a
remarkably healthy youth; he could spear a salmon with the best
fisher on the Tweed, and ride a wild horse with any hunter in Yarrow.
When devoting himself in after life to literary pursuits, Sir Walter
never lost his taste for field sports, but while writing "Waverley"
in the morning he would in the afternoon course hares. Professor
Wilson was a very athlete, as great at throwing the hammer as in his
flights of eloquence and poetry; and Burns, when a youth, was
remarkable chiefly for his leaping, putting, and wrestling. Some of
the greatest divines were distinguished in their youth for their
physical energies. Isaac Barrow, when at the Charterhouse School, was
notorious for his pugilistic encounters, in which he got many a
bloody nose; Andrew Fuller, when working as a farmer's lad at Soham,
was chiefly famous for his skill in boxing; and Adam Clarke, when a
boy, was only remarkable for the strength displayed by him in
"rolling large stones about"--the secret, possibly, of some of the
power which he subsequently displayed in rolling forth large thoughts
in his manhood.

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