How to Get on in the World

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

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While it is necessary, then, in the first place to secure this solid
foundation of physical health, it must also be observed that the
cultivation of the habit of mental application is quite indispensable
for the education of the student. The maxim that "labor conquers all
things" holds especially true in the case of the conquest of
knowledge. The road into learning is alike free to all who will give
the labor and the study requisite to gather it; nor are there any
difficulties so great that the student of resolute purpose may not
surmount and overcome them. It was one of the characteristic
expressions of Chatterton, that God had sent his creatures into the
world with arms long enough to reach anything if they chose to be at
the trouble. In study, as in business, energy is the great thing.
There must be "fervet opus;" we must not only strike the iron while
it is hot, but strike it till it is made hot. It is astonishing how
much may be accomplished in self-culture by the energetic and the
persevering, who are careful to avail themselves of opportunities,
and use up the fragments of spare time which the idle permit to run
to waste. Thus Ferguson learnt astronomy from the heavens while
wrapped in a sheepskin on the highland hills. Thus Stone learnt
mathematics while working as a journeyman gardener; thus Drew studied
the highest philosophy in the intervals of cobbling shoes; and thus
Miller taught himself geology while working as a day laborer in a
quarry.

Sir Joshua Reynolds, as we have already observed, was so earnest a
believer in the force of industry that he held that all men might
achieve excellence if they would but exercise the power of assiduous
and patient working. He held that drudgery lay on the road to genius,
and that there was no limit to the proficiency of an artist except
the limit of his own painstaking. He would not believe in what is
called inspiration, but only in study and labor. "Excellence," he
said, "is never granted to man but as the reward of labor. If you
have great talents, industry will improve them; if you have but
moderate abilities, industry will supply their deficiency. Nothing is
denied to well-directed labor; nothing is to be obtained without it."
Sir Fowell Buxton was an equal believer in the power of study; and he
entertained the modest idea that he could do as well as other men if
he devoted to the pursuit double the time and labor that they did. He
placed his great confidence in ordinary means and extraordinary
application.

"I have known several men in my life," says Dr. Ross, "who may be
recognized in days to come as men of genius, and they were all
plodders, hard-working _intent_ men. Genius is known by its works;
genius without works is a blind faith, a dumb oracle. But meritorious
works are the result of time and labor, and cannot be accomplished by
intention or by a wish . . . Every great work is the result of vast
preparatory training. Facility comes by labor. Nothing seems easy,
not even walking, that was not difficult at first. The orator whose
eye flashes instantaneous fire, and whose lips pour out a flood of
noble thoughts, startling by their unexpectedness and elevating by
their wisdom and truth, has learned his secret by patient repetition,
and after many bitter disappointments."

Thoroughness and accuracy are two principal points to be aimed at in
study. Francis Horner, in laying down rules for the cultivation of
his mind, placed great stress upon the habit of continuous
application to one subject for the sake of mastering it thoroughly;
he confined himself with this object to only a few books, and
resisted with the greatest firmness "every approach to a habit of
desultory reading." The value of knowledge to any man consists, not
in its quantity, but mainly in the good uses to which he can apply
it. Hence a little knowledge of an exact and perfect character is
always found more valuable for practical purposes than any extent of
superficial learning.

It is not the quantity of study that one gets through, or the amount
of reading, that makes a wise man; but the appositeness of the study
to the purpose for which it is pursued; the concentration of the
mind, for the time being, on the subject under consideration; and the
habitual discipline by which the whole system of mental application
is regulated. Abernethy was even of opinion that there was a point of
saturation in his own mind, and that if he took into it something
more than it could hold, it only had the effect of pushing something
else out. Speaking of the study of medicine, he said: "If a man has a
clear idea of what he desires to do, he will seldom fail in selecting
the proper means of accomplishing it."

The most profitable study is that which is conducted with a definite
aim and object. By thoroughly mastering any given branch of knowledge
we render it more available for use at any moment. Hence it is not
enough merely to have books, or to know where to read for information
as we want it. Practical wisdom, for the purposes of life, must be
carried about with us, and be ready for use at call. It is not
sufficient that we have a fund laid up at home, but not a farthing in
the pocket: we must carry about with us a store of the current coin
of knowledge ready for exchange on all occasions, else we are
comparatively helpless when the opportunity for using it occurs.

Decision and promptitude are as requisite in self-culture as in
business. The growth of these qualities may be encouraged by
accustoming young people to rely upon their own resources, leaving
them to enjoy as much freedom of action in early life as is
practicable. Too much guidance and restraint hinder the formation of
habits of self-help. They are like bladders tied under the arms of
one who has not taught himself to swim. Want of confidence is perhaps
a greater obstacle to improvement than is generally imagined. It has
been said that half the failures in life arise from pulling in one's
horse while he is leaping. Dr. Johnson was accustomed to attribute
his success to confidence in his own powers. True modesty is quite
compatible with a true estimate of one's own merits, and does not
demand the abnegation of all merit. Though there are those who
deceive themselves by putting a false figure before their ciphers,
the want of confidence, the want of faith in one's self, and
consequently the want of promptitude in action, is a defect of
character which is found to stand very much in the way of individual
progress; and the reason why so little is done, is generally because
so little is attempted.

There is usually no want of desire on the part of most persons to
arrive at the results of self-culture, but there is a great aversion
to pay the inevitable price for it, of hard work. Dr. Johnson held
that "impatience of study was the mental disease of the present
generation;" and the remark is still applicable. We may not believe
that there is a royal road to learning, but we seem to believe very
firmly in the "popular" one. In education, we invent labor-saving
processes, seek short cuts to science, learn French and Latin "in
twelve lessons," or "without a master." We resemble the lady of
fashion, who engaged a master to teach her on condition that he did
not plague her with verbs and participles. We get our smattering of
science in the same way; we learn chemistry by listening to a short
course of lectures enlivened by experiments, and when we have inhaled
laughing-gas, seen green water turned to red, and phosphorus burnt in
oxygen, we have got our smattering, of which the most that can be
said is, that though it may be better than nothing, it is yet good
for nothing. Thus we often imagine we are being educated while we are
only being amused.

The facility with which young people are thus induced to acquire
knowledge, without study and labor, is not education. It occupies but
does not enrich the mind. It imparts a stimulus for the time, and
produces a sort of intellectual keenness and cleverness; but, without
an implanted purpose and a higher object that mere pleasure, it will
bring with it no solid advantage. In such cases knowledge produces
but a passing impression; a sensation, gut no more; it is, in fact,
the merest epicurism of intelligence--sensuous, but certainly not
intellectual. Thus the best qualities of many minds, those which are
evoked by vigorous effort and independent action, sleep a deep sleep,
and are often never called to life, except by the rough awakening of
sudden calamity or suffering, which, in such cases comes as a
blessing, if it serves to rouse up a courageous spirit that, but for
it, would have slept on.

Accustomed to acquire information under the guise of amusement, young
people will soon reject that which is presented to them under the
aspect of study and labor. Learning their knowledge and science in
sport, they will be too apt to make sport of both; while the habit of
intellectual dissipation, thus engendered, cannot fail, in course of
time, to produce a thoroughly emasculating effect both upon their
mind and character. "Multifarious reading," said Robertson, of
Brighton, "weakens the mind like smoking, and is an excuse for its
lying dormant. It is the idlest of all idlenesses, and leaves more of
impotency than any other."

The evil is a growing one, and operates in various ways. Its least
mischief is shallowness; its greatest, the aversion to steady labor
which it induces, and the low and feeble tone of mind which it
encourages. If we would be really wise, we must diligently apply
ourselves, and confront the same continuous application which our
forefathers did; for labor is still, and ever will be, the inevitable
price set upon everything which is valuable. We must be satisfied to
work with a purpose, and wait the results with patience. All
progress, of the best kind, is slow; but to him who works faithfully
and zealously the reward will, doubtless, be vouchsafed in good time.
The spirit of industry, embodies in a man's daily life, will
gradually lead him to exercise his powers on objects outside himself,
of greater dignity and more extended usefulness. And still we must
labor on; for the work of self-culture is never finished. "To be
employed," said the poet Gray, "is to be happy." "It is better to
wear out that rust out," said Bishop Cumberland. "Have we not all
eternity to rest in?" exclaimed Arnauld. "Repos ailleurs" (rest for
others) was the motto of Marnix de St. Aldegonde, the energetic and
ever-working friend of William the Silent.

It is the use we make of the powers entrusted to us which constitutes
our only just claims to respect. He who employs his one talent aright
is as much to be honored as he to whom ten talents have been given.
There is really no more personal merit attaching to the possession of
superior intellectual powers than there is in the succession to a
large estate. How are those powers used--how is that estate employed?
The mind may accumulate large stores of knowledge without any useful
purpose; but the knowledge must be allied to goodness and wisdom, and
embodied in upright character, else it is naught. Pestalozzi even
held intellectual training by itself to be pernicious; insisting that
the roots of all knowledge must strike and feed in the soil of the
rightly-governed will. The acquisition of knowledge may, it is true,
protect a man against the meaner felonies of life; but not in any
degree against its selfish vices, unless fortified by sound
principles and habits. Hence do we find in daily life so many
instances of men who are well-informed in intellect, but utterly
deformed in character; filled with the learning of the schools, yet
possessing little practical wisdom, and offering examples for warning
rather than imitation. An often-quoted expression at this day is that
"Knowledge is power;" but also, are fanaticism, despotism, and
ambition. Knowledge of itself, unless wisely directed might merely
make bad men more dangerous, and the society in which it was regarded
as the highest good, as little better than pandemonium.

It is not then how much a man may know, that is of importance, but
the end and purpose for which he knows it. The object of knowledge
should be to mature wisdom and improve character, to render us
better, happier, and more useful; more benevolent, more energetic,
and more efficient in the pursuit of every high purpose in life.
"When people once fall into the habit of admiring and encouraging
ability as such, without reference to moral character--and religious
and political opinions are the concrete form of moral character--they
are on the highway to all sorts of degradation." We must ourselves
_be_ and _do_, and not rest satisfied merely with reading and
meditating over what other men have been and done. Our best light
must be made life, and our best thought action. At least we ought to
be able to say, as Richter did, "I have made as much out of myself as
could be made of the stuff, and no man should require more;" for it
is every man's duty to discipline and guide himself, with God's help,
according to his responsibilities and the faculties with which he has
been endowed.

Self-discipline and self-control are the beginnings of practical
wisdom; and these must have their root in self-respect. Hope springs
from it--hope, which is the companion of power, and the mother of
success; for whoso hopes strongly has within him the gift of
miracles. The humblest may say, "To respect myself, to develop
myself--this is my true duty in life. An integral and responsible
part of the great system of society, I owe it to society and to its
Author not to degrade of destroy either my body, mind, or instincts.
On the contrary, I am bound to the best of my power to give to those
parts of my constitution the highest degree of perfection possible. I
am not only to suppress the evil, but to evoke the good elements in
my nature. And as I respect myself, so am I equally bound to respect
others, as they on their part are bound to respect me." Hence mutual
respect, justice, and order, of which law becomes the written record
and guarantee.

Self-respect is the noblest garment with which a man may clothe
himself--the most elevating feeling with which the mind can be
inspired. One of Pythagoras' wisest maxims, in his "Golden Verses,"
is that with which he enjoins the pupil to "reverence himself." Borne
up by this high idea, he will not defile his body by sensuality, nor
his mind by servile thoughts. This sentiment, carried into daily
life, will be found at the root of all the virtues--cleanliness,
sobriety, chastity, morality, and religion. "The pious and just
honoring of ourselves," said Milton, "may be thought the radical
moisture and fountain-head from whence every laudable and worthy
enterprise issues forth." To think meanly of one's self, is to sink
in one's own estimation as well as in the estimation of others. And
as the thoughts are, so will the acts be. Man cannot aspire if he
looks down; if he will rise, he must look up. The very humblest may
be sustained by the proper indulgence of this feeling. Poverty itself
may be lifted and lighted up by self-respect; and it is truly a noble
sight to see a poor man hold himself upright amidst his temptations,
and refuse to demean himself by low actions.

CHAPTER XXIII

LABOR CREATES THE ONLY TRUE NOBILITY.

As Americans we are justly proud that we have no hereditary titles,
but each man is measured by his own personal worth.

While believing firmly in the propriety of this order of things, yet
we would not have you imagine that we underestimate the value of a
respectable lineage, but it is better to be the originator of a great
family than to be the degenerate descendant of one.

With but few exceptions those Americans whose lives are very properly
held up as an example for the imitation of our youth, are men who
have had to work their own way from the humblest walks in life, to
the highest in the gift of the nation.

This is true of Franklin, the statesman and philosopher, as it is of
Lincoln, the patriot and martyr, and the splendid list of names that
adorn the pages of our intervening history.

Smiles in his "Self-Help" shows how in England, a land where ancestry
counts for so much, the descendants of the greatest men, even of
kings, have been found in the humblest of callings.

The blood of all men flows from equally remote sources; and though
some are unable to trace their line directly beyond their
grandfathers, all are nevertheless justified in placing at the head
of their pedigree the great progenitors of the race, as Lord
Chesterfield did when he wrote, "ADAM _de Stanhope_--EVE _de
Stanhope_." No class is ever long stationary. The mighty fall, and
the humble are exalted. New families take the place of the old, who
disappear among the ranks of the common people. Burke's "Vicissitudes
of Families" strikingly exhibits the rise and fall of families, and
shows that the misfortunes which overtake the rich and noble are
greater in proportion than those which overwhelm the poor. This
author points out that of the twenty-five barons selected to enforce
the observance of Magna Charta, there is not now in the House of
Peers a single male descendant. Civil wars and rebellions ruined many
of the old nobility and dispersed their families. Yet their
descendants in many cases survive, and are to be found among the
ranks of the people. Fuller wrote in his "Worthies," that "some who
justly hold the surnames of Bohuns, Mortimers, and Plantagenets, are
hid in the heap of common men." Thus Burke shows that two of the
lineal descendants of the Earl of Kent, sixth son of Edward I, were
discovered in a butcher and a toll-gatherer; that the great-grandson
of Margaret Plantagenet, daughter of the Duke of Clarence, sank to
the condition of a cobbler at Newport, in Shropshire; and that among
the lineal descendants of the Duke of Gloucester, son of Edward III,
was the late sexton of St. George's Church, London. It is understood
that the lineal descendant of Simon de Montfort, England's premier
baron, is a saddler in Tooley street. One of the descendants of the
"Proud Percys," a claimant of the title of Duke of Northumberland,
was a Dublin trunkmaker; and not many years since one of the
claimants for the title of Earl of Perth presented himself in the
person of a laborer in a Northumberland coal-pit. Hugh Miller, when
working as a stone-mason near Edinburgh, was served by a hodman, who
was one of the numerous claimants for the earldom of Crauford--all
that was wanted to establish his claim being a missing marriage
certificate; and while the work was going on, the cry resounded from
the walls many times in the day, of "John, Yearl Crauford, bring us
another hod o' lime." One of Oliver Cromwell's great-grandsons was a
grocer in London, and others of his descendants died in great
poverty. Many barons of proud names and titles have perished, like
the sloth, upon their family tree, after eating up all the leaves;
while others have been overtaken by adversities which they have been
unable to retrieve, and have sunk at last into poverty and obscurity.
Such are the mutabilities of rank and fortune.

The great bulk of the English peerage is comparatively modern, so far
as the titles go; but it is not the less noble that it has been
recruited to so large an extent from the ranks of honorable industry.
In olden times, the wealth and commerce of London, conducted as it
was by energetic and enterprising men, was a prolific source of
peerages. Thus, the earldom of Cornwallis was founded by Thomas
Cornwallis, the Cheapside merchant; that of Essex by William Capel,
the draper; and that of Craven by William Craven, the merchant
tailor. The modern Earl of Warwick is not descended from the "King-
maker," but from William Greville, the woolstapler; whilst the modern
dukes of Northumberland find their head, not in the Percys, but in
Hugh Smithson, a respectable London apothecary. The founders of the
families of Dartmouth, Radnor, Ducie, and Pomfret, were respectively
a skinner, a silk manufacturer, a merchant tailor, and a Calais
merchant; whilst the founders of the peerages of Tankerville, Dormer,
and Coventry, were mercers. The ancestors of Earl Romney, and Lord
Dudley and Ward, were goldsmiths and jewelers; and Lord Dacres was a
banker in the reign of Charles I, as Lord Overstone is in that of
Queen Victoria. Edward Osborne, the founder of the dukedom of Leeds,
was apprentice to William Hewet, a rich cloth-worker on London
Bridge, whose only daughter he courageously rescued from drowning, by
leaping into the Thames after her, and whom he eventually married.

William Phipps, at one time Colonial Governor of Massachusetts, and
the founder of the Normandy family, was the son of a gunsmith who
emigrated to Maine, where this remarkable man was born in 1651. He
was one of a family of not fewer than twenty-six children (of whom
twenty-one were sons), whose only fortune lay in their stout hearts
and strong arms. William seems to have had a sash of the Danish
seablood in his veins, and he did not take kindly to the quiet life
of a shepherd in which he spent his early years. By nature bold and
adventurous, he longed to become a sailor and roam through the world.
He sought to join some ship; but not being able to find one, he
apprenticed himself to a ship-builder, with whom he thoroughly learnt
his trade, acquiring the arts of reading and writing during his
leisure hours. Having completed his apprenticeship and removed to
Boston, he wooed and married a widow of some means, after which he
set up a little ship-building yard of his own, built a ship, and
putting to sea in her, he engaged in the lumber trade, which he
carried on in a plodding and laborious way for the space of about ten
years.

It happened that one day, while passing through the crooked streets
of old Boston, he overheard some sailors talking to each other of a
wreck which had just taken place off the Bahamas; that of a Spanish
ship, supposed to have much money on board. His adventurous spirit
was at once kindled, and getting together a likely crew without loss
of time, he set sail for the Bahamas. The wreck being well in shore
he easily found it, and succeeded in recovering a great deal of its
cargo, but very little money; and the result was that he barely
defrayed his expenses. His success had been such, however, as to
stimulate his enterprising spirit; and when he was told of another
and far more richly laden vessel which had been wrecked near Port de
la Plata more than half a century before, he forthwith formed the
resolution of raising the wreck, or at all events of fishing up the
treasure.

Being too poor, however, to undertake such an enterprise without
powerful help, he set sail for England in the hope that he might
there obtain it. The fame of his success in raising the wreck off the
Bahamas had already preceded him. He applied direct to the
Government. By his urgent enthusiasm, he succeeded in overcoming the
usual inertia of official minds; and Charles II eventually placed at
his disposal the "Rose Algier," a ship of eighteen guns and ninety-
five men, appointing him to the chief command.

Phipps then set sail to find the Spanish ship and fish up the
treasure. He reached the coast of Hispaniola in safety; but how to
find the sunken ship was the great difficulty. The fact of the wreck
was more than fifty years old; and Phipps had only the traditionary
rumors of the even to work upon. There was a wide coast to explore,
and an outspread ocean, without any trace whatever of the argosy
which lay somewhere at its bottom. But the man was stout in heart and
full of hope. He set his seamen to work to drag along the coast, and
for weeks they went on fishing up seaweed, shingle and bits of rock.
No occupation could be more trying to seamen, and they began to
grumble one to another, and to whisper that the man in command had
brought them on a fool's errand.

At length the murmurers gained head, and the men broke into open
mutiny. A body of them rushed one day on to the quarter-deck, and
demanded that the voyage should be relinquished. Phipps, however, was
not a man to be intimidated; he seized the ringleaders, and sent the
others back to their duty. It became necessary to bring the ship to
anchor close to a small island for the purpose of repairs; and, to
lighten her, the chief part of the stores was landed. Discontent
still increasing among the crew, a new plot was laid among the men on
shore to seize the ship, throw Phipps overboard, and start on a
piratical cruise against the Spaniards in the South Seas. But it was
necessary to secure the services of the chief ship-carpenter, who was
consequently made privy to the plot. This man proved faithful, and a
once told the captain of his danger. Summoning about him those whom
he knew to be loyal, Phipps had the ship's guns loaded, which
commanded the shore, and ordered the bridge communicating with the
vessel to be drawn up. When the mutineers made their appearance, the
captain hailed them, and told the men he would fire upon them if they
approached the stores (still on land), when they drew back; on which
Phipps had the stores reshipped under cover of his guns. The
mutineers, fearful of being left upon the barren island, threw down
their arms and implored to be permitted to return to their duty. The
request was granted, and suitable precautions were taken against
further mischief. Phipps, however, took the first opportunity of
landing the mutinous part of the crew, and engaging other men in
their places; but, by the time that he could again proceed actively
with his explorations, he found it absolutely necessary to proceed to
England for the purpose of repairing the ship. He had now, however,
gained more precise information as to the spot where the Spanish
treasure-ship had sunk; and, though as yet baffled, he was more
confident than ever of the eventual success of his enterprise.

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