How to Get on in the World

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

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At an address before a girls' school in Boston, ex-President John
Quincy Adams, then an old man, said with much feeling: "As a child I
enjoyed perhaps the greatest of blessings that can be bestowed upon
man--that of a mother who was anxious and capable to form the
characters of her children rightly. From her I derived whatever
instruction (religious especially and moral) has pervaded a long
life--I will not say perfectly, or as it ought to be; but I will
say, because it is only justice to the memory of her I revere, that
in the course of that life, whatever imperfection there has been or
deviation from what she taught me, the fault is mine and not hers."

So much depends on the home, for it is the corner-stone of society
and good government, that it is to be regretted, for the sake of
young women, as well as of young men, that our modern life offers so
many opportunities to neglect it.

As the home affects the character entirely through the associations,
it follows that the young man who has left his home behind him
should continue the associations whose memories comfort him. He
should never go to a place for recreation where he would not be
willing and proud to take his mother on his arm. He should never
have as friends men to whom he would not be willing, if need be, to
introduce his sister.

These are among the influences that help to success. But association
is a matter of such great importance as to deserve fuller treatment.

CHAPTER IV

ASSOCIATION.

The old proverb, "Tell me your company and I will tell you what you
are," is as true to-day as when first uttered. In the preparation
for success, association is one of the most powerful factors, so
powerful, indeed, that if the associations are not of the right
kind, failure is inevitable.

As one diseased sheep may contaminate a flock, so one evil associate--
particularly if he be daring, may seriously injure the morals of
many. Every young man can recall the evil influence of one bad boy
on a whole school, but he cannot so readily point to the schoolmate,
whose example and influence were for good; because goodness, though
more potent, never makes itself so conspicuous as vice.

Criminals, preparing for the scaffold, have confessed that their
entrance into a life of crime began in early youth, when the
audacity of some unprincipled associate tempted them from the ways
of innocence. Through all the years of life, even to old age, the
life and character are influenced by association. If this be true in
the case of the more mature and experienced, its force is
intensified where the young, imaginative and susceptible, are
concerned.

Man is said to be "an imitative animal." This is certainly true as to
early education, and the tendency to imitate remains to a greater or
less extent throughout life. Imitation is responsible for all the
queer changes of fashion; and the desire to be "in the swim," as it
is called, is entirely due to association.

In school days, the influence of a good home may counteract the
effect of evil associates, whom the boy meets occasionally, but when
the boy has grown to manhood, and finds himself battling with the
world, away from home and well-tried friends, it is then that he is
in the greatest danger from pernicious associates.

The young man who comes to the city to seek his fortune is more apt
to be the victim of vile associates than the city raised youth whose
experience of men is larger, and who is fortunate in his
companionship. The farmer's son, who finds himself for the first
time in a great city--alone and comparatively friendless, appears to
himself to have entered a new world, as in truth he has. The crowds
of hurrying, well-dressed people impress him forcibly as compared
with his own clumsy gait, and roughly clad figure. The noise
confuses him. The bustle of commerce amazes him; and for the time he
is as desolate in feeling as if he were in the centre of a desert,
instead of in the throbbing heart of a great city.

No matter how blessed with physical and mental strength the young man
may be, under these circumstances he is very apt, for the time at
least, to underestimate his own strength. He is powerfully impressed
by what he deems the smartness or the superior manners of those whom
he meets in his boarding house, or with whom he is associated in his
business, say in a great mercantile establishment. It requires a
great deal of moral courage for him to bear in a manly way the
ridicule, covert or open, of the companions who regard him as a
"hay-seed" or a "greenhorn." His Sunday clothes, which he wore with
pride when he attended meeting with his mother, he is apt to regard
with a feeling of mortification; and, perhaps, he secretly
determines to dress as well as do his companions when he has saved
enough money.

This is a crucial period in the life of every young man who is
entering on a business career, and particularly so to him coming
from the rural regions. He finds, perhaps, that his associates smoke
or drink, or both; things which he has hitherto regarded with
horror. He finds, too, they are in the habit of resorting to places
of amusement, the splendor and mysteries of which arouse his
curiosity, if not envy, as he hears them discussed.

Before leaving home, and while his mother's arms were still about
him, he promised her to be moral and industrious, to write
regularly, and to do nothing which she would not approve. If he had
the right stuff in him, he would adhere manfully to the resolution
made at the beginning; but, if he be weak or is tempted by false
pride, or a prurient curiosity to "see the town," he is tottering on
the edge of a precipice and his failure, if not sudden, is sure to
come in time.

Cities are represented to be centres of vice, and it cannot be denied
that the temptations in such places are much greater than on a farm
or in a quiet country village, but at the same time, cities are
centres of wealth and cultivation, places where philanthropy is
alive and where organized effort has provided places of instruction
and amusement for all young men, but particularly for that large
class of youths who come from the country to seek their fortunes.
Churches abound, and in connection with them there are societies of
young people, organized for good work, which are ever ready, with
open arms, to welcome the young stranger. Then, in all our cities
and towns, there are to be found, branches of that most admirable
institution, the Young Men's Christian Association. Not only are
there companions to be met in these associations of the very best
kind, but the buildings are usually fitted up with appliances for
the improvement of mind and body. Here are gymnasiums, where
strength and grace can be cultivated under the direction of
competent teachers. Here are to be found well organized libraries.
Here, particularly in the winter season, there are classes where all
the branches of a high school are taught; and there are frequent
lectures on all subjects of interest by the foremost teachers of the
land.

If the young man falls under these influences, and he will experience
not the slightest difficulty in doing so; indeed, he will find
friendly hands extended to welcome and to help, the result on his
character must be most beneficial. The clumsiness of rural life will
soon depart; he will regard his home-made suit with as much pleasure
as if it were made by a fashionable tailor, and he will soon learn
to distinguish between the vicious and the virtuous, while he
imitates the one and regards the other with indifference or
contempt.

Next to the association of companions met in every day life nothing
so powerfully influences the character of the young as association
with good books, particularly those that relate to the lives of men
who have struggled up to honor from small beginnings.

With such associations, and a capacity for honest persistent work,
success is assured at the very threshold of effort.

CHAPTER V

COURAGE AND DETERMINED EFFORT.

Carlyle has said that the first requisite to success is carefully to
find your life work and then bravely to carry it out. No soldier
ever won a succession of triumphs, and no business man, no matter
how successful in the end, who did not find his beginning slow,
arduous and discouraging. Courage is a prime essential to
prosperity. The young man's progress may be slow in comparison with
his ambition, but if he keeps a brave heart and sticks persistently
to it, he will surely succeed in the end.

The forceful, energetic character, like the forceful soldier on the
battle-field, not only moves forward to victory himself, but his
example has a stimulating influence on others.

Energy of character has always a power to evoke energy in others. It
acts through sympathy, one of the most influential of human
agencies. The zealous, energetic man unconsciously carries others
along with him. His example is contagious and compels imitation. He
exercises a sort of electric power, which sends a thrill through
every fibre, flows into the nature of those about him, and makes
them give out sparks of fire.

Dr. Arnold's biographer, speaking of the power of this kind exercised
by him over young men, says: "It was not so much an enthusiastic
admiration for true genius, or learning, or eloquence, which stirred
the heart within them; it was a sympathetic thrill, caught from a
spirit that was earnestly at work in the world--whose work was
healthy, sustained and constantly carried forward in the fear of
God--a work that was founded on a deep sense of its duty and its
value."

The beginner should carefully study the lives of men whose undaunted
courage has won in the face of obstacles that would cow weaker
natures.

It is in the season of youth, while the character is forming, that
the impulse to admire is the greatest. As we advance in life we
crystallize into habit and "_Nil admirari_" too often becomes our
motto. It is well to encourage the admiration of great characters
while the nature is plastic and open to impressions; for if the good
are not admired--as young men will have their heroes of some sort--
most probably the great bad may be taken by them for models. Hence it
always rejoiced Dr. Arnold to hear his pupils expressing admiration
of great deeds, or full of enthusiasm for persons or even scenery.

"I believe," said he, "that '_Nil admirari_' is the devil's favorite
text; and he could not choose a better to introduce his pupils into
the more esoteric parts of his doctrine. And therefore I have always
looked upon a man infected with the disorder of anti-romance as one
who has lost the finest part of his nature and his best protection
against everything low and foolish."

Great men have evoked the admiration of kings, popes and emperors.
Francis de Medicis never spoke to Michael Angelo without uncovering,
and Julius III made him sit by his side while a dozen cardinals were
standing. Charles V made way for Titian; and one day when the brush
dropped from the painter's hand, Charles stooped and picked it up,
saying, "You deserve to be served by an emperor."

Bear in mind that nothing so discourages or unfits a man for an
effort as idleness. "Idleness," says Burton, in that delightful old
book "The Anatomy of Melancholy," "is the bane of body and mind, the
nurse of naughtiness, the chief mother of all mischief, one of the
seven deadly sins, the devil's cushion, his pillow and chief
reposal . . . An idle dog will be mangy; and how shall an idle person
escape? Idleness of the mind is much worse than that of the body;
wit, without employment, is a disease--the rust of the soul, a
plague, a hell itself. As in a standing pool, worms and filthy
creepers increase, so do evil and corrupt thoughts in an idle
person; the soul is contaminated . . . Thus much I dare boldly say:
he or she that is idle, be they of what condition they will, never
so rich, so well allied, fortunate, happy--let them have all things
in abundance, all felicity that heart can wish and desire, all
contentment--so long as he, or she, or they, are idle, they shall
never be pleased, never well in body or mind, but weary still,
sickly still, vexed still, loathing still, weeping, sighing,
grieving, suspecting, offended with the world, with every object,
wishing themselves gone or dead, or else carried away with some
foolish fantasy or other.".

Barton says a great deal more to the same effect.

It has been truly said that to desire to possess without being
burdened by the trouble of acquiring is as much a sign of weakness
as to recognize that everything worth having is only to be got by
paying its price is the prime secret of practical strength. Even
leisure cannot be enjoyed unless it is won by effort. If it have not
been earned by work, the price has not been paid for it.

But apart from the supreme satisfaction of winning, the effort
required to accomplish anything is ennobling, and, if there were no
other success it would be its own reward.

"I don't believe," said Lord Stanley, in an address to the young men
of Glasgow, "that an unemployed man, however amiable and otherwise
respectable, ever was, or ever can be, really happy. As work is our
life, show me what you can do, and I will show you what you are. I
have spoken of love of one's work as the best preventive of merely
low and vicious tastes. I will go farther and say that it is the
best preservative against petty anxieties and the annoyances that
arise out of indulged self-love. Men have thought before now that
they could take refuge from trouble and vexation by sheltering
themselves, as it wore, in a world of their own. The experiment has
often been tried and always with one result. You cannot escape from
anxiety or labor--it is the destiny of humanity . . . Those who
shirk from facing trouble find that trouble comes to them.

"The early teachers of Christianity ennobled the lot of toil by their
example. 'He that will not work,' said St. Paul, 'neither shall he
eat;' and he glorified himself in that he had labored with his hands
and had not been chargeable to any man. When St. Boniface landed in
Britain, he came with a gospel in one hand, and a carpenter's rule
in the other; and from England he afterward passed over into
Germany, carrying thither the art of building. Luther also, in the
midst of a multitude of other employments, worked diligently for a
living, earning his bread by gardening, building, turning, and even
clock-making."

Coleridge has truly observed, that "if the idle are described as
killing time, the methodical man may be justly said to call it into
life and moral being, while he makes it the distinct object, not
only of the consciousness, but of the conscience. He organizes the
hours and gives them a soul; and by that, the very essence of which
is to fleet and to have been, he communicates an imperishable and
spiritual nature. Of the good and faithful servant, whose energies
thus directed are thus methodized, it is less truly affirmed that he
lives in time than that time lives in him. His days and months and
years, as the stops and punctual marks in the record of duties
performed, will survive the wreck of worlds, and remain extant when
time itself shall be no more."

Washington, also, was an indefatigable man of business. From his
boyhood he diligently trained himself in habits of application, of
study and of methodical work. His manuscript school-books, which are
still preserved, show that, as early as the age of thirteen, he
occupied himself voluntarily, in copying out such things as forms of
receipts, notes of hand, bills of exchange, bonds, indentures,
leases, land warrants and other dry documents, all written out with
great care. And the habits which lie thus early acquired were, in a
great measure the foundation of those admirable business qualities
which he afterward so successfully brought to bear in the affairs of
the government.

The man or woman who achieves success in the management of any great
affair of business is entitled to honor--it may be, to as much as
the artist who paints a picture, or the author who writes a book, or
the soldier who wins a battle. Their success may have been gained in
the face of as great difficulties, and after as great struggles; and
where they have won their battle it is at least a peaceful one and
there is no blood on their hands.

Courage, combined with energy and perseverance, will overcome
difficulties apparently insurmountable. It gives force and impulse
to effort and does not permit it to retreat. Tyndall said of
Faraday, that "in his warm moments he formed a resolution and in his
cool ones he made that resolution good." Perseverance, working in
the right direction, grows with time and when steadily practiced,
even by the most humble, will rarely fail of its reward. Trusting in
the help of others is of comparatively little use. When one of
Michael Angelo's principal patrons died, he said: "I begin to
understand the promises of the world are for the most part vain
phantoms and that to confide in one's self and become something of
worth and value is the best and safest course."

It ought to be a first principle, in beginning life to do with
earnestness what we have got to do. If it is worth doing at all, it
is worth doing earnestly. If it is to be done well at all it must be
done with purpose and devotion.

Whatever may be our profession, let us mark all its bearings and
details, its principles, its instruments, its applications. There is
nothing about it should escape our study. There is nothing in it
either too high or too low for our observation and knowledge. While
we remain ignorant of any part of it, we are so far crippled in its
use; we are liable to be taken at a disadvantage. This may be the
very point the knowledge of which is most needed in some crisis, and
those versed in it will take the lead, while we must be content to
follow at a distance.

Our business, in short, must be the main drain of our intellectual
activities day by day. It is the channel we have chosen for them
they must follow in it with a diffusive energy, filling every nook
and corner. This is a fair test of professional earnestness. When we
find our thoughts running after our business, and fixing themselves
with a familiar fondness upon its details, we may be pretty sure of
our way. When we find them running elsewhere and only resorting with
difficulty to the channel prepared for them, we may be equally sure
we have taken a wrong turn. We cannot be earnest about anything
which does not naturally and strongly engage our thoughts.

CHAPTER VI

THE IMPORTANCE OF CORRECT HABITS.

As has been stated, habit is the basis of character. Habit is the
persistent repetition of acts physical, mental, and moral. No matter
how much thought and ability a young man may have, failure is sure
to follow bad habits. While correct habits depend largely on self-
discipline, and often on self-denial, bad habits, like pernicious
weeds, spring up unaided and untrained to choke out the plants of
virtue. It is easy to destroy the seed at the beginning, but its
growth is so rapid, that its evil effects may not be perceptible
till the roots have sapped every desirable plant about it.

No sane youth ever started out with the resolve to be a thief, a
tramp, or a drunkard. Yet it is the slightest deviation from honesty
that makes the first. It is the first neglect of a duty that makes
the second. And it is the first intoxicating glass that makes the
third. It is so easy not to begin, but the habit once formed and the
man is a slave, bound with galling, cankering chains, and the
strength of will having been destroyed, only God's mercy can cast
them off.

Next to the moral habits that are the cornerstone of every worthy
character, the habit of industry should be ranked. In "this day and
generation," there is a wild desire on the part of young men to leap
into fortune at a bound, to reach the top of the ladder of success
without carefully climbing the rounds, but no permanent prosperity
was ever gained in this way.

There have been men, who through chance, or that form of speculation,
that is legalized gambling, have made sudden fortunes; but as a rule
these fortunes have been lost in the effort to double them by the
quick and speculative process.

Betters and gamblers usually die poor. But even where young men have
made a lucky stroke, the result is too often a misfortune. They
neglect the necessary, persistent effort. The habit of industry is
ignored. Work becomes distasteful, and the life is wrecked, looking
for chances that never come.

There have been exceptional cases, where men of immoral habits, but
with mental force and unusual opportunities have won fortunes. Some
of these will come to the reader's mind at once, but he will be
forced to confess that he would not give up his manhood and
comparative poverty, in exchange for such material success.

The best equipment a young man can have for the battle of life is a
conscience void of offense, sound common sense, and good health. Too
much importance cannot be attached to health. It is a blessing we do
not prize till it is gone. Some are naturally delicate and some are
naturally strong, but by habit the health of the vigorous may be
ruined, and by opposite habits the delicate may be made healthful
and strong.

No matter the prospects and promises of overwork, it is a species of
suicide to continue it at the expense of health. Good men in every
department and calling, stimulated by zeal and an ambition
commendable in itself, have worked till the vital forces were
exhausted, and so were compelled to stop all effort in the prime of
life and on the threshold of success.

The best preservers of health are regularity in correct hygienic
habits, and strict temperance. Alexander Stephens, of Georgia, it is
said contracted consumption when a child, and his friends did not
believe he would live to manhood, yet by correct habits, he not only
lived the allotted time of the Psalmist, but he did an amount of
work that would have been impossible to a much stronger man, without
his method of life.

It should not be forgotten that good health is quite as much
dependent on mental as on physical habits. Worry, sensitiveness, and
temper have hastened to the grave many an otherwise splendid
character.

The man of business must needs be subject to strict rule and system.
Business, like life, is managed by moral leverage; success in both
depending in no small degree upon that regulation of temper and
careful self-discipline, which give a wise man not only a command
over himself, but over others. Forbearance and self-control smooth
the road of life, and open many ways which would otherwise remain
closed. And so does self-respect; for as men respect themselves, so
will they usually, respect the personality of others.

It is the same in politics as in business. Success in that sphere of
life is achieved less by talent than by temper, less by genius than
by character. If a man have not self-control, he will lack patience,
be wanting in tact, and have neither the power of governing himself
nor managing others. When the quality most needed in a prime
minister was the subject of conversation in the presence of Mr.
Pitt, one of the speakers said it was "eloquence;" another said it
was "knowledge;" and a third said it was "toil." "No," said Pitt,
"it is patience!" And patience means self-control, a quality in
which he himself was superb. His friend George Rose has said of him
that he never once saw Pitt out of temper.

A strong temper is not necessarily a bad temper. But the stronger the
temper, the greater is the need of self-discipline and self-control.
Dr. Johnson says men grow better as they grow older, and improve
with experience; but this depends upon the width and depth and
generousness of their nature. It is not men's faults that ruin them
so much as the manner in which they conduct themselves after the
faults have been committed. The wise will profit by the suffering
they cause, and eschew them for the future; but there are those on
whom experience exerts no ripening influence, and who only grow
narrower and bitterer, and more vicious with time.

What is called strong temper in a young man, often indicates a large
amount of unripe energy, which will expend itself in useful work if
the road be fairly opened to it. It is said of Girard that when he
heard of a clerk with a strong temper, he would readily take him
into his employment, and set him to work in a room by himself;
Girard being of opinion that such persons were the best workers, and
that their energy would expend itself in work if removed from the
temptation of quarrel.

There is a great difference between a strong temper, "a righteous
indignation," and that irritability that curses its possessor and
all who come near him.

Mr. Motley compares William the Silent to Washington, whom he in many
respects resembled. The American, like the Dutch patriot, stands out
in history as the very impersonation of dignity, bravery, purity,
and personal excellence. His command over his feelings, even in
moments of great difficulty and danger, was such as to convey the
impression, to those who did not know him intimately, that he was a
man of inborn calmness and almost impassiveness of disposition. Yet
Washington was by nature ardent and impetuous; his mildness,
gentleness politeness, and consideration for others, were the result
of rigid self-control and unwearied self-discipline, which he
diligently practiced even from his boyhood. His biographer says of
him, that "his temperament was ardent, his passions strong, and,
amidst the multiplied scenes of temptation and excitement through
which he passed, it was his constant effort, and ultimate triumph,
to check the one and subdue the other." And again: "His passions
were strong, and sometimes they broke out with vehemence, but he had
the power of checking them in an instant. Perhaps self-control was
the most remarkable trait of his character. It was in part the
effect of discipline; yet he seems by nature to have possessed this
power in a degree which has been denied to other men."

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