increase itself by interest and otherwise, until you arrive at the state of independence." Too much must not be undertaken or expected in a course of business education. All technical requirements should be included in it; but it may be necessary to omit many readings and studies which the recipient would be glad to comprise in his general culture. "Have the courage," advised Sydney Smith, "to be ignorant of a great number of things, in order to avoid the calamity of being ignorant of everything." Some of the most famous men of history, as well as of business, have been singularly illiterate. Charlemagne could barely sign his own 66 name; Cromwell was 'inarticulate'; Macaulay's asthmatic hero [William of Orange] scarcely possessed a book; and Frederick the Great could not spell in any of the three languages which he habitually mispronounced. Many of our greatest men were born in the backwoods, and the strongest hand that has held our government- a hand that would have throttled secession in its cradle-belonged to one whom his biographer pronounces 'the most ignorant man in the world.'"* There is sometimes an advantage, too, in not having the comprehensive view of things which a large, wide culture gives. Shakspere said of certain contingencies, "And thus the native hue of resolution Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought." * Mathews, Getting on in the World, p. 119. And Sir Arthur Helps remarks that "the man who sees too widely is nearly sure to be indecisive, or to appear so. Hence also comes an appearance, sometimes of shuffling, and sometimes of over-subtlety, which is very harmful to a man." But there is little danger, in the intense activities and competitions of to-day, that men already in business, at least, will over-cultivate themselves. They, and the younger generation who are preparing, may be safely advised to lose no opportunity of information, of refinement, of genuine culture. All will be useful to them, in some way, some time. As President Garfield nobly said, in his address to the graduating class at the United States Naval Academy, Annapolis, "There is no easy road to success. I thank God for it. There is no success without you work for it. A uniform can give you position, but it can not give you success. In peace or in war, a trained man will make his life tell. Without training you are left on a sea of luck, where thousands go down while one meets with success. Training, with brain work, is what will bring success. Your work can not extemporize success. It must be wrought out with patience and toil. The world is open to you, and if the naval service does not bring you success, then you are lazy or hopelessly incompetent. I almost experience a feeling of envy when I think of the possible future before We older ones have our characters set. There is no curiosity about our future. Even angels would you. hardly look down upon us. The very gods, if we lived in mythological times, would look down with interest upon you. You have so much to mould, shape, and build up! All your friends will follow you so long as you work for this end." CHAPTER IX. HOW TO MAKE MONEY. Thus, when the villain crams his chest, GAY. Engage in one kind of business only, and stick to it faithfully until you succeed, or until your experience shows that you should abandon it. A constant hammering on one nail will generally drive it home at last, so that it can be clinched. When a man's undivided attention is centred on one object, his mind will constantly be suggesting improvements of value, which would escape him if his brain was occupied by a dozen different subjects at once. Many a fortune has slipped through a man's fingers because he was engaging in too many occupations at a time. There is good sense in the caution against having too many irons in the fire at once. P. T. BARNUM. HE ways of making money are as diverse as the vocations which men undertake. No occupation yields more returns than what are necessary for actual support, that does not give the opportunity for gains. But there is a choice of such employments, in the light of gain; for some return more money than others for the same time occupied and the same labor expended. It is well, then, to look carefully at the differences in making selection of a life-work. And when the calling is once chosen and entered upon, never leave it, as a very successful business man suggests in our quotation above, while a reasonable demand is maintained for either the articles you handle or the kind of labor upon which you expend your energies. This cardinal principle in money-making only applies, of course, to those who are thus still engaged, and not to him who has made an independence and can afford the sacrifice necessary in a change of business; for a change from one line to another is generally expensive, involving a loss of capital invested, of skill and knowledge acquired, and of time both in making the change and in getting a like skill, if possible, in the new vocation. Diversity of business produces diversity of employ ments, and usually those who engage in them exercise no intelligent choice in the matter. The business to be followed is selected either by the parent or a friend, or by the youth himself, without the remotest idea on his part of the processes, results, or conditions of success of the business in which he is about to engage. The usual attraction to it, however, is the fact that some one else has done well that is, made an independence, in that line of business. Some are driven by necessity to take whatever comes readiest to hand |