Money is a good thing, when it is properly secured and properly used. But there are better things than money. Honor is better, and loving service, and thoughtful consideration of others.
This was the lesson taught by the life of a man who was a shareholder in a mining company that was about to go out of business. The shareholders would sustain very heavy losses, so a friend who knew the secrets of the company determined to warn this man, whom everybody liked. The hint was given that it would be to his advantage to sell quickly. "Why?" asked Mr. N. "Well, you know, the value of the mines is greatly depreciated." "When I bought the shares I took the risk." "Yes, but now you should take the opportunity of selling while you can, so as not to lose anything." "And supposing I don't sell, what then?" "Then you will probably lose all you have." "And if I do sell, somebody else will lose instead of me?" "Yes, I suppose so." "Do you suppose Jesus Christ would sell out?" "That is hardly a fair question. I suppose he would not." "I am a Christian," said Mr. N., "and I wish to follow my Master, therefore I shall not sell." He did not, and soon after lost everything, and had to begin life again.
This shareholder would have appreciated Professor A. H. Buchanan, who was for forty years professor of mathematics in Cumberland University, Tennessee. After his death it was told of him that at one time he was offered an appointment in government service to which a $3,000 salary attached. His income as professor in a church college was $600 a year. But he saw more chance to make his life count for Christian things in the professor's place than in public service, so he declined the $3000 and stayed by the $600. One who spoke of these facts in the professor's life said, in comment:
"If he had taken the $3,000, everybody would have regarded him as an ordinary sort of man. Now everybody who has heard of Professor Buchanan's exceptional devotion appreciates that he was a very extraordinary man. A very cheap person indeed is capable of accepting a bigger salary."
At about the time of the death of this professor of mathematics a daily paper mentioned a civil engineer who was transforming the appearance of a western city, and said of him: "Two or three times he has had chances to get three or four times his present salary. Each time he has said: 'No, my work is here; I haven't finished it. The money doesn't count, so I shall stick here and finish my work.'"
After the death of a famous minister in St. Louis a story was told of him that he had not allowed to be known widely during his lifetime. This was the romantic tale, as related by a writer in The New York Sun:
"When a young man, he found to his amazement among his father's papers a deed to five thousand eight hundred and eighty-three acres of land, located in what is known as West Virginia. This deed was a great surprise to all who saw or heard of it. Putting this deed in his pocket, young Palmore, the only heir to the property, made a trip to West Virginia, to look over his vast estate, which was far in the interior.
"Starting from the city of Charleston, West Virginia, he drove in a buggy into the region where his plantation was located. He traced the boundaries of his property and found that hundreds of families had settled on it without any right to it, but were living as if secure in the possession of their separate little patches of territory. He found that beneath the surface of this land there was almost limitless wealth, but the multitudes who had built themselves humble homes on the surface did not know of it, and had been living thus in undisturbed possession for a number of years. He quietly walked about at night and looked through the windows at the parents and children living on his estate. Great lawyers were ready to inaugurate legal proceedings that would have made him a millionaire, and such legal proceedings would doubtless have been instituted if the heir in person had not visited the scene of his great estate. As he dreamed in the nighttime about dispossessing such a multitude of people of their humble homes, he began to feel that, instead of such a fortune being a blessing, an estate received at such an expense would be a burden.
"After earnest prayer and sleepless hours in the midst of his vast acres, he was seized with the conviction that each member of this multitude of families living on his property needed it more than did the heir, and there and then he made up his mind that he would leave them in quiet possession of his estate."
The reporter who related the story said that the man had been called a fool, and commented, "He was God's fool."
Then he said that the incident he had related would have been unbelievable if it had not been so well attested. But why unbelievable? Is it because of the common idea that "every man has his price," that it is unthinkable that a sane man would let a fortune that he could claim honestly slip through his fingers?
Perhaps it is true that every man has his price. However, if this snarl of the pessimist is to have universal application, the price must be understood to be—in many instances—not selfish gratification, but the opportunity for courageous service. There are men and women who can be won by such an opportunity who cannot be reached by any argument of mere private advantage. Such people silence the complaints of the croaker and command the confidence of those who are struggling to help their fellows.
Louis Agassiz, the naturalist, was such a man. "I have no time to make money," was his remark when urged by a friend to turn aside from the important work of the moment to an easy, lucrative task. His reason was thus explained at another time: "I have made it the rule of my life to abandon any intellectual pursuit the moment it becomes commercially valuable." It was his idea that there were many who would then be willing to carry on work he had begun.
A contrast is presented by the famous inventor who, early in life, made it a rule never to give himself to any activity in which there was no prospect of financial gain. His first question was not, "Does the public need this invention?" but "Is there money in it?" Having answered to his satisfaction, he was ready to go ahead.
The world could not well have spared either of these men, for both rendered valuable service. But, judging from the stories of their careers, there was more joy in the life of the naturalist, who, satisfied to earn a living, thought most of serving his fellows, than in the life of the inventor before whose eyes the dollar continually loomed large. The counting-house measure of life is not the most satisfying nor is it the most useful.
That was the notion of Jacob Riis, of whom a minister who was devoting his life to the interest of young working men near his church once asked if such effort was merely thrown away, if he was pocketing himself. "Pocketing yourself, are you?" Riis replied. "Stick to your pocket. It is a pretty good pocket to be in. Out of such a pocket, worked in the way you are working it, will come healing for the ills of the day that now possess us. I would rather be in such a pocket, working for the Lord, than in a $1,000,000 church, working for the applause of a congregation."
Those who are familiar with inside history at Washington say that the day after Garfield's election as President, a dispatch was sent to Milton Wells, a Wisconsin preacher, whose vote in the convention had kept Garfield's name on the list of candidates to the very last, asking him if he would become governor of Arizona Territory. Mr. Wells answered: "I have a better office that I cannot leave. I am preaching here for $600 per year."
There was once a man named Paul who might have enjoyed position and power, if he had wished, but he chose instead a life of courageous service of which he was able once to write, without boasting:
"In labors more abundantly, in prisons more abundantly; in stripes above measure, in deaths oft. Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one. Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day have I been in the deep; in journeyings often, in perils of rivers, in perils of robbers, in perils from my countrymen, in perils from the Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; in labor and travail, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness."
How could Paul bear all these things? They were enough to break down a dozen strong men. Probably he sometimes felt that he could not bear the burden any longer, but always there came to him the assurance of Christ, "My grace is sufficient for thee." Then he could bear anything; yet not he, but Christ, who lived in him. Thus his glory was not in his own strength but in his weakness, which made place in his life for the strength of Christ.
Until men and women learn how to gain strength in their weakness as Paul did, their lives will be unsatisfying, their days will be full of complaint. Their burdens, which seemed like mountains before learning to trust Christ, will be borne as easily as if they were feathers.
God does not promise to make us all dollar millionaires if we look at Him for strength in our weakness, but He does promise to make us all millionaires of faith and hope and courage. Paul was; we can be, too.
Theodore Roosevelt's physician made this disconcerting announcement to his patient a few weeks before his death.
How would the courageous man receive an announcement like that? How would you receive it?
Let the words spoken in reply by the lion-hearted Roosevelt never be forgotten by others who struggle with difficulties:
"All right! I can work and live that way, too!"
Surely the triumphant words justified the characterization made by Herman Hagedorn of this colossal worker:
"He was frail; he made himself a mountain of courage."
At a dinner given to celebrate the worthy achievement of a public man, a guest spoke of him to a companion at table.
"No wonder he has been so well. Everything is in his favor: he is young, he is brilliant, he is in good health."
"In good health?" was the answering comment. "Where did you get that? For years he has been in wretched health; many a night he was unable to sleep except he knelt on the floor by the bedside and stretched himself from his waist across the bed. But it is not strange that you did not know, he has said nothing of his ailments; he is so full of courage himself that he makes everyone around him courageous."
When the famous Sioux Indian, Charles A. Eastman, was a boy, his father, who had learned the joys of civilized life, urged his son to secure an education. "I am glad that my son is brave and strong," he said to him. "I have come to start you on the White Man's way. I want you to grow to be a good man."
Then he urged his son, Ohiyesa, as he was called, to put on the civilized clothes he had brought with him. The boy rebelled at first; he had been accustomed to hate white men and everything that belonged to them. But when he reflected that they had done him no harm, after all, he decided to try on the curious garments.
Together father and son traveled toward the haunts of the white man. As they traveled Ohiyesa listened to tales of the wonderful inventions he would see. He was especially eager to look on a railroad train.
But even after he had gone with his father, he was reluctant to enter on his long training, until his father suggested that he make believe he was starting on a long war-path, from which there could be no honorable return until his course was completed. Entering into the spirit of the proposal, the Indian lad began his schooling at Flandreau Indian Agency, and persisted for twelve long years. After graduating from college he devoted himself to his people, and in many years since has accomplished wonders for them, teaching them the patience he had himself learned, and enabling them to understand that such patience and persistence always brings its reward.
The experience of Isaac Pitman, the inventor of shorthand, was different, yet, after all, it was much the same. As a boy he had little education. But soon after he went to work he made up his mind to supply the lack. The record of how he did this is one of the most remarkable instances of courageous patience on record.
The long office hours at his place of employment, from six in the morning until six at night, made study difficult, but he showed conclusively that where there is a will there is a way, and that he had the will. He was accustomed to leave his bed at four, that he might study two hours before the beginning of the day's work. Two hours in the evening also were set apart for study. Sometimes it happened that work at the factory was light, and the young clerk was excused for the morning. Instead of taking the time for sport, it was his habit to take a book with him into the fields or under the trees.
Thomas Allen Reid, in his biography of Pitman says: "One of the books which he made his companion in morning walks into the country was Lennie's Grammar. The conjugation of verbs, list of irregular verbs, adverbs, prepositions, and conjunctions, and the thirty-six rules of syntax, he committed to memory so that he could repeat them in order. The study of the books gave him a transparent English style."
His father was a subscriber to the local library. "I went regularly to the library for fresh supplies of books," Isaac said, in 1863, "and thus read most of the English classics. I think I was quite as familiar with Addison, and Sir Roger, and Will Honeycomb, and all the Club, as I was with my own brothers and sisters . . . and when reading The Spectator at that early age, I wished that I might be able to do something in letters."
Before he left school he formed the habit of copying choice pieces of poetry and prose into a little book which he kept in his pocket. These bits he would commit to memory when he had leisure. A later pocket companion contained a neatly written copy of Valpey's Greek Grammar, as far as the syntax, which he committed to memory. In his morning walks in 1832 he committed to memory the first fourteen chapters of Proverbs. He would not undertake a fresh chapter until he had repeated the preceding one without hesitation.
As most of his knowledge of words was gained from books, he had difficulty in pronunciation. "His method of overcoming the deficiency was ingenious," his biographer wrote. "Again and again he read 'Paradise Lost.' Careful attention to the meter enabled him to correct his faulty pronunciation of many words. Words not found in the poem he discovered in the dictionary. With unusual courage he decided to read through Walker's Dictionary, fixing his mind on words new to him and on the spelling and pronunciation of familiar terms. On the pages of one of his pocket-books he copied all words he had been in the habit of mispronouncing. Although there were more than two thousand of these words, the plan was carried out before he was seventeen."
The labor of writing out so many extracts from books led him to study the imperfect system of shorthand then current, and to develop the system that was to bear his name.
So many young people feel that they "simply cannot abide" the long process of getting an education; they give up when they are only a part of the way to the goal. But for most of them the day of bitter regret will come when they will wish that they had been more like Eastman or Pitman in their determination to be patient and persistent, to allow nothing to stand in the way of their purpose to fit themselves in the best possible manner for the serious business of life.
Young men just starting out in life nowadays, who find the path to success difficult, are more fortunate than some of those who struggled with hard times a century or more ago, because they are determined to make a self-respecting fight on their own merits. It was not always so; once nothing was thought of the effort made by an impecunious young man to throw himself on the generosity of one who had already achieved success. Then it was a habit of many authors to seek as a patron a man of influence and means who would help them live till their books were ready for the publisher, and then help to get the books before the public.
From letters of George Crabbe, a poet of some note in his century, asking Edmund Burke to become his patron, something of his story may be known. As a boy he was apprenticed to an apothecary; later he was proprietor of a small shop of his own. Business, neglected for books and writing, did not prosper. With his sister, his housekeeper, he "fasted with much fortitude." Then he went to London, with a capital of nine pounds, and starved some more. Months were spent in trying to enlist two patrons. At last, threatened with a prison for debt, he decided to try a third patron; and this was his procedure, as he himself described it:
"I looked as well as I could into every character that offered itself to my view, and resolved to apply where I found the most shining abilities, for I had learnt to distrust the humanity of weak people in all stations."
So he wrote to Edmund Burke, telling him that he could no longer be content to live in the home of poor people, who had kept him for nearly a year, and had lent him money for his current expenses. Describing himself as "one of those outcasts on the world, who are without a friend, without employment and without bread," he told of his vain appeal to another for gold to save him from prison, added that he had but one week to raise the necessary funds, and made his request.
"I appeal to you, sir, as a good, and, let me add, a great man. I have no other pretensions to your favor than that I am an unhappy one. It is not easy to support thoughts of confinement, and I am coward enough to dread such an end to my suspense . . . I will call upon you, sir, to-morrow, and if I have not the happiness to obtain credit with you I must submit to my fate . . . I have only to hope a speedy end to a life so unpromisingly begun . . . I can reap some consolation in looking to the end of it."
The appeal was successful. Edmund Burke became Crabbe's patron. The poet was glad to eat the crumbs that fell from the rich man's table, and submitted to many unpleasant slights and insinuations while he received the dole of charity.
That suing thus for a patron did not always have the effect of destroying an author's self-respect is shown by a letter written by Dr. Samuel Johnson to Lord Chesterfield. When, after years of hard labor, Dr. Johnson's dictionary was known to be ready for publication, Lord Chesterfield wrote for "The World" two flattering articles about the author, evidently thinking that the work would be dedicated to him. At once Dr. Johnson wrote:
"My Lord: When, upon some slight encouragement, I first visited your lordship, I . . . could not forbear to wish . . . that I might obtain that regard for which I saw the world contending; but I found my attendance so little encouraged, that neither pride nor modesty would suffer me to continue it. . . .
"Seven years, my lord, have passed since I waited in your outward room, or was repulsed from your door, during which time I have been pushing on my work through difficulties, of which it is useless to complain, and have brought it at last to the verge of publication, without one act of assistance, one word of encouragement or one smile of favor. Such treatment I did not expect for I never had a patron before. . . . The notice which you have been pleased to take of my labor, had it been early, had been kind; but it has been delayed till I am indifferent, and cannot enjoy it; till I am solitary, and cannot impart it; till I am known, and do not want it. . . . I have long awakened from that dream of hope, in which I once boasted myself with so much exultation, my lord,
"Your lordship's most humble, most obedient servant,
The lapse of a century has brought a change. Self-respecting, courageous young workers do not seek a patron to help them to fame. To-day they ask only to fight their own battles, win their own victories.
Nor do courageous workers complain when little things go wrong.
"I don't know what I shall do if the mail does not come to-morrow. Think of being two days without a morning paper!"
The complaint was heard when railway traffic had been tied up by washouts on the railway. The inconvenience suffered by the speaker seemed to him very great. Though there had been no other interruption to the many comforts and conveniences to which he had been accustomed, the single difficulty made him lose his temper and spoiled his day.
When one is tempted to magnify such a small difficulty into a mountain it is worth while to look at things from the standpoint of a man whose life far from the centers of civilization makes him so independent of circumstances and surroundings that he can be cheerful even in the face of what seem like bitter privations.
A company of travelers in the forests of Canada thought that the knowledge of the most recent news was necessary to happiness. They learned their mistake when they reached the camp of a man from whom they expected to learn news more recent than the events reported in the paper the day they left civilization, seven weeks before. They felt sure that, as he lived on the trail, he would have seen some traveler who had left the railroad since their own departure.
When they asked him for late news from the States, he said he had some very recent news, and proceeded to tell of events eight months old! "Do you call that recent?" he was asked, in disgust.
"What's the matter with that?" was the wondering reply. "It only happened last fall, and there ain't been nobody through here since." And he contentedly resumed the task at which he had been engaged when interrupted by the demand for "recent" news.
On the same journey the travelers—whose story is told in "Trails in Western Canada"—showed that they were learning the lesson. Carelessness in handling a campfire caused a forest fire which threatened their food supply. They saved this, but lost their only axes. After a long search they found these in the embers, but the temper had been utterly ruined by the heat. Only a few hours before they felt that an axe was absolutely necessary not only to comfort but to life itself, yet when the ruined tools were found the travelers turned to their tasks without giving the disaster a second thought. They knew that there is always a way out of difficulty. They continued their expedition without an axe, and found that they managed very well.
The lesson was impressed still more by the attitude of a guide who spent a few days with them. Like many other people on vacation they allowed themselves to worry about finances. But their thoughts were set on a new track by the guide, who, after telling of the success in trapping grizzly bear and beaver which had enabled him to save a little money, said: "Life is too short to worry about money. If I lose all I have to-morrow, I can get a couple of bear traps and by next spring I'll be on my feet again. The mountains are always here, and I know where there is a bunch of bear and a colony of beaver, and I can get along out here, and live like a prince while those poor millionaires are lying awake at nights, lest someone come and steal their money."
Two other guides were engaged to pole the travelers' raft down the Fraser River. Nearly every day the cold rain fell in torrents, but the men were unmoved. "All day long they would stand in their wet clothes, their hands numb and blue from the cold as they handled their dripping poles; yet not a comment indicating discomfort is recalled. Physical annoyances, which in the city would bring an ambulance, scarcely are mentioned by them."
One day one of the men was asked what they did when they were sick. "Cain't say we ever are sick," was the reply. "The worst thing that ever happened to us, I reckon, was when Mort here had a bad tooth; but, after a day or two, we got sick of it, and took it out." That was all he thought worth saying about it till he was pressed for an account of the operation. "Oh, I looked through our dunnage bag," he said, "and found an old railroad spike. Mort held it against the tooth and I hit the head with a big rock, and knocked her out the first time."
His companion was unwilling to agree that this was the most trying experience. He told of a day when the man who had reported the tooth extraction, cut his foot severely with an axe. "Oh, that didn't bother us," the victim interrupted. "I just slapped on some spruce gum and never thought anything more about it." Asked how long he was laid up, the surprised answer was: "Laid up for that? We weren't laid up at all. Couldn't travel quite as fast for a day or two, but we didn't lose no time at that, for we traveled longer to make up."
Still another guide gave an object lesson in making light of difficulties when his horse fell on him, bruising one of his knees so that it swelled to an enormous size. The injured man made no complaint, though his companions were full of sympathy. He knew he could reduce the swelling by heroic remedies.
One day when traveling was unusually difficult, the guide cheered his employers by telling them of the fine camp he owned just ahead—"a house like a hotel," he said. And when the camp was reached he pointed proudly to "a great log with a few great pieces of bark and some cedar slivers stretched over the top." In this camp the night was spent, without blankets and in the rain. "But as no one seemed to consider this anything out of the ordinary, the travelers made no complaint."
Perhaps a taste of the wilderness is what we need when we become impatient of trifles and make ourselves miserable because everything does not go to suit us.
Failure camps on the trail of the man who is ready to give up because difficulties multiply. A representative of a large paper warehouse made up his mind to add to his list of customers a certain Michigan firm. Repeated rebuffs did not daunt him. Every sixty days he sent the firm a letter of invitation to buy his goods. During twenty-seven years one hundred and sixty-one letters were mailed without result. Then, in reply to the one hundred and sixty-second letter, the Michigan firm asked for quotations. These were given promptly, and two carloads of paper were sold. What if this letter writer had become discouraged before he wrote this final letter?
"I thought you were planning to complete your education," a friend said to a young man whom he had not seen for some time; "yet now you are clerking in a store. Perhaps, though, you are earning money for next year's expenses."
"No, I am earning money for this year's expenses," was the discouraged reply. "I did want an education, but I found it was too difficult to get what I sought, so I have decided to settle down."
Of course it is easier to give up than it is to push on in the face of difficulty, but the youth who pushes on is fitting himself to fill a man's place in the world, while the young man who is easily discouraged is fitting himself for nothing but disappointment. The world has no place for a quitter.
There is a tonic for young people who purpose to make the most of themselves in glimpses of a few college students who had the courage to face difficulty. One of these was an Italian boy, who was glad to beat carpets, wash windows, scrub kitchen floors, mow lawns, teach grammar, arithmetic and vocal exercises at a night school for foreigners. Then—as if his time was not fully occupied by these occupations—he made arrangements to care for a furnace and sift the ashes, in exchange for piano lessons. That student finished his preparatory course with credit, taking a prize for scholarship.
A seventeen-year-old boy wanted an education, but he had nine brothers and sisters at home, and he knew that he could look for no financial assistance from his parents. So he picked cotton at sixty cents a hundred pounds, sawed wood, cut weeds and scrubbed floors—and thus paid his expenses.
One student could not spare the money to pay his railroad fare to the school of his choice. But he had a pony. So he rode the pony the entire distance of five hundred miles, working for his expenses along the way.
A beginner in college was too full of grit to give up when bills came on him more heavily than he had expected. During the school year he did chores, rang the bell for the change of classes, did janitor work, and waited on table in restaurants. In the summer he found work on farms near by.
"No task is too difficult for the man with a purpose," declared a worker with young men, some of whom were ready to give up. "Two things are necessary if you would be successful," was another man's message to those whom he wished to inspire to do purposeful work. "First: know what you want to do. Second: do it."
Those who permit obstacles to stand in the way of the performance of tasks they know they ought to perform if they would make the most of themselves, need to take to heart the message given by a mother to her son when he was ready to give up the unequal struggle with poverty and physical infirmity. "Thou wilt have much to bear, many hardships to suffer," she said. "But mark what I say, we must not mind the trouble. During the first part of the night we must prepare the bed on which to stretch ourselves during the latter part."
Giving up after failure is always easier than trying again, but the men and women who count are those who will not be dismayed by failure. When J. Marion Sims, the famous surgeon, was beginning the practice of medicine, he proudly tacked an immense tin sign on the front of his office. Then he lost two patients, and pride and courage both failed him. "I just took down that long tin signboard from my door," he wrote in the story of his life. "There was an old well back of the house, covered over with boards. I went to the well, took that sign with me, dropped it in there, and covered the old well over again. I was no longer a doctor in the town." But fortunately he conquered discouragement, made a fresh beginning, and overcame tremendous obstacles. After his death a famous man said that if all his discoveries should be suppressed, it would be found that his own peculiar branch of surgery had gone backward at least twenty-five years.
Indomitable perseverance is necessary for the business man as for the professional man; and it will just as surely bring reward to those who are engaged in Christian work as to those who are seeking worldly honor. So when the uphill climb seems too difficult, there must be no faltering. Remember—as Christina Rossetti said—"We shall escape the uphill by never turning back."
In gathering material for a history of Charles V of Spain, a Spanish historian was painstaking in his researches. Finally he was able to tell the king's whereabouts on every day of his career, except for two weeks in 1538.
Then friends assured him that he had done his best. In all probability nothing of importance happened during those days. But the historian believed in being thorough to the end. So he delayed publication. For fifteen years he sought news of the missing fortnight. Finally, and reluctantly, when he was seventy-five years old, he published the book.
At length an American woman, studying in the archives of Spain, having learned of the lost days, resolved to find them. Among musty documents, in many libraries, she toiled. Then, by a woman's intuition, she was led to look for documents of a sort the Spanish historian had never thought of. And she found where the king was on some of those days. The news was sent to the historian, just in time for him to make additions to his inaugural address to be delivered on taking his seat in the Academy of History. In this address he rejoiced to give full credit for the discovery to the American.
But the woman was not satisfied; there was still a gap to be filled. She made further trials, and failed. Again intuition led her to documentary sources that had hardly been touched since they were filed away nearly three hundred years before. She succeeded, and now that bit of history is complete.
A well known writer for young people was also persistent in tracing a story to its source. When he came to America from his native Holland he heard for the first time the story of the Dutch hero who stopped the hole in the dike, a story unknown in Holland. He resolved to prove or disprove this. The record of his long search was published later. Not only did he prove the existence of the boy, but he proved that the boy's sister was a partner in the heroic deed. Thus the helpful story has been saved for future generations.
These incidents make interesting reading. But do they not do more? Surely it is unnecessary to urge the lesson of persistence in a task seriously undertaken. Often there is temptation to slight some worth-while task, after one has worked on it painstakingly for a time. "Why pay so much attention to detail?" is asked. "Surely no real harm will be done if I give less time to some of these things that seemed so important at the beginning!"
Fortunately there are multitudes of workers who are constitutionally unable to slight a task. The proofreader on a paper of large circulation is an example. It is a part of her work to prove statements made, to verify facts and figures, to see that these are altogether accurate. Once when there was an unusual pressure of work the editor suggested that she might wish to take certain things for granted, but she showed her conscientious thoroughness by performing the task to the end, according to the rules of the office, and in the face of weariness that was almost exhaustion.
It may not be given to you to be a historian. You may not be called upon to prove the story of a hero. It may not be your task to read proof or to verify manuscripts. But each one has a definite part in the work of the world and there is no one to whom the example of historian and proofreader is without value. All need to remember the truth in the assurance, "There is nothing so hard but search will find it out."
Two young people were passing out of a building where they had just listened to a speaker of note.
"What a wonderful talk that was!" said one who found it a heavy cross to make the simplest address in public. "I wish I had such a gift of speech."
"It isn't a gift in his case; it is an acquirement," was the response. "If you had known that man five years ago, you would agree with me. When I first knew him he could not get up in a public meeting and make the simplest statement without floundering and stammering in a most pitiful manner. But he had made up his mind to be a public speaker, and he put himself through a severe course of discipline. To-day you see the result."
The biography of Dr. Herrick Johnson tells of courageous conquest of difficulties that seemed to block the way to success: "Hamilton College has always given great attention to public speaking and class orations. The high standard was set by a remarkably gifted man, Professor Mandeville, who instituted a system in the study of oratory and public speaking which has been known ever since, with some modification, as the 'Mandeville System.'"
"In 1853, Dr. Anson J. Upson was in the Mandevillian chair, and had lifted up to still greater height the standard of public speaking, and had awakened a great, inextinguishable enthusiasm for it. Not one of the boys who entered that year, and who were at that prize-speaking contest, could fail to be seized with the public-speaking craze. It especially met Herrick Johnson's taste and trend and gifts, and fired his highest aim. Probably there was nothing he wanted so much as the prize in his class at the next commencement. But unfortunately his standards and ideals of public speaking were just then as far as possible from the Mandevillian standard. He had acquired what was called a ministerial tone, and other faults fatal to any success, unless eradicated. The best speakers of the upper classes were the recognized and accepted 'drillers' of the new boys, who at once put themselves under their care and criticism. Every spring and fall a certain valley with a grove, north of the college, was the resort of the aspirants for success at this time. The woods would ring with their 'exercises' and strenuous declamation, and I presume it is the same to-day.
"Herrick Johnson had a magnificent voice, well-nigh ruined by his sins against the right method of using it. He soon saw that it was going to be essential for him to go down to the foundation of his wrong methods and break them all up and absolutely eradicate his 'tone.' It was no easy thing to do, but the young man was intensely ambitious, and so he worked with the greatest energy. He failed of an appointment on the 'best four' of his Freshman class. But he worked away throughout his Sophomore year and failed again. The upperclassmen saw his pluck, they recognized his grand voice, and they worked with him during his Junior year, until he had mastered the Mandevillian style, wholly eradicated his 'tone,' corrected all defects, and got his appointment for one of the best four speakers of the Junior year; and on the prize-speaking night of that commencement, he went on the platform conscious of his power and swept everything before him as the Junior prize speaker. It set the standard for that young man. Voice, manner, address, were all masterful and accounted easily for his great success as a public speaker through all his subsequent prominent and successful career in his profession."
A part of the good of "speaking a piece" is to try again, determined to retrieve failure. Success is not always a good thing for a boy or a girl, any more than for a man or a woman. The discipline of failure is sometimes needed. To fail is not always a calamity, if the failure leads to the correction of the faults that lead to failure. Whether it be speaking a piece or learning a lesson or facing a trying situation in business, no matter how many times one has failed, he needs to take to heart the message of Macbeth: