Part 6 (1/2)

Let the messages that you send back to the old home be joyful--full of faith. No matter how hard a time you are having, don't let ”the folks at home” know it. Besides, you are not having such a hard time, after all. Hundreds of thousands of other men who have become splendidly successful had a great deal harder time than you are having or ever dreamed of having. Resolve to live up to what the home which reared you expects of you, and work like mad on that resolve, and you will find that you are becoming all that ”the folks at home” expected of you, and a great deal more.

Go back to the old home as often as you can; but be sure that you go back with words of cheer and a story of things done. ”The folks at home”--especially the mother--will want to hear all about it. There may be wars whose high-leaping flames illumine all the heavens; there may be political campaigns on hand where issues of fate are thrilling the nerves of the millions; there may be strange tidings from the council-board of the nations; there may be catastrophes and glories, scourges and blessings, famine or opulence; but any and all of these are of no interest to the mother, compared with what _you_ will have to tell her of _your_ own puny little deeds.

They are not puny deeds to her; they are quite the most considerable performances given in all the universe of men. For _you_ did them, you know, and that is enough. To his mother every man is a hero.

So let your tale to her be boldly told and lovingly. And be sure that it is a narrative of purity, things honorable and of good report.

Return to the habit of your youth, and at her knees establish again the old confessional. And then, with your secrets handed over to her and safely locked in her heart, with her hand of blessing on your head, and her smile of confidence, pride, and approval glorifying her face, resolve to again go out into the world where your place is, and be worthy of this new baptism of manhood you have again received in the sanctuary of the old home.

These are all simple things, commonplace things, things easy to do.

They have nothing extraordinary about them. And yet, if you will do them, the world will back you as a winner against men who are a great deal smarter than you are, but who with all their smartness are not smart enough to do these plain and kindly things.

III

THE COLLEGE?

_1. The Young Man who Goes_

Collis P. Huntington was a notable practical success. He was wise with the hard wisdom of the world, and he had the genius of the great captain for choosing men. No business general ever selected his lieutenants with more accurate judgment. His opinion on men and affairs was always worth while. And he thought young men who meant to do anything except in the learned professions wasted time by going to college.

So when, searching for my final answer to the question this moment being asked by so many young Americans, ”Shall I go to college,” I answer in the affirmative, I do so admitting that a negative answer has been given by men whose opinions are ent.i.tled to the greatest possible respect.

I admit, too, that nearly every city--yes, almost every town--contains conspicuous ill.u.s.trations of men who learned how to ”get there” by attending the school of hard knocks. Certainly some of the most distinguished business careers in New York have been made by young men who never saw a college.

You find the same thing in every town. I have a man in mind whose performances in business have been as solid as they are astonis.h.i.+ng.

Twenty years ago he was a street-car conductor; to-day he controls large properties in which he is himself a heavy owner; and a dozen graduates of the high-cla.s.s universities of Europe and America beg the crums that fall from the table of his affairs.

In his Phi Beta Kappa Address Wendell Phillips cleverly argues that the reformers of the world, and most of those whose memories are the beloved and cherished treasures of the race, were men whose vitality had not been reduced by college training, and whose kins.h.i.+p with the people and oneness with the soil had not been divorced by the artificial refinement of a college life. But Phillips was bitter--even fanatical--on this subject; and was, in himself, a living denial of his own doctrine.

Remember, then, you who for any reason have not had those years of mental discipline called ”a college education,” that this does not excuse you from doing great work in the world. Do not whine, and declare that you could have done so much better if you had ”only had a chance to go to college.” You can be a success if you will, college or no college. At least three of those famous masters of business which Chicago, the commercial capital of the continent, has given to the world, and whose legitimate operations in tangible merchandizing are so vast that they are almost weird, had no college education, and very little education of any kind.

I think, indeed, that very few of America's kings of trade ever attended college. There are the masters of railroad management, too.

Few of them have been college men, although the college man is now appearing among them--witness President Ca.s.satt, of the Pennsylvania System, a real Napoleon of railroading, who, I hear, is a graduate of the German universities and of American polytechnic schools.

Burns did not go to college. Neither did Shakespeare.

Some of our greatest lawyers ”read law” in the unrefined but honest and strengthening environment of the old-time law office. Lincoln was not a college man; neither was Was.h.i.+ngton. So do not excuse yourself to your family and the world upon the ground that you never had a college education. That is not the reason why you fail.

You can succeed--I repeat it--college or no college; all you have to do in the latter case is to put on a little more steam. And remember that some of the world's sages of the practical have closed their life's wisdom with the deliberate opinion that a college education is a waste of time, and an over-refinement of body and of mind.

You see, I am trying to take into account every possible view of this weighty question; for I know how desperate a matter it is to hundreds of thousands of my young countrymen. I know how earnestly they are searching for an answer; how hard it will be for hosts of them to obey an affirmative answer; how intense is the desire of the great majority of young Americans to decide this question wisely. For most of them have no time to lose, little money to spend and none to waste, no energy to spare, and yet are inspired with high resolve to make the best and most of life. And I know how devoutly they pray that, in deciding, they may choose the better part.

Still, with all this in mind, my advice is this: Go to college. Go to the best possible college for _you_. Patiently hold on through the sternest discipline you can stand, until the course is completed. It will not be fatal to your success if you do not go; but you will be better prepared to meet the world if you do go. I do not mean that your mind will be stored with much more knowledge that will be useful to you if you go through college than if you do not go through college.

Probably the man who keeps at work at the business he is going to follow through life, during the years when other men are studying in college, acquires more information that will be ”useful” to him in his practical career. But the college man who has not thrown away his college life comes from the training of his alma mater with a mind as highly disciplined as are the wrist and eye of the skilled swordsman.

n.o.body contends that a college adds an ounce of brain power. But if college opportunities are not wasted, such mind as the student does have is developed up to the highest possible point of efficiency. The college man who has not scorned his work will understand any given situation a great deal quicker than his brother who, with equal ability, has not had the training of the university.

A man who has been instructed in boxing is more than a match for a stronger and braver man unskilled in what is called the ”manly art.”