How to Get the Best Places.
THERE are, in society, a great many good places; but the best places are few, and not easily reached. Who shall have the best places? Let any boy look about his schoolroom and ask which of these boys are to have the best places, and he will find it hard to decide. In all the schools there are many thousands of boys, and some of them will get the best places. Who are they? that is the question. I wish to speak to the boys of one trait which often decides which of two boys who want the same place gets it. I refer to accuracy in scholarship and practice. I do not refer to absolute accuracy, but to that habit which strives to think the thoughts and do the acts as nearly accurate as possible. Some boys use the word "about" too often. "The area of a certin field is about so much;" or a certain city is "about on such a line of latitude;" or "the sum of certain quantities is about so much;" or a certain sentence in a translation or composition is about thus and so. If they spell a word or solve a problem, or keep an engagement, that little word pushes itself into notice. The second class of boys, cultivate the habit of accuracy. They try to "hit the nail on the head," and do it every time. If they add up a column, or multiply, or spell, or make a promise, they aim to do the thing precisely right. Let two boys of these two kinds apply for a position as book-keeper, or superintendent's clerk, or any other office of trust. The one is about right, the other is right; the one does his work about right, the other does his right; the one may be about accurate in his business, the other is accurate. The accurate boy, other things being equal, will surely get the place, whilst the other one will about not get it. I saw a young man in the office of a western railway superintendent. He was occupying a position that four hundred boys in that city would have wished to get. It was honorable, and "it paid well," besides being in the line of promotion. How did he get it? Not by having a rich father, for he was the son of a laborer. The secret was his beautiful accuracy. He began as an errand boy, and did his work accurately. His leisure time he used in perfecting his writing and arithmetic. After a while he learned to telegraph. At each step his employer commended his accuracy, and relied on what he did, because he was sure it was just right. And it is thus with every occupation. The accurate boy is the favored one. Those who employ men do not wish to be on a constant lookout, as though they were rogues or fools. If a carpenter must stand at his journeyman's elbow to be sure his work is right, or if a cashier must run over his book-keeper's columns he might as well do the work himself, as to employ another to do it in that way; and it is certain that the employer will get rid of such an inaccurate workman as soon as possible. I knew such a young man. He had a good chance to do well; but he was so inaccurate and unreliable that people were afraid to trust him. If he wrote a deed or mortgage, or a contract, he was sure either to leave cut something, or put in something that would make it an imperfect paper. He was a lawyer without business, because he lacked the noble quality of accuracy. Just across the street from him was another young lawyer, who was proverbial for accuracy. He was famous for searching titles, and when he wrote out the history of a title to a piece of property, it was taken for granted that it was right. His aim was absolute accuracy in everything. If he copied a conveyance, or cited legal authority, or made a statement, he aimed to do it exactly. The consequence is, he is having a valuable practice at the bar, and is universally esteemed. "But," says some boy, "when I become a man, that is the way I shall do. I mean to be very accurate." Perhaps so. I could tell better if I knew just how you did your work now. There are several ways of getting a lesson. One is to get it "tolerably well," which does not cost much labor. The other way is to get it faultlessly well, which costs a great deal of labor. A boy can get a general idea of his lesson with very little labor, but to get it with accuracy is very hard, and requires both time and industry. If you, my boy, to-day are getting your lessons in the slip-shod way, you will grow up a slip-shod man; but if to-day your habit is to get every lesson with perfect accuracy you will do that when you become a man.—Sel.