p. 86 | How Boys May Succeed

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Mar 13, 1879

How Boys May Succeed.

A poor boy inquires what occupation it is best for him to follow, and how can he best succeed in life?

The choice of an occupation depends partly upon the individual preference, and partly upon circumstances. It may be that you are debarred from entering upon that business for which you are best adapted. In that case make the best choice in your power. Apply yourself faithfully and earnestly to whatever you undertake, and you cannot well help achieving a moderate success. Patient application sometimes leads to great results.

You emphasize the fact of your being a poor boy, but this affords no grounds of discouragement. Not only many but most of our successful business and professional men were trained in the hard school of penury. Stewart, Vanderbilt, and John Jacob Astor struggled upward from a youth of poverty. A well known member of congress assured the writer that at the age of nineteen he was a flatboatman on the Mississippi river. The obscure beginnings of Abraham Lincoln are familiar to all Americans. Yet more remarkable was the rise of President Andrew Johnson, who did not learn to read and write till after he was twenty-one. So numerous are similar cases that it almost seems as if poverty, instead of being a hindrance, was a positive help. Rich boys are often spoiled, and their energies sapped and undermined by luxurious habits, the too free use of money, and the lack of that discipline which comes from indigence.

As an element of success, great stress must be laid upon incorruptible integrity, which of late years is unfortunately too rarely found. A business man once said to the writer:--

"I can find plenty of smart young men to work for me. What I want is an honest clerk, whom I can implicitly trust."

Scarcely a day passes in which some defalcation is not brought to light. Widespread misery often results from the lax principles of some young man placed in a position of trust. Let our correspondent resolve that he will live on bread and water rather than appropriate a penny that is not his own. Let him imitate the stern integrity of John Quincy Adams, who would not write a private letter upon Government paper, but provided a separate stock of stationery for such use. A boy or man who establishes a reputation for strict honesty will not remain out of employment.

Don't give up all of your time to business. Reserve a part, if only an hour daily, for reading and mental improvement. If Abbott Lawrence had been familiar with the details of his business, he would never have received the appointment of Minister to England, a place which he filled with credit to himself and his country. Some men prominent in business have found time also for a wide and varied course of reading, which made them agreeable and instructive companions.

Once at a dinner party an eminent clergyman made an incorrect historical allusion, and was at once set right by a quiet merchant who sat beside him.

Last of all, remember that you owe a debt to humanity. Try to live and labor so that the world may be richer and mankind the happier for your having lived. A great inventor, a great philanthropist, leaves a legacy to his race. Who can estimate the incalculable debt of the world to the inventor of printing, of the steam engine, or the telegraph? Who will deny that Washington, Franklin, or John Howard, helped to make the world better than ever they found it? All cannot attain their celebrity or emulate their great achievements, but no one is so humble that he cannot promote in some degree the happiness of those around him.

A good mother, when her son was leaving the home of his childhood and going out into the great world, knowing that he was ambitious, gave him this parting injunction:

"My son, remember that though it is a good thing to be a great man, it is a great thing to be a good man."

No sounder or truer words were ever spoken. A great man may dazzle, but a good man is a beacon shining afar, by whose beneficent light a multitude are enabled to walk in safety. The best success is often achieved by the humblest, and an obscure life, well-spent, is better than a wicked renown.—Sel.