The Young Man and the World

aptain for choosing men. No business general ever selected his lieutenants with more accurate judgment. His opinion on men and affairs wa

Americans, "Shall I go to college," I answer in the affirmative, I do so admitting that a nega

men who learned how to "get there" by attending the school of hard knocks. Certainly some of the m

shing. Twenty years ago he was a street-car conductor; to-day he controls large properties in which he is himself a heavy owner;

sures of the race, were men whose vitality had not been reduced by college training, and whose kinship with the people and oneness with the soil had not been divor

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 commerc

Few of them have been college men, although the college man is now appearing among them-witness President Cassatt, of the Pennsylva

to college. Neith

time law office. Lincoln was not a college man; neither was Washington. So do not excuse yourself to your fam

more steam. And remember that some of the world's sages of the practical have closed their life's wisdom with

r 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,

an 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.

llege, acquires more information that will be "useful" to him in his practical career. But the college man who has not thrown away his co

t does have is developed up to the highest possible point of efficiency. The college man who has not scorned his work will unders

r and braver man unskilled in what is called the "manly art." That is your

o march, how to charge, how to do everything. I shall never forget the bayonet exercises which an officer

r courage and devotion they had not added years of painstaking drill, which an American soldier would have considered

rn methods has been, they nevertheless would try to be the highest type of soldier that ever marched to a battle-field. If you go to college, young man, you have got to be in

you would if your whole career depended upon each task set for you. If you mean to go to college for the principal purpose of idling around, wearing a small cap and good clothes, and being the ado

o college for business. Those drill years

going to be in earnest, quit-get out. Resolve to get absolutely everything there is to be had out of your college

man has the spirit that will get for him all that a college education has to give, it will also make him triumph in a co

ble of any sacrifice to get through college, I do not see what good a college education will do him-no, nor any other kind

by deciding to go to college. Then pick your college. That is as important a matter as choosing your occupation in life. One college is not as

institution. And you want to select the place where your mental roots will strike in the earth most readily

institutions; read every reputable article you can find about them. Keep this up long enough, and you will become conscious of an unreasoned knowledge that suc

urse the great universities will answer you very formally, or perhaps not at all. Their attitude is the impersonal one. They say to the world, and to the youth

are ready for you if you are ready for them. And if you are not ready for them, if you are only a rich person or a mere stroller along the highways of life, what is that to them

are the most men in whose blood burns the fire which is racing through your veins. Go to the college in whose atmosphere you will find most of the ozone of earnest

g men whose determination to do their part in the world is so great that hunger is a small price to pay for that preparation which they think a college education giv

mpered by days of labor in open air and nights of dreamless slumber, which these hypnotics of Nature always induce. These men have strong, firm

ught to spend your college life, if you are one of

a mission in the world marked out for them by the Ruler of the Universe-though this is not a fair distinction since all Ameri

is a real, practical problem. You will never have a more important task set you in class-room, or even throughout your entire life, than to select the college which is going to do yo

e you want to be known as a Yale man, a Harvard man, a Princeton man, or any other kind of man. Re

bout it that you shoul

ticular college or university. If you are in politics, it won't give you a vote; if a manufacturer, i

went to. Nobody cares whethe

hat you are not only a force, but a trained, disciplined force. That is why you ought to go to college-to be a trained, disciplin

them, their rooms, and their clothes. Think of that! Don't do anything like that, even if you are a hundred times a millionaire. Of cou

ions, and such stuff. The world for which you are preparing is no "cushiony" place, let me tell you; and if you let luxury relax your nerves and soften your brain tissues and make your muscles mushy, a simila

is such fellows you must go up against. And when you do go up against them there will be no appealing to father and mother to help you. Father and mother cannot

o therefore must be developed into the very highest types of effective manhood, are taught to clean and polish their own shoes, make their own beds,

you believe it for a minute. You are not going to have an easier time than they. You are going to have a great deal harder time. And by "hard ti

lege man. A pipe in the mouth of a youth does not make him look like a college man, or any other kind of man. It merely makes him look

the same time a stimulant and a narcotic, a heart excitant and a nerve sedative. Very well. Yo

ife your heart is so feeble that it must be forced with any stimulant, you had better quit college. College is no

is why. At least you do not need it yet. The time may come when you will find tobacco helpful, but it will not be until you have been a long while

true. I would not be understood as having a prejudice for or against the weed. Whether a full-grown man shall use it or not is

not argue whether this is justified or not. That is the way most people feel about it. Whether their feeling is a prejudice or not, there is no use of your needlessly offending their prejudice.

urn to the bitterest ashes in the eating. But when you do find how fruitless of everything but regrets dissipation is, be honest with yourself and quit it. Be honest with the mother

lood and conduct that touch of devilishness which you may think is a necessary part of manliness. Indeed, between fifteen and thirty years of a

a solemn person indeed-"solemn as cholera morbus" to appropriate an American newspaper's description of one of our public men. What I mean is that you shall do nothing that will destroy y

is all right. I never took much stock in the outcry against hazing. We cannot change our sex, or the nature and habits of it. A

duce. This is especially true of the great universities of our East. Nobody admires those splendid institutions more than I do-the Nation is prou

by the cultivation of a sneering attitude toward everybody-especially toward every other young man-whom they see doing anything actu

e a mistake if I did anything; afraid I was not well enough equipped to do the things that suggested themselves; afraid t

any real thing. I find myself unconsciously sneering at young men who are accomplishing things. Yes, and that is not the w

ing things have actually done them, done them well, and forced hostility itself to accept what they have done as good, honest pieces of work, the talk in these clubs will be that of ha

honesty of their purpose and their ability to do well what they have started out to do. Assume that they will succeed until they prove that they cannot. Do

rse jeers. "Trust thyself; every heart vibrates to that iron string," is the sentence from Emerson we used

your allies. Time will dispose of your rivals. Just believe in yourself, and work and wait and dare-and keep on working, waiting, daring. Never let up

m. Do not be afraid of making a mistake. Do not be afraid that you will fail. Suppose you do fail. Milli

gain." How much sense there is in these common maxims of the common people, proverbs not written by any one man, but axioms that spring

Army into the river. Not a great distance from the banks of the stream they will point out to you the tree under which Gran

ill lick them to-morrow." Very like C?sar, was it not? "I came, I saw, I conquered." Or that other audacity of the

generals. "What have you been doing?" asked Grant. "Fighting," answered the commander in charge of that position, equally laconic. For a while Grant

really know; as we get more skill, of how very unskilled we really are; the feeling that, high as our training is, there is some one else more highly trained. Of course there is; but if that is an

way to acquire the art of practising law is to practise it, and not merely watch somebody else practise it. Suppose every young man with a scientific mind had declined to make any experiment b

ed at your own powers. If you do not believe in yourself, how do you expect the world to believe in you? The world has no time to pet and coddle you, remember that. So

ense enough these states of mind actually poison the secretions. Don't, therefore, let these hyena passions abide with you. Be generous. Have faith.

in his

l with th

icular things you will study there; for the way you look at your college and the life you lead there-the spirit with which you en

on. No general counsel can be given which will be very valuable to you upon this point. But I will venture this

d men quite unconsciously select those things that will mean the least work. You do not think you are selecting certain course

r business men. Try to get them to interest themselves enough in you to take the time to think the whole subject over very carefully as applied to your particular

course, rather than the counsel of any other man or number of men. Yes, obey that voice in making such a choice, and in making every choice thr

e various occupations and professions. But no matter what particular thing you intend to do through life, it is the belief of most men who have given this subject any though

e. We are decidedly a very intimate part of the world. Our relations with other peoples grow closer and closer, and they will keep on growing closer as the years pass by. A thousand Americans travel

Atlantic. Now you go over in a week. You can send a cablegram to any country in the world and have it delivered, translated into the la

he had to go through college again he would study nothing but modern languages and history. Of course I do not presume to advise you who are reading this paper to do that, althou

anish; Cuba, a kind of national ward of ours-its people speak Spanish. The people of our possessions in the Pacific speak Spanish; of Porto Rico, Spanish; of the

For example, you can go all through commercial Russia without a guide if you speak German. You can get along in any port of the Orient if you speak German. So you can if you speak English, it is true. And th

will largely forget, anyhow; and, besides, you study them principally for the mental discipline in them. But if you get a language, and get it correctly,

Sir William Hamilton was right-history is the study of studies. The man who occupies the chair of history in any college ought to be not only

natural conditions. Do all this in order that you may keep human; for you must not get the habit of keeping to your room and believing that all wisdom is

ork. It is men who are to employ you. It is men whom in your turn you are to employ. It is the world of men which

ng one of them, you are one indeed. Be a man in college and out, a