in good reading or some other form of self-improvement.
You perhaps do not half realize the inescated like Mr. Blank, if you only had opportunities like some others, you could have done much better than you are now doing.
But did you ever think that scores of people have given themselves the equivalent of a college education in their spare moments, and long winter evenings?
A person might as well say that there is no use in trying to save anything from his small salary or income, because the amount would never make him rich, so he might as well spend it as he goes along, as to say he never can get a liberal education by studying during his spare time.
The more one saves, the nearer he comes to being rich. The more you know, the better educated you are. Every bit of knowledge you store up enriches your life by so much. All these little self-investments make you so much better off,—make you so much larger, fuller, so much better able to scope with life.
You can never make a better investment, than by forming the good reading habit. It will multiply your efficiency, give you so much more power to break away from your iron environment, to throw off the yoke of dependence which galls you. It will make you more independent and self-reliant. The increased knowledge will increase your confidence in yourself. And, in addition to all this, if your knowledge is practical and you use it wisely, it will make you think more of yourself, make you more of a man.
There never was a time in the history of the world when education was worth so much as to-day, when added knowledge adds so much power.
Competition has become so terrific, and life so strenuous that you need to be armed with every particle of mental culture possible. The greatest work you can do in the world is that of raising your own value. There is no gift which you can ever make to the world like that of a superb manhood, or a beautiful womanhood. You can do nothing higher than this.
What a golden opportunity confronts you for coining your bits of leisure into knowledge that will mean growth of character, promotion, advancement, power, riches that no accident can take from you, no disaster annihilate. Will you throw away the opportunity, as so many others are thoughtlessly doing?
Within the last ten years our great railroads have spent many millions of dollars straightening curves on their lines, to save a few minutes’ time. The late Mr. Harriman spent vast sums for this purpose. In early railroad days the great object was to avoid expense. The railroads often took a serpentine direction, winding around mountains, hills, and long distances to avoid heavy cuts, fillings, or bridges. Time was not so valuable then as now, but, as life became more strenuous, competition keener, and men’s time of more worth, the roads were shortened and better beds, heavier cars, and heavier rails came.
Modern business men consider it great economy to take short routes and fast trains because of the rapidly increasing value of time, insure speed, safety, and economy of the great mottoes of to-day.
Everything possible is now done to save time, ensure speed, safety, and economy of energy. Any railroad to-day which could cut the Twentieth Century Limited’s time between New York and Chicago half an hour would very quickly put the Twentieth Century out of business, unless it also could increase speed. This is an age of bee-line short cuts and quick methods in everything.
Business men will pay more for any device or facility which will save time than for almost anything else. No expense or ingenuity is spared, especially by the great railroads which run competing lines, to accomplish shortened routes, to quicken service.
In the pioneer stage days of our history, before competition had become so fierce, a liberal education and special training were not so necessary as they are to-day. Now the youth must be a specialist, must spend years in training for his specialty. He must lay a larger and firmer foundation for preparation than formerly if he expects to get anywhere near the top of his vocation. He must remove all possible obstructions, must have a better training, better equipment, and more scientific outfit in every way, or he can not hope to succeed. As the railroad to-day which will persist in winding about hills and meandering long distances to avoid a river crossing or tunneling hills or mountains has no chance in competition with up-to-date roads, so the young man who expects to get on can not afford any handicap which will retard his progress or reduce his chances of success.
The trouble with most youths is that they do not pay enough attention to straightening their tracks and reducing grades. They try to speed on crooked, ill-made roads and dangerous grades, with light rails, poor equipment, and the result is thousands of wrecks.
Every man should lay out a clean, straight, level track to his goal. All obstructions should be removed, all dangers and risks reduced to a minimum, making his road straight, firm, solid, and safe.
When great railroads make test trials in competing for the transcontinental mails, they not only see that the tracks, the cars, and the engines are in perfect condition; they even pick out the finest pieces of coal, those containing the greatest possible amount of energy, and which leave the smallest amount of clinkers or ashes. The utmost care is exercised in lubricating bearings. Tracks are kept clear, and everything possible is done to secure speed and safety.
Yet everywhere we see people making their great life race in poor, broken-down cars, on crooked tracks, light, loose rails, over heavy grades. They are always losing time by reason of hot boxes and accidents of all kinds, yet they wonder why they can not compete with those who are better equipped. They took little or no precaution to insure success when they started out on their trip; little regard was paid to the condition of their roads or cars, to the fuel as to its energy and bulk, or to any of the essential things on which success depends. Yet they wonder why they do not win in the race.
Education is power. No matter how small your salary may be, every bit of valuable information you pick up, every bit of good reading or thinking you do, in fact everything you do to make yourself a larger and completer man or woman, will also help you to advance. I have known boys who were working very hard for very little money to do more for their advancement in their spare time, their half-holidays, by improving their minds, than by the actual work they did. Their salaries were insignificant in comparison with their growth of mind.
I know a young man who jumped in one bound from a salary of five thousand to ten thousand dollars, largely because of his insatiable effort at self-improvement. His great passion seemed to be to make the largest and completest man possible. This young man is a good example of the possibility of reputation to help one on in the world. Everybody who knew him, knew that he was determined to make something of himself. It did not make any difference if his fellow employees wanted to throw their time away, he didn’t. They soon found that it was of no use to try to tease him away from his reading or studying, for he had set his mind toward the future. He had no idea of being a little, small, picayune man. He had a passion for enlargement, for growth. Those who worked with him were very much surprised at his rapid advancement; but there was a good reason for every bit of it. While they were spending their evenings and money trying to have a good time, he was trying to educate himself by a rigid course of self-improvement.
Everywhere we see young men and young women tied to very ordinary positions all their lives simply because, though they had good brains, they were never cultivated, never developed. They have never tried to improve themselves by reading good literature. Their salaries on a Saturday night, and a good time, are about all they see; and the result is the narrow, the contracted, the pinched career. Men and women who have utilized only a very small percentage of their ability,—not made it available by discipline and education,—always work at a great disadvantage. A man capable, by nature, of being an employer, is often compelled to be a very ordinary employee because his mind is totally untrained.
One of the greatest questions that confronts this age is that of adult education. The commercial
