What Shall Boys Do?

( Originally Published 1885 )

THE choice of a profession is a very important step for any young man. But that is not what I propose to speak upon at this time. It is necessary to go back of that and discuss some principles which underlie and which lead up to the choice of one's vocation.

In one of these " new fangled," modern associations the executive committee is divided into several working subcommittees. One of these subcommittees is called the " Out-look Committee." It is their business to study the signs of the times and see what subjects ought to be brought before the society. They are the advance guard, the pickets, the videttes, who go on in advance and study the ground, observe the "lay of the land," and, like Caleb and Joshua, bring back a report coupled with advice whether to go forward and in which direction.

So with us this morning ; we wish to look ahead and observe the condition of things, and see whether it is best to scale this mountain, meander like the river through this valley, or make a flank movement to the right or to the left. What is best for boys to undertake to do?

A very good man of my acquaintance really believes that we are educating the boys too much. He thinks education makes them proud and unfits them, mentally and physically, for work. I suppose he would have a few perhaps children of the best families educated to fill the highest places, but the mass should be " hewers of wood and drawers of water," and consequently should not be educated above their sphere.

Col. Lockett, who was the largest cotton planter in Georgia, once said that several years ago he discovered that an intelligent person would pick more cotton in a day and pick it better than an ignorant one. In his mind great results grew from that discovery. If this merely mechanical work could be done better by intelligence, then everything else could, — hence, it follows that the mass should be educated ; the prosperity of the state requires it. The blacks and the whites must both be educated ; therefore, schools must be established and supported for both races. This is a far-reaching inference, but it is a legitimate one.

You often ask yourselves, " What shall I do in life ? What shall I strive to fit myself for? What kind of position shall I seek?" The answer must inevitably be, "Do your best. Make the most of yourself. Aim high." It was Daniel Webster that said to a young man, who hesitated to prepare to enter the legal profession because it was so crowded, "There is room enough up higher." And I hope you will bear in mind that Webster's answer has an application wider than the legal profession. " There is room enough up higher" in every distinct business of life.

What the world needs to-day is leaders, — thoroughly educated, skilled, competent leaders. There is more difficulty in securing one first class superintendent for a cotton or woolen mill than a hundred first-class weavers or spinners. There is more difficulty in finding a first-class, competent "boss" for a gang of shovelers, who shall direct their work skillfully and successfully, than in getting the entire gang of men to shovel. A few years ago a young man went into a cotton factory and spent a year in learning the work in the carding-room. He then devoted another year to the spinning-room ; still another in learning how to weave. He boarded with the overseer of one of these rooms, and was often asking questions. He picked up all sorts of knowledge. He was educating himself in a good school, and was destined to graduate high in his class. He became superintendent of a small mill, at a salary of about fifteen hundred dollars a year. He was sought for a higher place. It happened in this way : One of the large mills in Fall River was running behind-hand ; instead of making money, the corporation was losing. They wanted a first-class man to direct the affairs of the mill. They applied to a gentleman in Boston, well acquainted with the leading men engaged in the manufacture of cotton. He told them he knew of a young man that would suit them, but they would have to give him a good salary.

What salary will he require ? "

I cannot tell ; but I think you would have to pay him six thousand dollars a year."

" That is a very large sum ; we have never paid so much."

"No, probably not ; and you have never had a competent man. The condition of your mill, and the story you have told me to-day, show the result. I do not think he would go for less. I should not advise him to, but I will advise him to accept if you offer him that salary ; and I think he will save you thirty per cent of the cost of making your goods."

The salary was offered, the man accepted, and he saved nearly forty per cent of the cost the first year. Soon he had a call from one of the largest corporations in New England, with whom he engaged as superintendent for five years, at a salary of ten thousand dollars a year. He had been with this company only about one year before he had an offer of another position with a salary of fifteen thousand dollars a year. But he declined the offer, saying that he had engaged where he was for five years, and he should not break his contract even for five thousand dollars a year margin.

Two boys were in this sohool not long since, who were much interested in railroading. One of them had an intelligent ambition, and a definite plan before him. He intended, after leaving here, to take a full course of study at the Columbia College School of Mines, and he fondly hoped some day to be president of the great Southern Pacific Railway. He may succeed, or he may fail in that particular hope ; but I have no doubt he will yet distinguish himself as one of America's great railroad-men.

The other was infatuated with a desire to be engaged in something which would place him on a railroad train. He was tired of study, and had apparently no desire to continue in school. He left study, and accepted a position as brakeman upon a freight train upon one of our shortest and most obscure railroads. If he shall look for a thorough knowledge of the business, and use his best efforts to make himself master of all the details of railroading, he will soon rise from this undesirable position to something better, and may eventually be successful and gain an excellent position. But if he sits down contented as a brakeman on a freight train, with no plan or ambition for the future, very few would envy him his position or his prospects.

What, then, shall the boys do ? I went down to Pettaconsett one day to see the foundations of the building that Mr. Corliss was putting up there for the new pumping engine which he had engaged to put in for this city.* I found that, in digging for the foundations, they came upon a deep bed of quicksand. Mr. Corliss, ever fertile in expedients to overcome obstacles, instead of driving down wooden piles, sunk in this quicksand great quantities of large cobble-stones. These were driven down into the sand with tremendous force by a huge iron ball weighing four thousand pounds. I said :

"Mr. Corliss, why did not you drive wooden piles on which to build your foundation?"

"Don't you see," said he, "that the piles have no discretion, and that the cobble-stones have?"

" I don't think I understand you, Mr. Carliss," was my reply.

"If you drive a pile," said he, " it goes where you drive it, and nowhere else; but a cobble-stone will seek the softest place and go where it is most needed. It, therefore, has some discretion, and better answers the purpose."

I went away musing that the wooden " piles " and the " cobble-stones " represent two classes of boys. " The piles," says Mr. Corliss, have no discretion, and go only where they are driven." I think I have seen boys who represented this quality. But the cobble stones go where they are the most needed." When boys fit themselves to go where they are the most needed, they will be pretty likely to meet with tolerably good success in life.

In the olden time it was considered enough for a boy to learn a trade. He then had, at least, " something to fall back upon." Nowadays, if a boy has only a trade, he may prove to be badly off. Some morning he may wake up and find that his trade is utterly useless, owing to the genius of some inventor, who has patented a machine which will do his work at a tithe of the previous cost, and in a tithe of the previous time required. These times require a young man to be so intelligent that he will know how to do business; and if the competition in one kind of business is too great, he will immediately and literally " turn his hand " to some other occupation.

Years ago one machine shop made engines, another lathes, another guns, another sewing machines, etc., and no two of them could, by any possibility, exchange works. Now, a first-class machine-shop takes a contract for making a large lot of lathes ; then changes its machinery and manufactures a hundred thousand rifles for some European power ; then contracts to make as many sewing machines ; then commences the manufacture of mowing machines, or horse rakes, or what-ever the latest and most successful inventor wants made.

But the boy needs two things, and to succeed he must have them : (1) He must have an ambition to do his best ; (2) He must improve his mind, and prepare himself to have such "discretion " as will enable him to "go where he is most needed." A man, in this age, should not be a machine, nor an adjunct of a machine. He should under-stand the machine that he is to run, be superior to it, not be run by it, but, if need be, change it to do more, or better, or different work.