St. Landry democrat., 1884-07-12
Advice to a Young Man.

Keep up With the pFoceSsloA, AAy
boy. Don't hang back in the breeding.
You may be able to make things drag
little, but you can't stop the team,
and you'll have to come along. There
was a man, an eminent mathematician.
DR.. Lardner, of England, who pub
lished treatise to prove that no steam
ship could ever cross the Atlantic
Ocean, and the steamer Sirius few
weeks later brought the first copies of
the pamphlet to America. This same
eminent scientist also 'sstaked his rep
utation as man of science" before the
House of Commons, on his statement
that no railway train could ever go
faster than ten miles an hour, and the
slightest curve would invariably throw
| it off the track. Babinet the French
calculator, declared that no telegram
could ever be transmitted from Europe
through the Atlantic to America.
There was q man right here in Amer
lea, only one hundred years ago, who
opposed the rebellion of the colonies
because he knew it would be a failure.
There was a man who laughed himself
sore at Fulton's absurd ideas about
steamboats,. There We're members OF
Congress who wanted Morse shut up in
an insane asylum because he talked
about telegraph, which was an impos-
sibility. There was a man who said
YOU could never build bridge across
the Mississippi. There was man who
said YOU could never raise wheat on the
great American desert. There was a
man who knew that nothing but
steam horse could ever trot in less than
/ 2:40. There was q man who "kneW"
you couldn't make the sun draw your
portrait. There was man who
ssknew'' you never could find
better light than whale oil lamp.
There was another man who knew
you could never beat lard oil There
was another man who said Colonel
Drake was gibbering idiot because he
said he could pump a better oil than
lard oil out of the ground like water.
| There was another man who said Edl-
son was insane when he talked about an
electric light. There was another man
who said the monograph was a clever
trick of ventriloquism. There was a
man who said the telephone was anews-
paper lie. There was man in England
who led mobs of agricultural laborers to
destroy threshing machines. There was
a man in America who knew the in
yention of the seWing-machine meant
starvation for the poor seamstress. And
there is man to-day who ''knows" the
Indians can never be civilized. There
| is a man who knows" we have reached
| the limit Of human progress. There is
4 man who "knows . the people are
Ihelplessly enslaved, and will never rise
TO assist themselves. There is a man
who knows" shat all politics are cor
flipt, all politicians mercenary, the civil
service rotten to the core, and our sQ-
! cial life is honey-combed with decay.
Now, my dear boy, there 5 only one way
for you TO escape thae mans whining,
and obstinate, mulish opposition to ev-
FRY thing. neep so far ahead of him you
can't lea him. And do you keen NOV
ling and drag him along. Rasp him with
the double-trees; he has to come, for the
old chariot never stands still second.
The difference between you and that
man, my boy, is that. you run, and he
is dragged. You spring along with
your eyes open, your head erect,
and YOU help to keep things
moving. He has his feet set in the road,
his ewes shut tight. his back up on, his
i shoulders and his heart under the wheels.
Every time YOU make q leap you throw
the dust back in his face. Don, t, my
boy, whatever YOU do. don't get back
beside that man Don't have any
, breeching on you. harness. Put on ;
i. brcast-cOlIar and that is e. YOU l.
run more lightly and fec lie
the mar in tire brecching tck
Ali that you have to slo Isl sep ont
keep pace with the times, sing as Aot
march, and keep the man in the breecll
inc so covered with dust the world will
only know he's there by the dirt arount
him. It may be, Telemachus, you vii
run q little fast sometimes; it may b
that Won will kick over the traces il
your exuberance of spirit; you ma.
sometimes want to strike q 2:l9 gait O
a 500 road; you may need more cur
, than whip, but go it, my boy. There
! a good driver on the seat, and mr.
, hand on the lines, and I'd rather Sc
YOU coming down the long Vistas OF his
tory with the bit in your teeth, you
4 heels in the air, the brake rod sprung
t and the dashboard flying, than dow
t on your launches, your eyes shut, an
] your back bowed, the lash on you
: tanks and your collier up to your ears
your legs set like crowbars and tn
dust Of the whole team flying In you
: face, while you hang back IN tn
. breeching and only come along be- ans
YOU cam help it, --BWrdetts,