The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1884-07-18
A TALK WITH THE BOYS.

y
your fathers name or money for any
length of time, and even if you are cal
culating on coming into possession of a
comfortable fortune at your majority you
may see the dsy before you are forty
that trade would clothe and feed YOU.
Ninety-nine out of every hundred
young men of to-day must make their
own future. What that future will be
depends, first, upon how you start in.
1t is easy enough to answer that you
intend to become merchant, lawyer,
doctor, editor, dentist, machinist, car
penter, matchmaker, and so on, but
Just wait a minute and examine your
sell. Take your horse to the black
smith shop and you may see the smith
look over hundred ready-made shoes
before he gets one to fit. ALI are horse
shoes, but d perfect fit is the question.
Now, then, examine yourself and seek
to discover what particular forte you
have. You were born to fill a certain
place in the world. 1t may be that of a
carpenter or it may be that of poet.
Make no mistake in starting out.
When you hear man who has moth
ing in particular to work at wishing
that he had learned trade, he is talk
ing nonsense. He had no fitness for
one. Had he set out to learn any OF
the dozen you can name he would have
been failure. Every city has dozens
OF lawyers and doctors who live starva-
ton lives, and more or less preachers
and artists who are seldom, if ever,
mentioned by name. These men are
mistakes. They have no heart in their
professions, and never belonged there.
| can name you carpenters, painters,
blacksmiths, wagon-makers and others,
who are out of work half the time, and
the other half is mostly consumed in
kicking and complaining against the
times. 1t is their own fault. They are
botch workmen. 1t like putting an ac-
Gordon under piano and expecting it
to play piano music. Had each learned
the trade he was fitted for he would
have excelled.
You have the same idea of being a
merchant that | had at your age. 1t
was simply TO buy and sell goods. That
seems easy enough, but the merchant
who hasn't the "knack = for the bust
ness is doomed to certain failure. Not
one out of fifty clerks ever become
merchants. Probably not more than
three or four out of fifty are fitted to do
business for themselves.
a boys idea of being doctor is to
visit the sick, cure them If possible, and
collect fifty dollars, and the one who
answers that he is going to make a
lawyer Of himself thinks Of nothing but
big fees and verdicts in favor OF his
clients.
But, as 1 told you at the outset, if you
have arrived at the the age of fifteen or
sixteen it is time you looked matters
your future. If you were to answer at
once you would say that you would take
a profession in preference to a trade.
A profession means several years of
hard study, quite a large cash outlay
and then trials and rebuffs to get start
in business. 1t is one thing to graduate
as lawyer or doctor, and quite
another to pick up clients and patients.
If you have fully decided on a profess
sion be careful of your first move. Ii
you have a large head your grand
mother has doubtless many times ex-
claimed: "What a great lawyer this
boy would make" Don't try to make
one on the size of your head. We've
got any number of that class in the
country now, and they can't pay their
grocers' bills. II you can pull a silver
out of your finger without winking it
may be sign that you would make a
great surgeon. 1t may also be sign
that you are born to be butcher.
How will you know what to pursued
Your own feelings are the safest guide.
If left to your parents and to circum-
stances you may be forced into trade
or profession which you can never
make a success. When you come to
realize that you must make your own
way in life your particular forte will
be apt to reveal itself. One of the best
lawyers in Detroit was intended for the
ministry another served three years
as a journalist, but I'll the time feeling
that he was out of his element; another
was forced by his father to learn the
trade of harness-maker. [ know a
machinist who at first studied medicine;
of matchmaker who tried to become
alawyer; of a carpenter who threw
away three years of his life trying to
become dentist.
After you have selected your profes-
sion or trade, what then? Strive to
master it in all its details and to excel.
If you become a carpenter, don't be
satisfied when you can saw and plane
and match. Don't be satisfied with
two dollars per day. Make yourself
worth three dollars. Master details
and push yourself from carpenter to
builder. Don't imagine that a man in
search of a lawyer walks down street
and drops in at the first sign hanging
out. 1t is the lawyer who has climbed
above his fellows that he seeks out. II
our friends are i'll we want the best
doctor. We want the man who has
made himself the best by study and
energy. The blacksmith who is con.
tent to mend old wagons will never
iron a. new one. The machinist who
stands at the lathe to do about So much
work in ten hours need not hope to be
better off. 1t is the men who put their
hearts into what they do who succeed.
can name you twenty instances in
Detroit where skilled workmen have
been taken as partners in large factories.
The clerk who is capable, honest and
persevering is bound to win higher
position. The joiner who does his work
to last for years instead of months is
never out of work There are house
painters who are satisfied to stand on a
ladder or scaffold at two dollars and
fifty cents per day. There a1e other
house painters whose energy and en-
thusiasm have made them sign-writers
and decorators and raised their wages
to forty dollars per week. It is not Sc
much what you do, but how you do it,
that brings prosperity. -" NJ. QUGd, /"
IN Detroit Free Press.