News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1885-03-05
TALKS WITH THE BOYS.
LOGICAL NJ. QUAD TELLS THEM
ABOUT LIFE AS HE HAS FOUND 1T.
And Thinks that n Boy who is Determined
Can Always iIake Something of Himself.

Can Always Make Something OF Himself.
"What troubles me-" writes a boy
from Georgia, sis how 1 am to get start
in the world. l am 16 years old, have
fair common school education, but no
money and no chance to learn a trade.
Put yourself in my place and tell me
what you would do
There are a good many difficulties
about making the start you speak of, but
there are no grave reasons why you
shouldn't get along in life. First, if you
want to learn trade, and no chance Of
fers at home, widen your field. Almost
every day I meet boy who left South
ern Indiana Oh foot with Sc in money and
walked to Detroit in search of place to
learn trade. He was penniless when
and straightforward talk made him
friends and in week he was an appren-
tice to tinsmith. He is now in the last
year of his trade, and the other day
when l asked his employer how he liked
the boy he replied:
"From the end of his first month with
me l could trust him with my whole
business. He is honest, diligent and
correct and when his time is out I'm
going to give him an interest in the
business"
If you have no leaning toward trade,
and no work offers at home, you must
find it elsewhere. If you do not want
to end your days as laborer you must
make up your mind in advance of any
step to be diligent and faithful-to be
honest and economical. By observing
the first three maxims You will hold any
place you may get, and have the good will
of your employer to follow you into new
fields. By observing the fourth you
can, in few years, accumulate sufficient
capital to enable you to enter into bust
ness for yourself.
What boys have done other boys can
again accomplish. Eight out of every
ten of our rich men were poor boys and
made their own way. As for those who
began life with plenty of money not one
out of eight has been anything like a
success. Detroit, Cleveland, Buffalo,
Albany, st. Louis and every other city
contains men who began life by working
for smaller wages than will ever be
offered to you and who now are worth
from $50, 600 to 81, 900, 900 apiece. Some
of the old GROWERS will tell you that it
was all in luck. Don't you begin your
career by believing in luck. It leads to
the poor house by the straight road.
What the lazy man calls luck is simply
diligence, economy and management.
Pick out the LATEST, poorest man in
your town and you will find him growl-
ing about luck. When he comes to ex-
plain his career you will see that he
planted potatoes and waited for luck to
come around and hoe them while he sat
on the grocery steps and talked politics.
The i'll luck he growls about has come
more through his own shiftlessness and
bad management than from any other
cause. Diligence makes luck; economy
makes luck; honesty makes luck. 1t is
too late in the day to make the world
believe that some folks were born to be
rich and others to be poor. 1t rests
solely with the boy and man.
Five or six years ago happened to be
in railroad Office when boy of Is en-
tered and applied for position. His
parents were poor, but they had taught
him good manners. His clothes were of
cheap material, but they were clean.
The head clerk, to whom the boy ap
piled, looked him over from head to foot
call again.
"I'm going to give that boy a chance"
he said after the lad had departed.
Don't you have a dozen applications
every week ?"
Eyes, but when boy of his age has
the courage to walk into an office like
this all alone and make application he
has something in him"
The boy was given place as messen-
ger, with salary of So per week. !
was in the same office the other day, and
where do you suppose I found him?
The head clerk had been promoted and
this boy was in his place, and his salary
had risen from So per week to 500 per
month Was it luck? No. His dill
-,eenee and faitbfulness had promoted
will take him higher and higher, uT iit III &c
will some day fill the position of Super
intendent or President of the road.
Do you remember of reading of the
boy ''Sam" at one of the big iron foun-
dries in Detroit? One day, after tramp
of over 100 miles-having run away
from a poor house where he had been
for two or three years-he entered the
yard of the foundry and asked the first
man he met for work.
"You ?" sneered the man as he looked
down upon the lad in contempt, "what
could you do?"
s'IIearn the trade %
"Pooh Who are you ?"
"Sam."
"Sam who?"
''Sam who wants to learn trade"
"Humph go away before the dog
bites you !"
But Sam walked into the shop, asked
for the foreman, and made application in
such an earnest way that he was given a
place. For few weeks he made him.
self useful in running errands, and he
then turned to tools and was made an
This is his third year, and
he is not only proving himself skillful
mechanic, but he has saved a goodly
share of his wages and carries a bank
book. He could not read nor write when
he entered the shop. His evenings
have been taken up with study, and to-
day ne writes a good hand, can figure
rapidly and is fair hand at drawing
patterns. Is there any luck in Sans
case? Not bit of it. Had he been
impudent and shiftless he would have
been Ioafer to-day instead of a diligent
mechanic.
Nine cases out of ten the boy who is
determined to make some
thing of himself will succeed. He may |
have to encounter rough usage, but the |
resolution which carried him ont into |