Sharp County record., 1885-07-09
FOR The BOYS.
N Chapter of Sensible Advice Given In a
Humorous Vein.


The longer we live the more we learn,
and the more we learn the less we think
we know. Such is the inconsistency of
mans ideas, my boy. The less one
knows, the greater his opinion of his
abilities and wisdom.
In the morning of life man prides
himself on his greatness, and wonders
to what grand channel he will confine
his talents. He looks upon his school
district as the world at large, and him.
self as the great genius in whose keep
ing the worlds future rests. He imag-
ines that when he speaks nations trem-
bile and mountains totter, and the jack
rabbit fees, He imagines that gaping
and wondering populace are gazing on
him with open-mouthed wonder and
iron-clad astonishment, and that he
holds the world with grasp that is
perpetual.
But as the days, and months, and
years, scoot by in rapid succession, the
young man finds out that he is possibly
mistaken, and that if he should wander
away or get lost, some one or more OF
all the people on earth might not miss
him. With each succeeding year his
knowledge grows and his mind takes a
broader hold on the things of life, and
by and by he begins to realize that he is
only one out of many millions of people,
and that instead of standing forth as
the center of attraction, he only fills a
small niche in some obscure corner, and
really attracts but little more attention
than a rat-hole that sets up in opposi-
ton to cavern.
My boy, there is no greater detriment
to the growth and attainment of man.
kind than these human bumps who are
so often found sitting in the road for
the weary traveller to stumble over. We
find them everywhere. They are the
men who don't know anything, and are
too blind to know it. The less a man
knows the less he wants to know, and
the result of it is he breaks down early IN
the Journey and becomes wreck. OBJ
structing the way of others.
The ignorant man who realizes his
ignorance, and who doesn't seek to pass
himself for more than he is worth, is
pardonable, but the self-conceited,
twenty-cent-on-t -the-dollar cuss, who tries
to pass himself off at premium, is to
be pitied as well as despised, while the
base counterfeit-not-worth thinker sort
of chap is too low for either pity or
contempt.
The best way, my boy, is to hold
your self-esteem little down, and not
rate yourself too high. The man who
climbs the highest has the farthest to
fall, and it is more pleasant to be invit-
ed to take higher seat than it is to be
kicked out into the back yard 1t is
more pleasant to be king in cottage
than servant in palace. 1t is better
to gnaw cold bone in cabin than to
be rabbit peeler for royalty. 1t is
bottor to walk than TO swing on the tail
end of some coupling pole like tar
bucket 1t is better to be clear, clean,
genuine five-cent piece than to be
bogus quarter. In other words, my
boy, it is better to hold ourselves at
what we honestly are worth.
The world is full of people who never
learn anything, because they think they
know enough to commence with. Thou
sands of men try to teach when they
need to be taught; thousands believe
themselves wise when in reality their
ignorance is lamentable; thousands who
try to palm themselves off for pure
gold when they are only thinly plated,
and the brass shows through in many
places.
We can't tell what is in nut till we
crack the she'll One can't tell whether
or not an apple is sweet by its looks.
We can't Judge of the world by our
selves. The world is large and its les
sons varied. The wisest man knows
but little What you and l know is but
a small drop in a large bucket, and
what is known by humanity now is in
finitely small when compared with what
is yet uniearned. A glance at the world
does not reveal all its beauties and rich
mess and immensely. Inc Title page OF
a book does not explain the contents of
the pages that follow. A little knowl-
edge of the world and of life's mys-
teries does not give us a complete un-
derstandng of all things that are TO be
known.
My boy, the wisest of us are compara-
lively ignorant, and thousands of young
men who have grand ideas of their own
abilities will wake up some time in the
future to a realization of the fact that
they have been laboring und1r.a large
sized delusion. Many young mans
life is gilded by bright dreams that come
in the early stage of the game, but later
those dreams lose their charms and
they become but mince-pie nightmares,
and, oh. how bitter is the change when
it does come. IT. b. MonJord, IN