Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1905-03-02
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YOUNGSTERS AND WORK.

Bob" Burdette is preacher and a
teacher of no mean ability. He began
business life as newspaper reporter
and how he ever got to the pulpit has
been an unanswerable puzzle. How
ever that may be the Reverend Robert
J. Burdette has carved his name
deeply on the tablets of fame His
sermons and his lectures have been
many, but never did he write or utter
more creditable production than the
starting out to earn livelihood:
Remember my son, you have to
work. Whether you handle pick or
a pen, wheelbarrow or set of
books. digging bitches or editing pa
per- ringing an auction bell or writ
ing funny things. you must work.
Don't be afraid of killing yourself by
overwork on the sunny side of thirty.
Men die sometimes, but it's because
they quit at 6 p. M, and don't get home
until a. m. It's the interval that kills
my son. The work gives you an ap-
petite for your meals; it lends solid
ity to your slumbers; it gives you a
perfect and grateful appreciation of a
holiday There are young men who
do not work but the world is not proud
OF them. 1t does not know their names
even; it only speaks of them as old
SO and SOS boys Nobody likes them;
the great busy world doesn't know that
they are here. So find out what you
want to be and do, and take off your
coat and make dust in the world. The
buster you are the less harm you will
get into the sweeter will be your
sleep, the brighter and happier your
holidays, and the better satisfied the
world will be with you"
This has only recently been pub
lished and it is not needed to Increase
the fame Of the author, but had he no
other claim to admiration this one par
agraph should be enough.
1t is work, even to do nothing. How
often one may hear man who is busy
every day, toiling at desk, ten, twelve
or fourteen hours in each twenty-four,
say that he would give almost any:
thing he possessed. for a two weeks
vacation How often, when his vaca-
ton time comes, do we find him before
the end of the first week, Tuning and
fretting because of his inactivity! All
life is work and the choice is largely
with the individual as to what line he
shall pursue.
But once the young man is settled
upon the occupation he would call his
own, let him work. Let him start at
the bottom rung of the ladder, moving
upward as merit-and merit alone
shall entitle him to promotion. Let
him taste the pleasures and the tor
ment of working for a small wage
when he knows he should be paid
more. Let him know what it means to
work all day, all night and the next
day without sleep and almost without
meals. Let him experience the rough
before knowing there is smoother
side.
The advice of Rev. Burdette would
be good for every father to give his
own boy. 1t would have been good for
all of us to have had when we were
boys. 1t would have been good. no
doubt, with many of us, had the les
son been driven home in a forcible
enough way to enforce our attention
and obedience to it.
There is no boy, be he ever so
poor and obscure, ever SO timid.
but can rise above those who are sim
ply odd man so-and-so's boys" II
takes grit, sand. nerve-calI it what
you will, but use it if need be. No
one ever got ahead without it. No
pull ever proflted a boy unless he
had push" to balance it. And the
push never is found in the lad who is
continually watching the clock.