The Prince George's enquirer and southern Maryland advertiser. (Upper Marlborough, Md.) 1882-1925, 1907-11-22

| OuC ulOl QuSSIiOu. OpGC ul0 SOOu
BY which he meant to ask if the man
was there for his health.
This the writer used to describe
three different classes of people in
the world. There is the young man
who seems to be in the world for his
| health. He wants to be coddled.
There is the young man who seems to
be in the world as traveller. He
wants to be amused. There are the
young men who are in the world for
business. They mean to do some
| thing and be somebody. These are
the young men to whom l want to
speak on How Shall l Choose Ny
Life Work." The others are not
worth our time.
The first question concerns the
young man himself What are my
| possibilities? You cannot make a
gentleman in single generation. 1t
was Oliver Wendell Holmes who said
that in order to make gentleman
! you needed to begin two hundred
| years before he was born. By which
he meant to state the great law of
| life called heredity. This unlocks
| mans birthright and shows from
| what source his gifts of mind and
| body come.
The second great fact is environ
| ment. Il am part of all I have
met" Born in Africa, you are saw
age; born in this city, you are cul-
tured. We are children of our sur
| roundings.
There is third great fact There
| is something in you stronger than
heredity or circumstances l mean
the human will when among the
Romans do as Romans do" is the
saving of a multitude who have
taken their first step toward hell.
Men may control circumstances. You
come from the country-so did Da-
vid. You are poor-so was Paul.
You have no influence or friends
nor did Joseph. You have no one to
send you to college-Garfeld had
! none, but he went. Robert Burns
had none-he was a plowman, but
he became Scotland's greatest poet.
Listen! In this country any able-bod-
led boy can go through college if he
will work, and wait, and even with
out college he can become a scholar
in the school of his daily toll.
The second question concerns the
vacations of men. How shall I
choose? This is the first thing. You
iSQullC VI Soui illS-WOIh ludl
it shall gain you bread and butter.
There are three ways of getting food
and clothes and roof in this world,
and but three. A man may steal
them; he may beg for them, or he
may earn them. The first way makes
/ him a robber, the second makes him
a pauper and the third makes him a
worker.
4
many men who steal their living
Some of them are very low in chac-
acter, and we know them as tramps,
burglars, pirates. These are afraid
of the light and they skulk through
the world, recognized as enemies of
the social order, and for them there
is neither rest nor respect.
But all who prey on society are
not SO. So great is our regard for
success that many men to-day initiate
their methods. Men there are to-day
who seized upon the strategic crags
| and passes in the world of business
and grew rich by leyying toll on the
passing rags. To hold one man up
is highway robbery. To hold up
whole city for ice, for milk, or bread,
simply because one has the power, is
an act that seems to me to be a crime.
This is the second great law-you
shall require of your work that it
shall make man Of you. If the first
requirement you make of your work
is that it shall give you bread, the
second is that it shall give you Gull
ture. No man has any right to en-
gage in any occupation that brutal
ICES him. No factory or mine should
be allowed to run that degrades the
toilers. The first question young
man will ask of his work is Twill it
ennoble Or degrade me?" This is not
too high a requirement. Any honest
work, honestly done, is liberal edu-
cation.
There is no genuine culture out
side of work. Oftentimes the hard
est task is the best teacher. "The
Man With the Hoe" we need not pity
him. Moses was herdsman, David
was shepherd, Jesus was carpen-
ter. Benjamin Franklin knew no col
lege. He was printers devil. Even
college gives culture only through
work, and there are some things col
leges never can teach. Latin and
art and history and literature are the
decorations of man. Even reading
and writing and the rule of three are
,
only through labor, whether in col
lege or outside of it.
But these are fundamentals. In
dustry, thrift, courage, good cheer,
fidelity, honesty, truth-these are the
qualities that make eternal the life
Of man, and they are had for the
hearing in every labor and calling
open to man. II you have not gotten
these things, though you have gained
the whole world, you have lost your
soul.
1t is not the vocation so much as
1t is the way it's work is done. When
you skimp, cheat, slight or sham in
your work, you injure your en-
ployer; but you ruin yourself. Every
stitch is a lie woven in your char
acter. rs your work making a man
out of you?
The third great requirement is
that your life work shall enable you
to utter message. Painting merely
to preserve wood or decorate it, is to
be an artisan. Painting to manifest
ideals Is to be an artist.
To work at a task for bread or
gold is drudgery, but to find joy
in your work because through it you
can utter what is in your heart, is in
spring.
A musician was sick, as men
thought, unto death. He was caught
away in vision. He saw things too
deep for words. Weeping, shouting,
he came back from his delirium. But
when he was well, the vision dwelt
in his brain. He could not utter it
such knowledge was too wonderful
for speech. A night came, and he sat
still, brooding over the mystery at
the organ. His fingers found the
keys, and directly he sobbed out all
he had seen. He wrote it down, and
we call it 1.-THE Messiah" His work
had become his language.
The drudgery of life is that we
work like dumb, driven cattle, with
never a syllable of our heart secret
told in all our work. The joy of life
comes when we can make our voca-
ton, whatever it may be. publish to
all the world the truth God has given
US. Every man who hath found his