Canyon City news. (Canyon City, Tex.) 1903-1908, 1907-09-20

yer he was expected to be familiar
with every "rule of action both
foreign and domestic and to have
ready at a moments notice salts.
factory answer to every interroga
tory whether pertaining to statute
law, common law or chancery. He
was also expected upon any and all
other matters which concerned the
public to have good speech in line
on the instant if called upon. A
physician too who practiSed in those
days was required to know all
about the anatomy of the human
species and all about every kind of
aiIment, whether chronic or acute;
he had also to be surgeon, leech,
a good tooth dentist and a "pretty
fair" horse and COW doctor. And
so in every other line OF business.
The old.tlme merchant carried
everything needed by the people
from a box of pills TO a magazine
rifle and also served as banker in
his community. As in professional
and commercial life so it was in me-
chanical pursuits, the broader the
field man could cover the more
"useful" he was considered to be
and as consequence the more
thrifty he became in laying by
store for the "rainy day The
country then was practically new,
untrled and thinly settled and what
was valued at that time, because
the best to be had, is now laid aside
for the more thoroughnesS and
greater skill of a new era.
Yes, the old days of Western
Texas, we'll within the memory of
The News editor and many others
now living are gone and we are to-
day well upon the threshold of the
sharp commercialiSm of the East.
To meet these changed conditions
successfully it is absolutely neces-
sary 10 prepare for life according to
business rules.
The opportunities for success to
the young man now preparing for
business life are as great as they
ever were; there always has been
and always will be room towards
the top, but only fitness, character
and thOroughneSs get there. A
mere diploma will no more make
successful doctor o! lawyer than
college course on theology will fit a
man for good service in the pulpit.
knowledge itself, without the nat
ural bent and ability to apply it, in
these days, is absolutely worthless
as an asset in business. You can
polish diamond, but you cannot
make TIE genuine stone itself.
And, so it is with men, you can
give them book learning in the
highest degree and in so far as the
name goes make professional men,
tradesmen or mechanics out of them
but if the real stuff be not there to
begin with they are failures in life.
In preparing for life a young
man should follow the natural bent
Of his mind, he should strive to
learn in every legitimate way what
avocaton or calling he is best suit
ed to and having found it he should
bend all his energies in that direc-
ton determining never TO halt I'M
til success in his chosen life work
crowns his efforts.
The idea some people have that
education as commonly understood,
schooling, will make good preach.
er, lawyer, doctor, teacher, or
what-not, out of any young man
will not do. True, in one sense. all
men are men and so, with equal
propriety, we might say that all
horses are horses, but who is there |
for that reason would undertake to |
make courser out of Norman !
horse or buy for draft purposes a
Kentucky thoroughbred
In Gods temporal plan for this
world all of us are fitted for some |