St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1913-07-02
ADVICE TO BOYS AND GIRLS
TheO. N. Vail Tells How Real Sue

|
cess is Acquired
The following is an abstract from
the address of Theo. N. Vail to the
graduating class at the Lyndon In
| stitute and Lyndon school of Agri-
culture, spoken as it is by a man
who has made the success Mr.. Vail
has, this advice should be read by
all young people. He said in part:
| Graduates:
This is more to you than a school
| commencement; it is to you who are
starting out to contend with stern
realities the real commencement of
life.
So far, your work has been with
the history, the theories, and the
experience of others. Now you
must come up against concrete con-
ditions and through your own ex-
perience find out the real value of
what you have learned, learn how
best to utilize it and how to make
it produce for you results; in
other words you will make your
own history and get your own ex-
periences.
You probably have lots of ideals,
you are doubtless strong in hope
anu 1dANus DuJ do you ~ dlOuS u1duy
of your ideals will be shattered and
many of your hopes will be damp
ened and you will at times require
all of your persistence an dfaith to
keep from utter encouragement.
1t is from your failures and your
disappointments, if rightly used,
that you will get your valuable ex-
perience. 1t is by overcoming and
rising above them that you will
achieve your successes.
Lincoln once said to the effect,
that intelligent perseverance only
would accomplish great results.
Nothing truer was ever said, and
if you will take it to your hearts
think we'll what it means, analyZe
it with intelligence, apply it con-
scientiouSly, you need have no fear
of your future. Intelligence in all
things is necessary to success, and
your success will be in the meas
ure and to the extent that your
plans, your ambitions, hopes, and
particularly your labor and your
actions are controlled and directed
| by intelligence and common sense.
And in this connection, l want to
speak of labor. We hear much of
] TIC 01SnAIJ VI 1dOO1, IuC LOOlllLy
of labor, that the laborer is worthy
of his hire, that labor is entitled
to what it produces.
Labor performed in a shiftless,
unthinking, unintelligent, instinc-
tive way is neither dignifed nor
| noble and never is profitable.
The only thing that makes labor
profitable, dignified or noble is the
| infnl1iOnnan that ic uCnd in in
it, and that intelligence which
directs it may be either your own or
that of others, and to the extent
that it is yours, you will get full
value that is produced by both your
labor and your intelligence, and to
the extent that it is the intelligence
of others which directs your labor,
you must share with the others the
value of what is produced.
Do not confOund labor directed by
intelligence with expert or skilled
labor, which may be performed in
wasteful, unintelligent, perfume
! tory or instructive way Expert or
skilled labor, when working on the
| separate units of a large structure
or on a large organization must be
directed by a supervising intelli-
| gence that the separate unit may be
| brought, each into it's proper place,
with as little indirection or loss of
! effort as possible.
Intelligent labor or intelligent
| direction or organization of labor
is that which enables you or others
to produce greater results with less,
or at the least the same amount of
labor than it would otherwise pro-
duce, and the one whose intelligence
bring about such results is entitled
| to and should get a share of the
| savings or the increased results.
You can't get something for moth
ing, you can't live by your wits and
! feel comfortable or respectable
| any gain at anOther's loss will react
on you. All the great and per-
manent gains in this world come
through constructive work, creating
new values to old things by making
them better and more useful, by
| creating new things of value
to the world, or by the organization
of those forces which bring about