Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1917-01-05
Learn AS You Go
BY H. ADDINGTON BRUCE.
DAY you go, is a familiar and sound maxim
r of life. Learn you go, is one not so

familiar but equally sound.
Again and again observation has impressed
upon me the deplorabie results which follow neg
lect of this second maxim. Happiness and success
alike dependent on willingness to keep learn
ing throughout life.
Many men act as though they had nothing TO
learn after getting through school and college, or
after they have had few years of experience in
some business profession. The fact is no man
count himself completely educated
In the matter of his life work itself he always
has something to learn IF only because time in
variably brings new ideas and new methods in the
doing of business. Failure to learn these and
adapt them to his own ends, means financial loss
and may mean financial bankruptcy.
Not few men among my acquaintance haye
appreciated this too late. They are men who, in
many cases, won some success early in their bust
ness careers
Their success unduly pulled them up. They
imagined they had learned all there was to be
learned in their various calngs So they settled
down to do business in a stereotyped way.
But business can never be done successfully i'll
a stereotyped way. Always there must be elastic
ity to meet changes in public requirements manu-
featuring innovations, and trade customs. And
elasticity means willingness to learn.
The men have in mind too self-satisfed
to learn. Because certain methods had once
brought them success, they stuck to these methods
Gradually trade shifted from them to more pro
gressve," more learnable men.
They could have Learned, and they should have
learned from their competitors. Here we touch on
another point of much Importance.
The process of learning is not process OF
study
books. And learn from all men. Every
body we meet has something to teach us, if only
we keep our eyes, our ears, and our minds open.
The truly wise man. finely says Henry Churchill
King, lis ready to see the best in the other man,
and eager to learn from him-willing to receive as
we'll as to give, to learn we'll as to teach.
Remember, if you please, that every man you
meet has had experiences differing in some degree
from yours. These individual experiences have
given him something you do not possess but some
thing you share if you are willing to play d
learners part in your dealings with him.
In this way the most highly educated man
gain knowledge from the least educated If you
have been we'll educated, do not vaunt yourself on
that account do think yourself superior that
YOU have nothing to learn from men who have had
less schooling than you.
AS hard, cold fact, a professor learn
from ditch-digger if he but let himself be recep
tive. He may rest assured that the ditch-dgger
has gained through his personal experiences knowl
edge that it will be of real advantage for the pro-
lessor to obtain.
Therefore, brother, whatever you life work.
whatever your previous education, be to learn
as you go along the path of existence. Don't put
yourself in the class of the foolish know-it-alls,
whose conceit is deadly drag on their hopes and
ambitions.
Copyright 1917, by The Associated Newspapers
1917, will doubtless break another speed limit.