Year: 1867

A youth writes us as follOws-and his
case is like that of so many others that we
treat it thus publicly, suppressing bis name !;


. Dear Sir; am poor boy. | would
like to get rich. Now what shall | do? l
would like to quit this section. l don't
want to remain on my father farm. Please
give me the best advice you can, and oblige,
Yours, G. G. S."


ANswER.-The aspiration to be rich
though by no means the highest that can
impel career-is, in our view, wholesome
and laudable. The youth who says, Let
me be rich any hoW, and before all other
considerations, is very likely to bring up
in some State Prison; but be who consist
emily says, Let me first be just, honest,
moral, diligent, useful then rich, " is on the
right road. Every boy ought to aspire to be
rich, provided he can be without unfaithful.
ness to social obligation or to moral principle.


But how shall he set about getting rich ?
We would concisely say:


l. Firmly reSolCe nerer to ol0e debt. 1t
is the fundamental mistake of most boys to
suppose that they can get rich faster on
money earned by others than on that earned
respectfully by themselves. If every youth
OF 10 to 70 years were to-day offered $40, 900
for ten years at seven per cent. interest, two
thirds Of them would eagerly accept it; when
the probable consequence is that threc-fourths
of them would die bankrupts and paupers.
Boys do not need money half so much as
they need to know how to earn and save it.
The boy who, at the close of his first year of
independence, has earned and saved 500,
and invested or loaned it where it will paw
him six or seven per cent, will almost sure
iy hhscome rich if he lives while he who
closes his first ycc:a.r of responsibility in debt,
will probably live and dle IN debt. There
is no greater mistake made by our American
youth than that of choosing to pay interest
rather than receive it. Interest deyours us
when we are asleep; it absorbs our profits
aud aggravates our losses. Let a young
man at twenty five have 81 900 loaned on
bond an1 mortgage or invested in public Sc
curities, and he will rarely want money
thereafter; in fact that 81 1000, invested at
seven per cent, will of itself make him rich
before he is sixty. There is no rule more
important or wholesome for our boys than
that which teaches them to 20 through life
interest rather than paying it. Of
the torments which aiflict this mortal sphere,
the first rank is held by Crime the second
by Debt.


II. acquire promptly and Thoroughly some
useful calling. Some pursuits are more lu-
cratiye, some more respectable, some more
agreeable, than others; but a chimney
sweeps is far better than none at all. No
matter how rich his parents may be, a boy
should learn a trade; no matter how poor
be may be, a boy may learn some trade if he
will This city is full to day of young land
old) men who have been clerks, book keep
ers, porters, ETC., ETC., yet can find nothing
to do, and are starving because their foolish
parents did not give them trades. A trade
is an estate, and almost always productive
one. A good efficient farm laborer can
generally find paying work if he does not
insist in looking for it in a city where it
cannot well be; while many a college grad
uate famished because nobody wants the
only work he knows how to do. Let moth.
ing prevent your acquiring skill in some
branch of productive industry.


III. Resolre not TO be rOrer. 90 A rolling
stone gathers no moss" but is constantly
thumped and knocked, and often shiyered
to pieces. If you are honest and industrious,
you must be constantly making reputation,
which, if you remain in one place, helps you
along the road to fortune. Even hod car
rier or street-sweeper who has proved that
his promise to appear on given day and
hour and go to work may be trusted, has a
in the confidence thus created. If
you cannot find your work where you now
are, migrate; but do it once for all. When
you have stuck your stake, stand by it


". Comprehend that there IS lCork almost
ere,yulere for lin acAo can do it. An Italian
named Bianconi settled in Ireland some
sixty years ago, and got very rich there by
gradually establishing lines of passenger
all over that Island. Almost
any man would have said that he who went
to ireland to make his fortune must be mad.
He who knows how, and will work, can get
rich growing potatoes in New England,
though he hasn't five cent stamp to begin
with. There is work that will pay for
million more people on the soil of Connect
cut alone. There are millions of unproduc
tive acres within days ride of this city that
might be bought and rendered largely fruit
full at clear profit of 800 or more per acre,
A man in Niles, Michigan, declined to 90
gold-hunting in the Rocky Mountains be-
cause there was more gold in Niles than he
could get hold of. The reason was a good
one, and it applies almost everywhere. If
you can find nothing to do where you are,
it is generally because you can do nothing.


Y. Realize that he icho earns sir pence per
day more than he spends must get rich, aUhile
he Uho spends sir-pence more than he earns
must become poor. This is a very hackneyed
truth but we shall never be done needing
its repetition. Hundreds of thousands are
not only poor but wretched to-day, simply
because they fail to comprehend or will not
heed it. We Americans are not only an ex-
travagant but an ostentatious people, We
habitually spend too much on our own
stomach and our neighbors' eyes. We are
continually in hot-water, not because we
cannot live in comfort on our means, but be-
cause we persist in spending more than we


need or can afford. Our youth squander in


extra food and drinks, in frolic and dissipa-


ton, which does them harm instead of good.


the means which should be the nest-egg of


their future competence. When cares and
children cluster about them, they grumble
at their hard-fortune; forgetful that they
wasted the wears and the means which might
and should have saved them from present
and future poverty.


All these are very trite, homely truths