Year: 1879

A very suggestive letter OF inquiry
has reached me from an Iowa youth OF
19 years, who states that ne has nm,
ished his education" without any special
purpose or plans for the future, and
with no particular bias for any "trade
or profession, but he wants to have
business proposed to him that ne will be
"sure to make something at" and he
queries as to whether farming will pay
as we'll as some city employment. This
is q representative young man OF these
times. He probably means by saying
he has finished his education that he has
been to school and acquired enough OF
the knowledge given there to qualify
him to study profession; or, to state
it in another way, he has just acquired
the use of tools that will enable him to
begin his education for the real business
of life. Quite likely he has more knowl-
edge given by schools than fell to the
lot of several of our most successful
men; Washington, Jackson, Lincoln,
each began life's work with but little of
the training of schools, but each of them
found out, probably without asking
much advice, "what to do"


The letter before me certainly sug-
gests the thought that its writer lacks
purpose and that energy of will which
conquers obstacles. He appears to think
that success is inherent in some branches
of business. Now it is not the business,
so much as the man who conducts it,
that achieves success. Men fail, and
other men succeed, at precisely the same
occupations, who live side by side.
This is true not only of priests, lawyers
and doctors, but it is the rule with every
branch of business. The two village
blacksmiths furnish a striking example.
One soon becomes the owner of home,
paid for from the earnings of his hands.
The shop that was built with view of
shoeing horses and doing like job work
is soon enlarged, and in time expands
into a machine shop, or perhaps a car
riage factory. Wealth and respecta-
bility follow; skill, industry, self-denial,
economy and unconquerable will DO the
work. The other man who commenced
at the same time lacked some of these
qualities, and has therefore drifted along,
and at the end is no better off than when
he began.


As to the choice of a business for life,
no man can tell another as well as he
can tell himself what to undertake; but
one thing may be said as applicable to
all business first learn by serving un-
der some skilled master, if it be posi-
BILE, the best methods of conducting it;
be an apprentice before attempting to
be master. The State of Iowa, where
our young friend lives, has in it the
promise of great future; soil, climate
and position are all in its favor; its
farmers will be successful, and they will
make all other classes successful. But
this is generalizing, and will only be
true of the industrious and wise people.
There will be drones and unfortunates
there as elsewhere, but in much less
proportion than in cities; and, as
class, the farmers there will enjoy more
of life and the rewards of industry than
men who seek sudden wealth in towns.
But each calling in life has its good and
bad things, and the distribution is much
more equal all around than men are apt
to think. The great inequality in the
prospects of success is to be found in
the man himself. George GeddeS,
IN N. Y. Tribune.