Have no personal habits, such as smoking, or chewing, or spitting, or swearing, or others that are injurious to yourselves or disagreeable to other people. All these are either injurious or disagreeable. Have clean hands and clean clothes, not while you are at work—this is not always possible—but when going and coming to and from work.
Always give place to women in the streets, in street-cars, or in other places. Do not rush into street-cars first to get seats. A true gentleman will wait until women get in before he goes. Do not sit in street-cars, while women are standing, unless you are very, very tired. Here is a temptation before you every day almost in our city. Hardly anything is more trying than to see sturdy boys sitting in cars while women are standing and holding on to straps. And yet I see this every day. What is a boy good for, that will not stand for a few minutes, if he can give a woman or an old man a seat?
If you are so favored as to have a few days or two weeks holiday in summer, go to the country or to the sea-shore, if your means will allow. The country air or sea air is better for you than almost any other change.
Do not be extravagant in dress; but be well dressed—not, however, at your tailor’s expense. It is the duty of all to be well dressed, but don’t spend all your money on dress, and especially don’t buy clothing on credit. It is particularly trying to pay for clothing when it is nearly or quite worn out. By all means keep out of debt, for your personal or family expenses, unless you are sure beyond any doubt that you can very soon repay your dealer the money you owe. The difference between ease and comfort, and distress, in money matters, is whether you spend a little more than you make, or a little less than you make. Don’t forget the “rainy day” that is pretty sure to come, and you must lay up something for that day.
Very much of the crime that is committed every day (and you cannot open a paper without seeing an account of some one who has gone wrong) is because people will live beyond their means; will spend more than they earn. They hope for an increase of pay, or that they will make money in some way or other, and then when that good time does not come, and as they can’t afford to wait for it, they take something, only borrowing it as they say, but they take it and spend it, or pay some pressing debt with it, and then, and then—they are caught, and sent to court, and tried and sent to—well, you know without my telling you.
As to the mind.
You have fine opportunities for education here, but they will soon be over, and if you leave this college without having a good knowledge of the practical branches of study pursued here, and which Mr. Girard especially enjoined should be taught, you will be at a great disadvantage with other boys who are well educated. I had a letter in my pocket a few days ago written by a Girard boy, and dated in the Moyamensing Prison, full of bad spelling and bad grammar; and next to the horror of knowing he was in prison, I felt ashamed, that a boy so ignorant of the very commonest branches of English education should have ever been within the walls of this college.
I think I have told you before of a man who employs a large number of men, whose business amounts to perhaps hundreds of thousands of dollars in a year, who is entirely ignorant of accounts, and who a few years ago was robbed and almost ruined by his book-keeper, and who would now give half of what he is worth, and that is a good deal, if he could understand book-keeping; for he is entirely dependent upon other people to keep his accounts.
As to books, be careful what you read. How it grieves me to see errand boys in street-cars, and sometimes as they walk in the streets, reading such stuff as is found in the dime novels. Not merely a waste of time, though that is bad enough, but a positive injury to the mind, filling it with the most improbable stories, and often, also, with that which is positively vicious. Read something better than this. Do not confine yourselves to newspapers, and do not read police reports. Attractive as this class of reading is, it is for the most part hurtful to the young mind. There is an abundance of cheap and good reading, magazines and periodicals; and books and books, good, bad, indifferent; and you will hardly know which to choose unless you ask others who are older than you, and who know books. Most boys read little but novels; and there are many thoroughly good novels, humorous, and pathetic, and historical. Don’t buy books unless you have plenty of money; for you can get everything you want out of the public libraries; and this was not so, or at least to this extent, when I was a boy.
As to work or business.