Look at the poor, ignorant people from abroad who sweep our streets—look at the stevedores who load and unload the ships—look at the men who carry the hod of mortar or bricks up the high and steep ladders—look at the drivers and the conductors on our street cars, the most hard worked people among us—and are you not sure that most of these people are uneducated? No one wants to be at the bottom all the time. We may have been there at the first; but those who have made the most progress are generally those who have had the best education. I know that education is not a sure guarantee of success; many other things enter into the consideration of the question; but I am saying that, other things being equal, he who knows the most will do the best. There are, alas, many instances of the sons of the rich, who have been well educated, who have everything provided for them, who have no stimulus, no spur; who have no regular occupation, and need not have any; many of whom sink into idleness and dissipation, and their fine education goes for nothing. But you are not of this class. You will have to make your way in the world by your own exertions.
I shall fail of my duty if I do not say some words about such boys as sometimes stand at the corners of the streets in large or small companies and amuse themselves by smoking and chewing tobacco, telling bad stories and making remarks upon those who pass by. I am sure much of this arises from thoughtlessness; but I wish to point out the exceeding impropriety of this behavior. I have known ladies to cross the street and, at much inconvenience, go quite out of their way rather than pass within hearing of these boys and young men. What right has any one to make the streets disagreeable to any passenger, to block up the way or make loose or rude remarks, or defile the pavement over which I walk?
All this most serious waste of time is probably because no one has particularly called attention to it. The time may come when you will recall the words of advice which you hear to-day, and you may regret when it is too late that you turned a deaf ear to what was said.
I have now tried, in as much detail as the time will permit, to show the importance of that education which will enable you to rise in your trade or business, whatever it may be, to the upper places; and I have tried to show that a true ambition leads one to strive to be chief rather than a subordinate, to be a foreman rather than a journeyman.
But, after all, everything will depend upon yourselves and upon God. There is no royal road to education; the very meaning of the word shows this; the mind must be drawn out, worked over, developed, rounded, hammered, somewhat as a blacksmith puts a piece of rough iron in the coals, keeps it there until it is red-hot, then draws it out, lays it upon his anvil and hammers it, turning it over and over, striking it first on this side and then on that, rounding it off; then when it cools thrusting it among the coals again, then hammering away again until he has brought the rough piece of iron to the size and shape he wishes, when he allows it to cool and harden. If you are willing to work your mind into the shape you want it, you will surely bring yourself to the front among active, ingenious and successful men. But this means hard work, and work all the time.
Now if you mean to avail yourselves of any of the hints which I have given you, if you really mean to succeed, if you are not content to be workers low down in the scale of industry, if you mean to rise rather than to be obscure, if you intend to be well-to-do men, instead of living from hand to mouth, you must grapple with the subject with all your might and keep at it all the time. And you must keep out of the streets at night, away from the taverns and from the low theatres, and from gambling dens, and from other places which I will not name; and, in short, you must be true Americans, for there is no truer type of manhood in all the world than a real American; and nowhere else in all the world has a poor boy so good an opportunity to be and do all this, as in our own good city of Philadelphia.
WILLIAM PENN.
October 22, 1882.