See to it that you acquire some new point in knowledge every day that will be of future value to you. This will mean 365 good ideas acquired in a year, and every one of these ideas will be like money out at interest, or like seeds planted in good soil. They will blossom and bear fruit.
Do not believe that all men in politics are rascals, or weaklings, who can be bought for a price. If you have the inclination, get into political life and be a factor in the affairs of your district. Honest and truthful men will be most welcome in this field, and may be of great public service.
Do not be worried by the statements made by so many pessimists that society, and the country at large, are on the verge of moral bankruptcy. I tell you that the world is growing better every day, and good men are held in higher respect than ever. Of course there are more rascals, and more thieves, than there were fifty years ago, but that is because there are far more people. The percentage of bad to good is relatively smaller. Men who do wrong are found out oftener and sooner than they were in the olden days, and the news of wrongdoing is carried all over the land by telegraph and telephone and published broadcast in the daily papers. A hundred years ago a man might commit a crime a thousand miles from New York and we could not get the news of it in a month, even if it was sent at all.
Use all your endeavors to suppress the use of profanity or obscenity in public places or elsewhere. This is one of the crying evils of the day and our women are never safe from the insults of having to listen to talk that would not be tolerated in a first-class barroom. But of course the present company is excepted. You are all gentlemen and scholars.
Be cheerful under adverse circumstances. Ella Wheeler Wilcox expresses what I mean when she says:
“It’s easy enough to be pleasant,
When life goes by like a song;
But the man worth while
Is the one who will smile
When everything goes dead wrong.”