You are really now on the threshold of a new school—the school of Life. As the old forest guides were taught their wood wisdom by the rocks, the streams, the grass, the leaves, and kindred objects, so you will learn by actual contact with all the customs, rules, and complex situations of the business world, what to do and what to avoid.
Many young men are disheartened before they start in business by the fact that so many lines of manufacture are controlled by big corporations and trusts. As I have already shown, they hear the talk of the agitator and discontented that a poor man has no chance in life. Let me repeat that brains will always command a premium and that young men who have brains, backed by energy, will always be in demand. You must prove that you have these requisites, by good work, and you will find capital will seek to combine with such qualities. You may start in business, or the professions, with your feet on the bottom rung of the ladder; it rests with you to acquire the strength to climb to the top. You can do so if you have the will and the force to back you. There is always plenty of room at the top. The men now at the top have their minds and hands full, and are eager to delegate to smart assistants some of their work so as to ease the burden they bear. Success comes to the man who tries to compel success to yield to him. Cassius spoke well to Brutus when he said: “The fault is not in our stars, dear Brutus, that we are underlings, but in our natures.”
Form the habit as soon as you become a money earner, or money maker, of saving a part of your salary, or profits. Put away one dollar out of every ten you earn. The time will come in your lives, when, if you have a little money, you can control circumstances; otherwise circumstances will control you. You may often have to practice self-denial to save ten per cent. of your earnings; but compel yourselves to do so and you will never regret it. Most of the leading men in business life to-day started out less well equipped with worldly goods or education than any of you. What they have done at least some of you can do.
See that the money you spend is well spent. By careful judgment in this respect, you will acquire a habit which will cling to you in after life. Many a man makes bad investments because he did not learn to be cautious in the beginning of his business career.
The improvements in the past quarter of a century have been marvelous and the end is not yet. There are many new ideas being formulated, and some of you may bear an important part in solving problems which will revolutionize the world. Electricity and chemistry are perhaps still in their infancy, and latent forces are floating around unknown to men. The next fifty years may indeed witness changes just as great and startling as we have seen during the last fifty.
I once advised young men to go as soon as possible into business. I have changed my opinion somewhat and think that it is well to get a technical training in a business at college where special courses are taught. I still consider, however, that if a young man is to enter Wall Street he will learn just as much by going into the Street as soon as he graduates, and I consider a large office just as good as any business college, where a pupil can learn by actual experience as well as he could by a theoretical course in a business college. Almost every man in a leading position in a banking house has started as a junior clerk and gradually worked his way up.
The term “Get the habit” has become quite a metropolitan by-word and brings me to speak on this subject, for the habits we acquire have much to do with our progress, and as Lamartine has truly said:
“Habit with its iron sinews
Clasps and holds us day by day.”
In the various matters of detail that make up the sum and substance of business—considered as trifles by the foolish, but by the wise as important and vital—such as our methods of occupation, our time, and our manners, great care should be taken to acquire the sterling habits of industry, punctuality, and sobriety. The most watchful and jealous care should ever be exercised by you all in this regard. A single deviation from the straight path may mean much, for habit is not of sudden acquirement, but is formed (and also lost) act by act, thread by thread, as we progress in the journey of life.