“Is success dependent more upon ability or opportunity?”
PREPARE TO THE UTMOST: THEN DO YOUR BEST.
“Of course, opportunity is necessary. You couldn’t run a mammoth department store on the desert of Sahara. But, given the possibility, the right man can make his opportunity, and should do so, if it is not at hand, or does not come, after reasonable waiting. Even Napoleon had to wait for his. On the other hand, if there is no ability, none can display itself, and the best opportunity must pass by unimproved. The true way is to first develop your ability to the last ounce, and then you will be ready for your opportunity, when it comes, or to make one, if none offers.”
“Is the chance for a youth as good as it was twenty-five or fifty years ago?”
“Yes, and no! In any country, as it becomes more thickly populated, the chance for purely individual enterprises is almost sure to diminish. One notices this more as he travels through other and older countries, where, far more than with us, boys follow in the footsteps of their fathers, generation after generation. But for those who are willing to adapt themselves to circumstances, the chance to-day, at least from a pecuniary standpoint, is better than ever before for those starting in life. There was doubtless more chance for the individual boat-builder in the days of King Philip, when each Indian made his own canoe, but there is certainly more profit now for an employee of our firm of boat-builders.”
“Granted, however, that he can find employment, how do his chances of rising compare with those of your youth?”
THE MAN IS THE IMPORTANT FACTOR.
“They still depend largely upon the individual. Some seem to have natural executive ability, and others develop it, while most men never possess it. Those who lack it cannot hope to rise far, and never could. Jefferson’s idea that all men are created equal is true enough, perhaps, so far as their political rights are concerned, but from the point of view of efficiency in business it is ridiculous. In any shop of one hundred men you will find one who is acknowledged, at least tacitly, as the leader, and he, sooner or later, becomes so in fact. A rich boy may get and hold a place in an office on account of his wealth or influence; but in the works merit alone will enable a man to hold a place long.”
“But what is his chance of becoming a proprietor?”