THE SECOND TEANSITION PERIOD.
MEMORY GEMS.
It is the pushing fellows who get well to the front.—William Black
The tricky, underhanded individual pays higher for all he gets.
—W. M. Thackeray
A man ought to be something more than the son of his father.
—J. Staples White
Honor and shame from no condition rise;
Act well your part, there all the honor lies.—Pope
The darkest hour in the life of any young man is when he sits down to
study how to get money without honestly earning it.—Horace Greeley
If we have seen that the first transition period in life is that which marks the passing of the child into the youth, then we may safely speak of the second transition period as that which marks the passing of the youth into the man.
Usually there is involved in this change the leaving of the parental home; the selecting of a business or profession; and, sometimes, the establishment of a new home, and the assuming of the cares of family life. It is, therefore, of importance that we should guard all the several interests of this period with more than ordinary care, and especially that we should acquaint ourselves with those facts and principles which have successfully guided others through a similar experience.
First of all we must make a careful study of our possibilities. Young men are constantly worrying lest they be failures and nonentities. Every man will count for all he is worth. There is as steady and constant a ratio between what a man is, and what he can accomplish, as there is between what a ton of dynamite is, and what it can accomplish. There is as much a science of success as there is a science of mathematics. A great deal depends on the matter of laying in supplies, accumulating primary stuff. A man is never too young to have that fact put before him, and never too old to have it rehearsed. He will understand and appreciate the truth of it before he gets through life; and it is a great pity for him not to have, at least, a little appreciation of it near the beginning, so as to frame his initial years in accordance with it.