“It’s the boys who’ll work that are needed
In sanctum or office or shop,
Remembering the low lands are crowded
But there’s room for the industrious, on top.”
CHAPTER VII
Be Studious
INTRODUCTION TO CHAPTER VII
By George S. Cull
The boy who would be an intelligent and wise man needs to be studious. What may now seem irksome employment will prove a delight in after years. Through study he will not be a burden to himself, nor will “his society be,” as Seneca said, “insupportable to others.”
Study whenever and wherever you can. Pliny in one of his Letters relates how he used spare moments. “Sometimes I hunt; but even then I carry with me a pocket-book, that whilst my servants are busied in disposing of nets and other matters, I may be employed in something that may be useful to me in my studies; and that if I miss of my game, I may at least bring home some of my thoughts with me, and not have the mortification of having caught nothing.”
In choosing subjects you will not have to combat with the difficulties our forefathers met, for in these days of cheap paper and cheap printing the whole world of literature is open to you. But here, my lad, let me warn you against the worthless, the pernicious trash with which the literary market is flooded.