“Give a youth resolution and the alphabet and who shall place limits to his career?”

THIS is a word to boys and girls of all ages, from four to ninety-four, and it is a true account of how to have a million dollars. From the start every boy and girl should be raised with the idea that they will be compelled to earn a living. From the first penny they possess, they should learn that it can be obtained only as a re?ward for doing something; that a coin is not a gift to be had for the asking; that they cannot get it without first giving its value in service.

Just as important is it for boys and girls to be trained to “simple living and strenuous exertion, to find zest in tackling hardships, to become lithe as a panther.” ” The Battle of Waterloo was won first on the English cricket fields” where those boys who afterwards saved their country gained their hard muscles, their resistance, their self-control and their obedience. Boys and girls must first learn the obey habit. The captain of a base?ball team demands obedience–and gets it. The school-teachers and later the employers of the boys and girls demand it–and get it.

When a sentimental mother is tempted to en?courage in her boy or girl the love of an easy life, luxurious habits, and wastefulness of money, let her remember this: Money is the only distinguish?ing difference between the gentleman of leisure and the hobo–their place in the world is the same; they love the passive pleasures which soften and degenerate; they lose the wish and the power to accomplish anything worth while; or to be anything worth while; and even lose the power of en?joying the kind of lives they have chosen.

“Better than a clever boy, or a sensitive boy, or a boy, elegant and gentle it is to have a boy that is hard, with hard muscles, a hard, vigorous mind and a hard and valiant spirit.”

A boy must learn to take the initiative; to use his judgment in deciding; then go ahead and take the consequences, good or bad–and not whimper if they are bad. The best training is making mis?takes. The boy in the public school-yard who makes mistakes gets beaten up by the other boys. In business life, the man who makes mistakes has it taken out of his skin, too. The boy who has grown up defending himself has learned to tackle hard problems, to find a way of handling them, and to enjoy the proud feeling that comes from achievement — he has learned that resisting is power.

Train the boys and girls to resist enervating softness; to resist the inclination to spend their money. One boy turns out to be a ne’er-do-well because he was a spendthrift, slothful in body and mind; the other mounts to fame and wealth– ‘’ He was that kind of a boy.'’

The story is told of Hugh Chalmers that when he was a fourteen-year-old office boy with the Na?tional Cash Register Company, a customer came in while the salesmen were out at lunch. No, not all the salesmen were out. One was there; name, Hugh Chalmers; age, fourteen; experience, none. When the others returned they found the boy had taken a fat order, and his work became so good that at twenty-nine he was making $72,000 per year. He began saving money when he was making only $5 a week, but instead of increasing his expenditures in proportion to his earnings, as many do, he kept his family expenses down to a modest figure, and accumulated capital.

Elbert Hubbard wrote his masterpiece, “A Mes?sage to Garcia,” in one evening after a hard day’s work.

Most of us rest after a hard day’s work.

Maybe that’s why there are so few masterpieces.

H. Gordon Selfridge, the celebrated merchant of London who was born in Ripon, Wis., U. S. A., says work has taught him that: ‘’ Labor is not to be avoided. It is not to be pitied. It should be courted and exalted. Wealth is the product of labor of head and hand.”

The men and women of this land are going to bless the day when they waked from the wrong idea that idleness is content. They are going “to love work for the happiness it brings”–and after that for the fortune which work puts into a bank account.

“Fortune is ever seen accompanying industry, and is as often trundling a wheel-barrow as lolling in a limousine.”

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Tags: The Secret of Wealth