n.o.body cares what college you went to. n.o.body cares whether you went to college at all.
But everybody cares whether you are a real force among men; and everybody cares more and more as it becomes clearer and clearer that you are not only a force, but a trained, disciplined force. That is why you ought to go to college--to be a trained, disciplined force.
But how and where you got your power--the world of men and women is far too interested in itself to be interested in that.
When you do finally go to college, take care of yourself like a man. I am told that there are men in college who have valets to attend them, their rooms, and their clothes. Think of that! Don"t do anything like that, even if you are a hundred times a millionaire. Of course _you_ won"t--you who read this--because not one out of ten thousand young Americans can afford to have a valet in college--thank heaven!
Don"t do any of the many things which belong to that life of self-indulgence of which the keeping of a valet in college is a flaring ill.u.s.tration. Don"t let kind friends litter up your room with a lot of cushions, and such stuff. The world for which you are preparing is no "cushiony" place, let me tell you; and if you let luxury relax your nerves and soften your brain tissues and make your muscles mushy, a similar mental and moral condition will develop. And then, when you go out into real life, you will find some st.u.r.dy young barbarian, with a Spartan training and a merciless heart, elbowing you clear off the earth.
For, mark you, these strong, fearless, masterful young giants, who are every day maturing among the common people of America, ask no quarter and give none; and it is such fellows you must go up against. And when you do go up against them there will be no appealing to father and mother to help you. Father and mother cannot help you. n.o.body can help you but yourself. You will find that the cushion business, and the mandolin business, and all that sort of thing, do not go in real life.
Consider West Point and Annapolis. My understanding is that the men whom the Nation is training there for the skilled defense of the Republic, and who therefore must be developed into the very highest types of effective manhood, are taught to clean and polish their own shoes, make their own beds, care for their own guns, and do everything else for themselves. Do you think that is a good training for our generals and admirals? Of course you do.
Well, then, do you imagine that you are going to have an easier time in your business or profession than the officers in our army and navy?
Don"t you believe it for a minute. You are not going to have an easier time than they. You are going to have a great deal harder time. And by "hard time" I do not mean an unhappy time. Unhappy time! What greater joy can there be for a man than the sheer felicity of doing real work in the world?
While I am on this subject I might as well say another thing: Do not think that you have got to smoke in order to be or look like a college man. A pipe in the mouth of a youth does not make him look like a college man, or any other kind of man. It merely makes him look absurd, that is all. And if there is ever a time on earth when you do not need the stimulus of tobacco, it is while you are in college.
Tobacco is a wonderful vegetable. It is, I believe, the only substance in the world which is at the same time a stimulant and a narcotic, a heart excitant and a nerve sedative. Very well. You are too young yet to need a heart stimulant, too young to need anything to quiet your nerves.
If at your tender age your nerves are so inflamed that they must be soothed, and if at the very sunrise of your life your heart is so feeble that it must be forced with any stimulant, you had better quit college. College is no place for you if you are such a decadent; yes, and you will find the world a good deal harder place than college.
Cut out tobacco, therefore. For a young fellow in college it is a ridiculous affectation--nothing more. Why? Because you do not need tobacco; that is why. At least you do not need it yet. The time may come when you will find tobacco helpful, but it will not be until you have been a long while out of college. As to whether tobacco is good for a man at any stage of life the doctors disagree, and "where doctors disagree, who shall decide?"
Ruskin says that no really immortal work has been done in the world since tobacco was introduced; but we know that this is not true. I would not be understood as having a prejudice for or against the weed.
Whether a full-grown man shall use it or not is something for himself to decide. Personally I liked it so well that I made up my mind a long time ago to give it up altogether.
But there is absolutely no excuse for a man young enough to still be in college to use it at all. And it does not look right. For a boy to use tobacco has something contemptible about it. I will not argue whether this is justified or not. That is the way most people feel about it. Whether their feeling is a prejudice or not, there is no use of your needlessly offending their prejudice. And this is to be taken into account. For you want to succeed, do you not? Very well. You cannot mount a ladder of air; you must rise on the solid stepping-stones of the people"s deserved regard.
And, of course, you will not disgrace yourself by drinking. There is absolutely nothing in it. If you have your fling at it you will learn how surely Intoxication"s apples of gold turn to the bitterest ashes in the eating. But when you do find how fruitless of everything but regrets dissipation is, be honest with yourself and quit it. Be honest with the mother who is at home praying for you, and quit it. But this is weak advice. Be honest with that mother who is at home praying for you, and _never begin it_. That"s the thing--_never begin it!_
In a word, be a man; and you will be very little of a man, very little indeed, if you have got to resort to tobacco and liquor to add to your blood and conduct that touch of devilishness which you may think is a necessary part of manliness. Indeed, between fifteen and thirty years of age your veins will be quite full enough of the untamed and desperate. I do not object in the least to this wild mustang period in a man"s life.
Is a fellow to have no fun? you will say. Of course, have all the fun you want; the more the better. But if you need stimulants and tobacco to key you up to the capacity for fun, you are a solemn person indeed--"solemn as cholera morbus" to appropriate an American newspaper"s description of one of our public men. What I mean is that you shall do nothing that will destroy your effectiveness. Play, sports, fun, do not do that; they increase your effectiveness. Go in for athletics all you please; but do not forget that that is not why you are going to college.
n.o.body cares how mad are the pranks you play. Take the curb and snaffle off of the humors of your blood whenever you please; that is all right. I never took much stock in the outcry against hazing. We cannot change our s.e.x, or the nature and habits of it. A young man is a male animal after all, and those who object to his rioting like a young bull are in a perpetual quarrel with Nature.
One thing I must warn you against, and warn you supremely: the critical habit of mind which somehow or other a college education does seem to produce. This is especially true of the great universities of our East. n.o.body admires those splendid inst.i.tutions more than I do--the Nation is proud of them, and ought to be. The world of learning admires them, and with reason. Neither the English, Scotch, nor German universities surpa.s.s them.
But has not every one of us many times heard their graduates declare that a mischief had been done them while in those universities by the cultivation of a sneering att.i.tude toward everybody--especially toward every other young man--whom they see doing anything actual, positive, or constructive. One of the best of these men--a man with a superb mind highly trained--said to me on this very subject:
"I confess that I came out of college with my initiative atrophied. I was afraid to do anything. I was afraid I would make a mistake if I did anything; afraid I was not well enough equipped to do the things that suggested themselves; afraid that if I did try to do anything everybody would criticize what I did; afraid that my old college mates would laugh at me.
"And I confess in humility that I myself acquired the habit of intellectual suspicion toward everybody who does try to do any real thing. I find myself unconsciously sneering at young men who are accomplishing things. Yes, and that is not the worst of it; I find myself sneering at myself." That is pathos--a soul doubting, denying itself. Pathos! yes, it is tragedy!
Confirm this confession by dropping into a club where such men gather and hearing the talk about the ones who are doing things in the world.
You will find that until the men who _are_ doing things have actually _done_ them, done them well, and forced hostility itself to accept what they have done as good, honest pieces of work, the talk in these clubs will be that of harsh criticism, sneering contempt, and prophecy of failure. Guard against that habit night and day. You would better become an opium-eater than to permit this paralysis of mind and soul.
Believe in things. _Believe in other young men._ When you see other young men trying to do things in business, politics, art, the professions, believe in the honesty of their purpose and their ability to do well what they have started out to do. a.s.sume that they will succeed until they prove that they cannot. Do not discourage them. Do not sneer at them. That will only weaken yourself. Believe in other young men, and you will soon find yourself believing in yourself.
That is the most important thing of all: Belief in yourself. Have faith in yourself though the whole universe jeers. "Trust thyself; every heart vibrates to that iron string," is the sentence from Emerson we used to write endlessly in our copy-books when we went to school. And what a glorious motto for Americans it is!
Remember that the high places, now filled by men whom the years are aging, must by and by be filled by men now young. Be in no haste then--the years are your allies. Time will dispose of your rivals.
Just believe in yourself, and work and wait and dare--_and keep on_ working, waiting, daring. _Never let up; and never doubt your ultimate success._ Think of Columbus, Drake, Magellan--the story of every master-mariner has in it food for your necessary egotism.
Do not underestimate your strength. There are things you would like to do; very well, sail in and do them. Do not be afraid of making a mistake. Do not be afraid that you will fail. Suppose you do fail.
Millions have failed before you. I am repeating this thought and I wish it would bear repet.i.tion on every page.
But never admit to yourself that you have failed. Try it again. You will win next time, sure! "If at first you don"t succeed, try, try again." How much sense there is in these common maxims of the common people, proverbs not written by any one man, but axioms that spring out of the combined intelligence of the millions, meditating through the centuries. The sayings of the people are always simple and wise.
What a fine thing it was that Grant said at Shiloh. The first day closed in disaster. The enemy had all but driven the Union Army into the river. Not a great distance from the banks of the stream they will point out to you the tree under which Grant stood, cigar clinched between his teeth, directing the disposition of his forces. Some one reported to him a fresh disaster.
With the calmness of the certainty that n.o.body could defeat _him_, so the story runs, Grant replied, "Never mind; I will lick them to-morrow." Very like Caesar, was it not? "_I_ came, _I_ saw, _I_ conquered." Or that other audacity of the great Roman, when the ship was actually sinking: "Fear not," said he; "fear not, you carry _Caesar_ and _his_ fortunes."
In the same battle it is credibly reported that Grant rode to an important position held by a large number of his troops under one of his most trusted generals. "What have you been doing?" asked Grant.
"Fighting," answered the commander in charge of that position, equally laconic. For a while Grant surveyed the field, and, turning, was about to ride away. "But what shall I do now, General?" asked his subordinate. "Keep on fighting," answered Grant.
Do not get into the habit of feeling that you are not sufficiently well equipped. This comes of a very honest intellectual process--the understanding, as we get more knowledge, of how very little we really know; as we get more skill, of how very unskilled we really are; the feeling that, high as our training is, there is some one else more highly trained. Of course there is; but if that is any excuse why you should do nothing--because there is some person who can do it better--you will never do anything; and then what will happen when all of the other fellows who "could do it better" die?
You will by that time be too old to do anything at all. So sail in yourself, and pat on the back every other young fellow that sails in.
If you learn the law, for example, understand that the way to acquire the art of _practising_ law is to _practise_ it, and not merely watch somebody else practise it. Suppose every young man with a scientific mind had declined to make any experiment because there were abler scientists than he: how many Pasteurs and Finsens and Marconis and Edisons and Bells would the world have had? And I might go on for an hour with similar ill.u.s.trations.
So go ahead and try to do things you would _like_ to do--things Nature has fitted you to do. Believe that you can do these things. For you _can_, you know. You will be amazed at your own powers. If you do not believe in yourself, how do you expect the world to believe in you?
The world has no time to pet and coddle you, remember that. So get the habit of faith in yourself and your fellow men. Cultivate a n.o.ble intellectual generosity. It is a fine tonic for mind and soul--a fine tonic even for the body.
The doctors say that envy, malice, jealousy, produce a distinctly depressing effect upon the nervous system. And some go so far as to say that if intense enough these states of mind actually poison the secretions. Don"t, therefore, let these hyena pa.s.sions abide with you.
Be generous. Have faith. Make mistakes or achieve success; fail or win; but do things. Share the common lot. Be hearty. Be whole-souled.
Be a man. Never doubt for a moment that
"G.o.d"s in his heaven; All"s well with the world."
This paper has been devoted to your mental and moral att.i.tude toward your college and your college life, rather than to what particular things you will study there; for the way you look at your college and the life you lead there--the spirit with which you enter upon these golden years--is the main thing. The studies themselves are the methods by which you apply that spirit and purpose.
But most young men with whom I have talked want to know what "courses"
to take, what "studies" to specialize upon. No general counsel can be given which will be very valuable to you upon this point. But I will venture this: Do not choose entirely by yourself what things you will study in college, or what "courses" you will "elect."
You are so apt to pick the things that are easiest for you, and not the things that are best for you. Even the strongest-willed men quite unconsciously select those things that will mean the least work. You do not think you are selecting certain courses or studies for this reason, and perhaps you are not; but then, again, perhaps you are, and you cannot yourself determine that.
Therefore I suggest that you advise with four or five of the ablest and most successful men you know. Let two of these be educators, and the others professional or business men. Try to get them to interest themselves enough in you to take the time to think the whole subject over very carefully as applied to your particular case, and to take further time to talk it over thoroughly with you. Then take the consensus of their opinion, unless your own view is decided, clear, and emphatic.
When you have such an opinion of your own, such a command coming from the sources of your own mentality, obey that, in choosing your studies and course, rather than the counsel of any other man or number of men.
Yes, obey that voice in making such a choice, and in making every choice throughout your whole life; for it is the voice of your real self--that inward counselor which never fails those who are fortunate enough to have it.
Of course, what you study ought to be influenced by what you intend to do in life. For example, the career of civil engineer requires a special kind of preparation. So do the various occupations and professions. But no matter what particular thing you intend to do through life, it is the belief of most men who have given this subject any thought that a young man ought to take a complete general college course, and supplement this by special preparation for the particular work to which he intends to devote his life.
But there is one thing to which the attention of young Americans should be directed as influencing their college life. Our country is no longer isolated. We can no longer be called a provincial people. We are decidedly a very intimate part of the world. Our relations with other peoples grow closer and closer, and they will keep on growing closer as the years pa.s.s by. A thousand Americans travel over sea to-day where one went abroad fifty years ago. Our foreign commerce is now greater in a single year than it used to be in an entire decade--yes, and quite recently, too, so swift our increase.
Other countries are several times nearer to us than they were even in the last generation. It took Emerson almost a month to cross the Atlantic. Now you go over in a week. You can send a cablegram to any country in the world and have it delivered, translated into the language of the person to whom it is sent, a great deal quicker than the dawn can travel. Invention has made snail-like the speed of light.