's Opinions, I will append a few of the suggestions he has made, from time to time, designed to reform or improve:
To aspiring young men.
“I want to go into business,” is the aspiration of our young men: “can't you find me a place in the city?
” their constant inquiry.
“Friend,” we answer to many, “the best business you can go into you will find on your father's farm or in his workshop.
If you have no family or friends to aid you, and no prospect opened to you there, turn your face to the Great West, and there build up a home and fortune.
But dream not of getting suddenly rich by speculation, rapidly by trade, or any how by a profession: all these avenues are choked by eager, struggling aspirants, and ten must be trodden down in the press where one can vault upon his neighbor's shoulders to honor or wealth.
Above all, be neither afraid nor ashamed of honest industry; and if you catch yourself fancying anything more
respectable than this, be ashamed of it to the last day of your life.
Or, if you find yourself shaking more cordially the hand of your cousin the
Congressman than of your uncle the blacksmith,
as such, write yourself down an enemy to the principles of our institutions, and a traitor to the dignity of Humanity.”
The world owes me a living.
How owes?
Have you earned it by good service?
If you have, whether on the anvil or in the pulpit, as a toiler or a teacher, you have acquired a just right to a livelihood.
But if you have eaten as much as you have earned, or—worse still—have done little or no good, the world owes you nothing.
You may be worth millions, and able to enjoy every imaginary luxury without care or effort; but if you have done nothing to increase the sum of human comforts, instead of the world owing you anything, as fools have babbled, you are morally bankrupt and a beggar.
To farmers.
“I can't afford to cultivate my land so nicely; I am not able.”
Then, sir, sell all you are unable to use properly, and obtain means to cultivate thoroughly what you retain.
If you have a hundred acres sell fifty, keep twenty acres of arable, and thirty of rocky woodland, and bring
this to perfection.
A home of your own.
We wish it were possible to imbue every man, but especially every young man, with the desire of having a home of his own—a home to be adhered to through life.
Next to the home itself, an earnest, overruling
desire for one,
