Read Ebook: Young Men; In Business by Guest William Wells J D

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Boys PAGE 7

Employers in Relation to Boys 9

Boys in Relation to Employers 13

Young Men and Success 22

Other Conditions of Success 32

INTRODUCTION.

Several years ago a man, now venerable for age and character, gave the writer some valuable hints about boys and young men in relation to business. He had himself begun life a poor boy, and achieved large success. Coming to New York more than sixty years ago, he was familiar with all the changes in methods of doing business up to the time then present. Nor has he ceased to be active in the affairs of a large concern at this later day. The passing years have made him old and have not left me young. The thoughts he gave me, supplemented by my own reading, observation and reflection, move me to set down some things that may be helpful not only to the classes of persons already referred to, but to others as well.

The great change in business methods does not warrant any change in the characters and habits of those who have a right to expect success in any true meaning of the word.

I would gladly speak a helpful word to the thousands of boys and young men who are looking hopefully into the future, and yet may not have in mind the true conditions of well-doing for themselves or their employers.

Boys and Young Men in Relation to Business.

If there were no boys there would be no young men and no old men. To this truism add the saying, "The boy is the father of the man," and our subject has dignity and greatness at the outset. There may be aspects of it that provoke merriment; but there are more of a different character, and we are kept sober-minded in view of them.

The boy on shipboard is the "monkey." The boy among types and presses is the "printer's devil." The boy at school is "Jack," or "Bill," or "Dick," "hail-fellow well met," and a peer among peers. The boy in college, if any boys go to college, is a "Freshman," bound--if not happily emancipated of late--to serve the learned "Sophomore," or take a ducking, or something worse, for his disobedience.

In business the boy is just what his character, his companions and his employers make of him. He may be a butt of ridicule, or a greenhorn to be ripened into smartness and wickedness by those who are older and wiser and worse than himself. He may be a poor drudge, to sweep and run of errands, which may be all right; or to suffer untold indignities and cruelties, with no uplifting to a better future and very little pay for very much work, which is all wrong.

Or, by way of contrast, he may be treated from the start as having in him the germ of real greatness, the undeveloped qualities of a man yet to be acknowledged as the peer of those he serves, and the possible superior of them all. No one but God knows what may be hid and struggling for opportunity and recognition and reward in the obscurest little fellow who takes the lowest place in any store or office or shop.

I do not think the first thing to be considered is what a boy may do for his employers, but rather what they may do for him, and so, at last, for themselves through him. In all ordinary circumstances they can mould him to their will. They are the masters, he is the servant. They are strong, he is weak. If they do not recognize their obligation to him, in the relation to which they invite and receive him, they ought not to complain of his failures in duty to them. As well expect a son to know and meet his duties to his parents while they utterly fail to recognize theirs to him.

If an employer requires a boy to do what in his home or the sanctuary he has learned he must not do, and if he requires him to do the forbidden thing on pain of losing his place or his pay, the requirement is not only a grievous wrong in itself, but an outrage upon the inalienable rights of the boy. Children are required to obey their parents only "in the Lord." No man is great enough to lord it over his own child's conscience. And this great principle holds in the relation of employers to their servants of all ages and grades.

Boys sell their time and service to their masters. They cannot sell their conscience, soul, and body. They must do right if they lose a thousand places in succession and starve to death for want of work. I can think of no persecution more cruel and infamous than that which is practised upon boys just starting on their career for life, here and hereafter, when they are required to practise deceit; to say things that are not true about goods to be sold, or in any other way to debauch conscience. The penalty of disobedience may be sending them home to widowed mothers or orphaned sisters without recommendation to any other place of business. This is martyrdom with a vengeance, and it is by no means uncommon. I have in mind glaring instances that have come under my own observation. A man now belonging to an old and wealthy business house was thrust out of his place when a youth because he refused to sell goods damaged in a vital though hidden part as goods in perfect order.

Another, in a position of great responsibility and usefulness for a number of years in a heathen land, when a boy served his employer faithfully six days in the week, and was required to sell his goods on the Sabbath. His conscience forbade this and he was discharged, with very serious consequences for a time.

These are specimens of classes. But it is always safe and wise for boys firmly and respectfully to resist human authority in all such cases.

There is another great wrong to boys, to wit, leaving them at the mercy of subordinates who hold positions grading all the way from those held by the boys themselves, to those just below the high positions of the employers. I have seen something of this petty tyranny; good boys harried into desperation or pushed and badgered into immoralities and the loss of self-respect.

Happy are the boys who go from their homes to the care of good men, and to the companionship of co-workers who help them to success by instruction and example.

Thus far I have written some plain things about employers in relation to boys. With equal plainness I now write of boys in relation to their employers.

Clearly they must always do right even if the stars fall. It is weak and contemptible to be eye-servants, showing all diligence in the presence of employers, but lapsing into idleness, carelessness or mischief when they disappear. In the long run boys that always do right will do well. The hearts of their employers can safely trust in them. If for no higher reason than their own interests they will advance them from one position to another of responsibility and emolument.

But other reasons will prevail. Personal attachments will be formed. Men of business are commonly men of heart. They have sons of their own and cannot help admiring the excellencies of other people's sons. It is not uncommon to hear them boast of the virtues of boys employed by them. Some time ago I was in an office and within a few moments two gentlemen of the firm called my attention to a lad who was moving quietly about, absorbed in the duties of his calling. They spoke with great interest of his fidelity and efficiency in relation to them; of his great self-denial in order to minister to the comfort of his family; and of his brilliant prospects.

There is a proverb as true as when written, "A wise servant shall have rule over a son that causeth shame, and shall have part of the inheritance among the brethren." There is another which is not infrequently verified, and suggests a very pleasant way in which boys grown to manhood sometimes share in the "inheritance among the brethren;" it is this: "He that delicately bringeth up his servant from a child shall have him become his son at length."

Again, boys must give their best thought and energies in business hours to the interests of their employers. Nor should they forget or in any way endanger those interests out of business hours. They are in and of the concern. They represent it. Its reputation attaches to them and theirs to it. It may be amusing, but it is pleasant, and suggestive of a bright future, to hear a boy just beginning his business life speaking loftily of "our house." He belongs to its personnel. His life mingles with its life. It is for his interest to give much thought, at all proper times, to the duties of his station. If, by extra labor adding to his qualifications for business, he can become more useful than he was expected or is required to be, he may cut off weary months and even years that must otherwise lie between him and higher service and better pay. I knew a boy who in this way passed over the heads of several older than himself, and in early manhood fairly won a position which others never reached. As a rule, I think boys may count on being promoted when they have outgrown the places which they wish to leave. If they can sweep stores and set things in order better than others, and run of errands with swifter feet, and acquaint themselves with streets and places of business quicker than others, they will not have to do these things for a long time. Higher service awaits them, and they will find that the habits of thoroughness and dispatch already formed are worth more and more as they advance to higher and more responsible positions.

In all things right, boys must sink their wills in the wills of their employers. This is not to become slaves. Children have safest and sweetest liberty in obeying their parents; scholars their teachers; soldiers their commanders. In the shop, the office, the store, there must be authority on the one hand and obedience on the other. Boys should rejoice that above them there are men who, once boys like themselves, are now wise enough and kind enough to assign them their duties and to guide them in the way to success, and firm enough to require obedience to their directions. Prompt and cheerful obedience will not fail, in ordinary circumstances, to attract the attention and secure the approbation of employers. Wise boys will watch for opportunities to make themselves useful, gladly doing what has not occurred to anyone else and yet everyone will be glad to have done; and if they can do all to please Him who seeth in secret and rewardeth openly, rather than for any lower motive, they are to be congratulated as having made a right start not only for this life but for that which is to come.

"It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth." A great but very sad prophet wrote these familiar words long ago, but they have lost none of their truth. If a thousand boys, already in business or about to begin their business lives, were reading the words I write, I would put all possible emphasis in what follows: do not fear any amount of work, or any kind, lying fairly within your power. I have been an office-boy, doing many things, besides writing, that were not easy or pleasant. I know that many things needing to be done may be left undone without incurring blame. But he that does them wins the approval of his own conscience and the favor of men. If one does unpleasant things cheerfully they lose half of their unpleasantness, and will not have to be done many times.

It is mean to shirk, and it never pays. The ease it brings for the moment is punished by long drudgery, and he that habitually shirks may look back at the end of a miserable life with unavailing regrets upon the weakness and neglect of his early years. Even a horse that will not draw his part of a reasonable load is despised and whipped.

Blessings on the good boys that have pluck and purpose to succeed; and may all that are otherwise become like them, as doubtless many of them mean to do. "You will be proud of us one of these days," was the assurance of a bright but mischievous boy to an anxious teacher pleading with him and his companions to mend their ways. A boy of this kind who gave me great solicitude a few years ago, as I was his pastor and the teacher of his Sunday-school class, came suddenly under the power of the truth. Deeply convicted of sin, and coming to Christ on his invitation, he was soon rejoicing in the hope of pardon and eternal life. He is now the efficient superintendent of a Sunday-school and bears a most important office in the church of which he is a beloved member.

"I have a noble boy," said a deck-hand on a ferryboat as I fell into conversation with him. Then he gave me his history. From his school days to full manhood his career was honorable and his life in and out of his church relations very useful. To the father he was still his "boy" and his pride.

Boys, you are all old enough to know that somewhere you will live forever. The characters you form here will go with you into the world and the life to come. If they are right here, and now, they will be right forever and grow better and better. If they are wrong here, and continue so till God calls you away, early or late, they will be wrong always and wax worse and worse. Boys do not all live to become old men--or even young men. There is just one way of starting right and being in the right way until God calls you to a better world. Listen to the sweet words that you have often heard: "I love them that love me, and those that seek me early shall find me." Determine to be boy Christians. Believe that Jesus Christ, the only Saviour, loves you. He is able and willing to save you from the sins of your youth. If you hear and obey his loving call he will guide and guard you safely until you are forever with him and like him. Believe that you need him every hour and moment. Trust him to do what he promises. Keep company with those who delight in his service. Fear God and keep his commandments. "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy." Cling to your Sunday-school and church. Confess Jesus Christ before men, and he will confess you before his Father and the angels. If irreligious boys make fun of you, because they think you have given up all the pleasures of boy-life, let them know that the peace which God gives you is far better than all their forbidden pleasures, and do what you can to win them from their evil ways to a true and blessed life.

In any case, boys, be sure that the favor of God, which is life, and his lovingkindness, which is better than life, will fit you for the truest and best success in business. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will direct your steps: God will be your patron and friend.

The line between boys and young men is invisible. Those who pass it cannot tell where it lies. But the time comes when they no longer admit to themselves or others that they are boys. They bear about the pleasant consciousness that they are nearer the heart of a business life than they were a while before. They may be apprentices, collectors, entry clerks, shipping clerks, bookkeepers, salesmen behind the counter, or on the road, but they are no longer boys and they are not yet partners. A numerous class, they will become largely the business men of the next generation. Even now they represent immense personal, domestic and public interests. Who can think of them without emotion! It does not require a broad sweep of observation and recollection to bring into view from the two extremes young men who have utterly failed and others who have won honorable success; those who have sealed their own doom and dragged others down with them to an abyss of shame and misery, and those who have become princes in the earth.

It is worth asking at the outset what meaning we ought to attach to the words "success" and "failure" in business.

We do not account him successful who gains large wealth, leaving it to his family and even to public institutions of great usefulness, but who does it at the cost of personal integrity, character and reputation. We do not need examples of men who have grown rich by doubtful methods of business, by perversion of office and trust funds, and who have already sunk or are now sinking into depths of infamy and woe opened by their own hands.

Nor is he successful who gains wealth honestly, and hoards it--against all the claims of humanity and the revealed will of God--until his riches are corrupted, his gold and silver cankered, the rust of them even now, before the last day, eating his flesh as it were fire.

Men utterly fail, though possessed of millions, who make shipwreck of character in the sight of their Maker and their fellow-men.

It may be well to state here some of the well-ascertained facts in regard to the percentage of success and failure in business, using the words in their most limited meaning.

Only from three to five in every hundred men who embark in business have large and permanent success. And these are not chiefly those who begin with large capital. For the most part they are men who have been architects of their own fortunes. Beginning as boys on low wages, and passing through all grades of advancement from the lowest to the highest, they have at last become strong enough to make their own terms with those who have gladly recognized their ability and integrity as the equivalent of large capital; or without such aid they have worked their way to splendid success.

About ten out of a hundred have moderate success. Without aspiring to the rank of millionaires they have an abundance for personal and family use, and are able to share freely, if so inclined, in the beneficence of their times.

The remaining eighty-five in a hundred are on a sliding scale from partial success to utter failure. Leaving out of view all the cases in which men of integrity and ability fail by reason of unavoidable calamity, or lack of opportunity, how shall we account for the large percentage of failures? And as the percentage continues from year to year, and perhaps increases from generation to generation, it seems clear that the reasons are permanent and powerful.

It certainly throws a deep shadow over households and communities to think that young men have before them such gloomy prospects. Can we not brighten them? Must every hundred young men, full of the strength and enterprise belonging to their age, advance toward the goal of their ambition under the depressing thought that only from five to twenty are likely to win prizes? At best the cares and responsibilities and risks of business men are very great. But I do not believe that circumstances external to themselves control the business destiny of young men. They may avoid disastrous failure and win success. At least a very large percentage of them may win the wholesome success which consists in having neither poverty nor riches; for this after all may be welcomed as the safest and best condition. But they may also be prepared by excellence of character, and by habits of business and of life, for the possession and use of large wealth, under the great responsibility of stewards who are yet to give account to the real Proprietor of all the treasures in the world.

It should be remembered that young men may succeed as clerks and utterly fail as the responsible heads of business concerns. For this reason the conditions of success, of which I am about to write, have reference largely to times beyond the years of apprenticeship and subordination.

Young men may enjoy the confidence of their employers while they are disqualifying themselves for independent action. Devotion to their interests may secure rapid advancement in positions and salaries. They may be extravagant and immoral, and yet have qualities that cover their faults and commend them to favor. While they remain under the direction and control of men better and stronger than themselves they may be congratulated as already successful, while they are bearing about in their own persons all the conditions of sure and disastrous failure.

The first and fundamental condition of real and permanent success is good character. This may be set down without qualification. Character is an engraving. A good character answers to a divine ideal or pattern. It is not made in a day, and if marred it can be restored. Bearing the deep cuts and finer lines of truth and righteousness and pureness, it will bear the violence of temptation in private, social, and business life, and the severer testing of the last day.

Of course such a character is secretly and openly religious. Only when young men consent to commit the keeping of their souls and bodies to Jesus Christ, and to bear any cross that in his love and faithfulness he may lay upon them, can they be strong in the Lord and the power of his might.

How suggestive the words of the disciple whom Jesus loved with a peculiar personal affection: "I have written unto you, young men, because ye are strong, and the word of God abideth in you, and ye have overcome the wicked one. Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world."

I hope no young man searching for the conditions of success in his business life, if he reads these pages, will make light of this, which is first and most important of all. That cannot be called success which secures more than heart can wish for the life that now is, and not the life to come. "Look well to thy goings," was the earnest counsel of one who knew well the dangers of the young man. "Look well to thy goings; it is a narrow path. Look well to thy goings; it is a new path. Look well to thy goings; it is a slippery path. Look well to thy goings; it is an eventful path."

In a long life I have seen many young men begin a business career with great advantages and brilliant prospects, but their light went out in darkness because they did not cleanse their ways by taking heed thereto according to God's word.

But I have also seen and now have in full view young men who early sought refuge from their sins, and from all the perils of life, by coming frankly to Jesus Christ in their conscious need. Invited to his presence, and assured of his love and help, they took him at his word and found rest to their souls. There is no harmless lawful pleasure that is denied them. The peace of God is in their hearts. The service to which they are called brings its own reward. The joy of the Lord is their strength. They confess Christ as their Saviour and look forward to the momentous time when he will fulfil his word and openly confess them. They keep company with those who bear the Christian name, and give the full vigor of their young manhood to well-doing in their daily business and in all the relations of life.

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