The Young Man and the World | Page 5

and
make a speech."
"And why," said Bismarck; "why do they want me to speak; why are
they applauding me?"
"Because of your great success in these negotiations," said the
secretary.
"Humph!" said Bismarck, "suppose I had failed?" and turned back to
his smoking and his beer.
Bismarck, you see, was too great for applause.
I have quoted the Bible so frequently that it suggests remarks upon one
of the great influences of life--the influence of books. Like every other
power, this should be exercised with judgment. Let us indulge no
immoderate expectations of the results of mere reading. Reading is, at
best, only second-hand information and inspiration. It is not the number
of books a man has read that makes him available in the world of

business.
What the world wants is power; how to get that is the question.
Books are one source of power; but, necessarily, books are artificial.
That is why we cannot dispense with teachers in our schools, professors
in our colleges, preachers in our pulpits, orators on the political
platform. There is no real way of teaching but by word of mouth. There
is no real instruction but experience.
You see that the German universities have come back to the lecture
method exclusively--or did they ever depart from it? And they know
what they are about, those profound old German scholars. They have
created scientific scholarship. They have made what we once thought
history absurd, and have rewritten the story of the world.
But all this is obiter dicta. The point is that they know the value of
books as a source of power and learning, and they know their
limitations, too. So does the public. Public speaking will never decline.
It is Nature's method of instruction. You will listen with profit to a
speech which you cannot drive your mind to read.
It would seem, therefore, that the largest wisdom dictates conservatism
in mere reading. Read, of course, and deeply, widely, thoroughly. But
let Discrimination select your books. Choose these intellectual
companions as carefully as you pick your personal comrades. Read
only "tonic books," as Goethe calls them. Yes, read, and
abundantly--but don't stop there. Don't imagine that books, of
themselves, will make you wise. Reading, alone, will not render you
effective.
Mingle with the people--I mean the common people. Talk with them.
Do not talk to them but talk with them, and get them to talk with you.
Who that has had the experience would exchange the wit and wisdom
of the "hands" at the "threshings," during the half hour of rest after
eating, for the studied smartness of the salon or even the conversation
of the learned? But think not to get this by going out to them and
saying, "Talk up now." The farm-hand, the railroad laborer, the

working man of every kind, does not wear his heart on his sleeve.
Mark the idioms in Shakespeare. He spoke the words and uttered the
thoughts of hostlers as well as of kings. Observe the common language
in the Bible. It is curious to note the number of the pithy expressions
daily appearing among us which are repetitions of what the people were
saying in the time of Isaiah.
All who love Robert Burns have their affection for him rooted in the
human quality of him; and Burns's oneness with the rest of us is
revealed by the earthiness of his words. They smell of home. They have
the fragrance of trees and soil. We know that they were not coined by
Burns the genius, but repeated from the mouths of plain men and
women by Burns the reporter. It is so with all literature that lives.
Mingle with the people, therefore; be one of them. Who are you that
you should not be one of them? Who is any one that he should not be
one of the people? Their common thought is necessarily higher and
better than the thought of any man. This is mathematical.
And the people, too, are young, eternally young. They are the source of
all power, not politically speaking now, but ethnically, even
commercially, speaking. The successful manager of any business will
tell you that he takes as careful an inventory of public opinion as he
does of the material items of his merchandise. A capable merchant told
me that he makes it a point to mingle with the crowds.
"Not," said he, "to hear what they have to say, for you catch only a
scrap or a sentence here and there; but to go up against them. Somehow
or other you get their drift that way. Anyhow I am conscious that this
helps me to understand what the people need and want. There is such a
thing as commercial instinct; and contact with the people keeps this