The Young Man and the World | Page 6

fresh and true."
We have come to that state of enlightenment where the people want to
know not only that they are getting the best goods or best service, but
that the business which supplies either is run all right. Who can doubt
that in the universal mind there is a question as to the moral element in

American business?
This is nothing but the composite conscience of the American people
demanding that American business shall not only be conducted ably,
but also that it shall be conducted honestly. It is a force which you must
take into account. It will be a glorious asset for you if you will pay
enough attention to it to understand it.
But you must mingle with the people yourself in order to comprehend
this source of power. Do not sit alone in your room and read about the
people; that is no way to learn about them.
Remember that no workable constitution was ever written exclusively
by scholars. Recall the ordinance for the government of Carolina
devised by the philosopher Locke. It failed; yet it reads well. Time and
again theorists with highest purpose and broadest book wisdom have
formulated laws for the good of mankind which would not work.
Most statutes that live and operate have had their origins among men of
the soil as well as men of the study. The point I am making is that
learning and accomplishments will do no good if you do not connect
them with the people.
Is not this why so many reformers retire disappointed--men and women
of finest excellencies of purpose and practical and fruitful thought--they
have insisted in projecting their reforms from office or parlor upon the
masses without knowing those masses? It is as impossible for the
wisest man to be a statesman by confining himself to his study and his
weighty volumes and his careful abstract thinking, as it is to be a
chemist by reading about chemistry.
The laboratory, the test-tube, the actual contact with the real materials
and forces in nature, are essential to the scientist of matter. This is
much more true of the art of government. No man ever lived so wise
that association with the millions would not enrich his wisdom mightily.
And thus, page after page, we might go on pointing out the value of
contact with the people, whom, after all, it ought to be your highest
purpose to serve in some way.

For in all your doings never forget that, build you ever so cunningly,
young man, you have builded in vain if the work of your hands has not
helped humanity. Every occupation, trade, business, employment has
its reason in service of the people.
Grocery man, harness-maker, carpenter; doctor, lawyer, or railway man;
farmer, miner, or journalist; actor on the stage, teacher in the
school-room, preacher in the pulpit--all your effort is for the service of
the people, the ministering to their needs, the enlightenment of their
minds, the uplifting of their souls. And I insist, therefore, that you shall
know with the knowledge of kinship this humanity with whom you are
to work and for whom you are to work.
Spend some time with Nature, too. The people and Nature--they alone
contain the elemental forces. They alone are unartificial, unexhausted.
You will be surprised at the strength you will get from a day in the
woods. I do not mean physical strength alone, but mental vigor and
spiritual insight.
The old fable of Antæus is so true that it is almost literally true. Every
time he touched the earth when thrown, that common mother of us all
gave him new strength; and, rising, he came to the combat as fresh as
when he began.
Learn to know the trees; make friends with them. I know that this
counsel will appear far-fetched if you have never cultivated the
companionship of the woods. But try it, and keep on trying it, and you
will find that there is such a thing as making friends with the trees.
They will come to have a sort of personality for you.
No doubt this is all in your mind. No matter, it is good for you. It
makes you more natural; that means that you are more simple, kindly,
and truthful. What is more soothing and restorative than to stand quite
still in field or forest and listen to the thousand mingled sounds that
make up that wondrous melody which Nature is always playing on the
numberless strings of her golden harp. Learn the peace which that
music brings to you.

In short, cultivate Nature, get close to Nature. Try to get Nature to give
you what she has for you as earnestly as you try to get what you want
in business; and your days and nights