HU Ged Mie nas ms aS ~~ aks te tow = ~~ -~ aoe ns can, = = = Seam ion ~~ os ie = -~ = _ “in = a ~ = se 7 eRPERILOPCAStRSELSE PUTER PE LCi SOHC yh FLEAPERST AUT Re Ebse brn sc er cee 4} SEDER PERS ESAESET ESSE ETE SEE Te ey bly a nana. fy ey, a : ys] VF th 8] atl Bans spas , (ee ty Rear i ine ee 1 nae * ; - ¢ : MK a a 9 4 aT us © a et hed _ horn ae if -. The Abingdon Religious Education Texts David G. Mowney, General Cditor WEEK-DAY SCHOOL SERIES GEORGE HERBERT BETTS, Editor Out Into Lite A Handbook for Young Men Facing the Choice of a Vocation and the Adventure of Living By DOUGLAS HORTON THE ABINGDON PRESS NEW YORK CINCINNATI Copyright, 1924, by DOUGLAS HORTON All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign languages, including the Scaudinavian Printed in the United States of America TO BYRON HORTON AND ELIZABETH DOUGLAS HORTON MY FATHER AND MOTHER ; fet t, “a of et M ae DP eres J pea as “Lge mt tad, os rc =, 7 Wig PES Deere. CHAPTER 1b (DL. III. LIAN Ve VI. VIL. WEY: IX. 2. > Gb CONTENTS . EDUCATING THE HUMAN RACE..... PAGE RATAN OT SED ES Hk trier age hy Ree Ra A ad gas 7 FURR MURULYs GREATOLIE Es Maun ee oa 9 WYER NO UNSELEISH Mall Eira cena. 17 ARUATI TOLIBE: WORK epian ur ton 2 AGRICULTURE AND THE NEED FOR RIOD Soares iat y aespen ots athe Uae ec tap ics LOGGING, FORESTRY, MINING....... 43 MANUFACTURING, THE ROMANCE OF INUAKING SV EINGSN ryt carder gas 52 BUILDING THE WORLD WE LivE IN. 62 MAKING THE NATION A NEIGHBOR- HOOD—TRANSPORTATION.......... ny THE SERVICE PERFORMED BY Ma- CHINISTAAND ARTISAN Mics. . e 80 THE COMMERCIAL ‘TRADES — THE BUSINESS OF BUYING........... 89 THE COMMERCIAL ‘TRADES — THE BUSINESS TORT SELLING... Wipe 99 Pent EN ANDY MONEY} 40 hb a ee 108 . CLERICAL WorK: THE FOUNDATION REPO USINESS ie unstie tri o/c eee Tee MMIC TTL UMAN cOIDE ha ol nc une 126 . Tue ‘‘PROFESSIONS’’—RESEARCH AND BR Cabal cht cet cue aa NE oy! ota ae 134 . THE ENGINEER, MASTERER OF THE RORCES OF, NATURE.) Soa. 143 . MEDICINE IN THE SERVICE OF Hv- BEN NET Ve ea ents Oa ee Be 152 . SOCIAL WorRK: HELPING OTHERS TO PLETE? CABMSELVES SG Ses one o nok 160 CHAPTER XX. ». 0.4 F XXII. XXIII. XXIV. XXV. XXVI. XXVII. XXVIII. XXIX. XXX. XXXI. XXXII. CONTENTS PAGE JourNALISM: A UNIVERSAL In- FLUENCE aa ctan tery etree eens 177 THE LAWYER, SERVANT OF JUSTICE... 185 THEXMINISTRYVAT HOME foe eee 194 OTHER PHASES OF THE MINISTRY... 202 POINTS TO CONSIDER IN JUDGING A VOCATION. (iacs ose telat herman 211 PoINTS TO CONSIDER IN JUDGING YOURSELF wong hy cee ee 220 GETTING AND KEEPING A JOB...... 226 Your COMMUNITY OPPORTUNITY.... 235 THE: WORLD CITIZEN. hoe eee 244 HOME AND MARRIAGE............. 253 SAVING, DIME i) Cone yt, eee ae 261 SAVING MONEY, AND OTHER GooD HABITS 7... oe ecassavene each ae pene ast ae 269 THE ROOT OF THE WHOLE MATTER. 278 FOREWORD THis book lies on the borderland between the literature of vocational guidance and Christian ethics. It is designed to meet the needs of young men at the time they are forming their practical philosophy of life. What they decide to-day the world will largely accept as authority to-morrow. These young men hold the key to the Christianiza- tion of the social order. Because the issues are so immense I would the book were more perfectly executed. It is, in the nature of the case, only an outline, but I hope that the essential facts here presented in the light of Christian idealism will make it a useful introduction to life and life-work. I take this opportunity of thanking those who have generously reviewed certain chapters for me: Frank K. Hallock, M.D.; the Hon. E. Kent Hub- bard, President, and Mr. C. L. Eyenson, Mr. H. J. Smith, Mr. W. M. Dower, and Miss A. B. Sands, of the Manufacturers’ Association of Connecticut; Alfred E. Mudge, Esq.; and William North Rice, LL.D. CHAPTER I THE TRULY GREAT LIFE THE hero of this book is yourself. The adven- turous figure which casts its shadow on every page is your own. Had it not been for you, the book would never have been dreamed of: it is written concerning you and for you. You may make it the most important and interesting one you ever read. Life calling to youth.—The scene in which the hero moves is life itself. The book is a kind of drama which you might entitle ‘““Myself and Life.” Elsewhere you have studied sections of life—its literature, its science, or its other branches—but now you look at life as a whole. You ask yourself the colossal question which marks your entrance into manhood: ‘‘How can I live a really great life?” This life toward which you look—what an amaz- ing, splendid sight it is! Its thousand motions, lights, and colors fascinate the dullest eye. It is full of loves and hates and prides, of crime, guilt, and cunning, of arresting heroism, loveliness, fine sanity—of all the virtues and all the vices. Now and again are found broken spirits and bowed heads, but there are also upturned faces, out- stretched arms, and exultant voices. At first glance life seems to be mere chaos, but as one studies it, there presently emerges a kind of order. It is like one of the Italian plays in which no cur- tain is used: the confusion of scenery, furniture, 9 OUT INTO LIFE and properties between the acts staggers the eye, but while the audience watches, the disorder grad- ually assumes the semblance of a scene. Three possible attitudes toward life.—All men can be classified as having one of three attitudes toward life. These correspond to the three general stages in the development of man. God has been educating our race. In the early days the struggle for mere physical existence was the chief concern of men and animals alike. The law of the jungle in which they lived was: Livel—kill if you will, but live you must! There was something heroic about these first men, who lived according to the light they had. Given over to fearful crime and passion, plunged in the blackest ignorance, preyed upon by hideous and gro- tesque delusions, yet steadfastly serving the profoundest of ideals in their fixed faith that existence in any form is better than nonexistence, they rescued triumphantly from the jaws of ever imminent destruction the torch of life which, thanks to them, now lights the world for us. So William James describes them. But with all their heroism, their conduct did not much differ from that of the beasts among which they lived. They killed and ate like the wolf-dogs they had not yet tamed; they fled for safety from their enemies to the nearest cave; and made their prey of anything they were strong enough to kill. It was a mortal combat in which the weak received no quarter. With the coming of language and imagination, whereby one man could understand the inner life of another, the race rose to a fuller kind of life. There was just as much struggle in it, but there 10 THEVTRULY GREAT LCIPE was more of justice in the struggle. The law now became ‘‘Live!—and let live!’ It was still every man for himself, but now it was deemed wrong for men to prey upon each other. Each man with- out exception, or with very few exceptions, was to have the right to live. Aristotle, one of the greatest thinkers of this ancient world, described an ideal man as one who pursued his own interests and allowed others to pursue theirs. He is great-minded who values himself highly, and at the same time justly. The great-minded man has honor for his object: honor is what he considers himself specially worthy of. It would not be in the character of the great- minded to injure anyone. He will live independent of all other men save his close friends. He does not bear malice nor does he talk of other men at all. This is a high ideal, to be sure, but is there not lacking a certain brotherliness, such as was found in the Man who ‘‘went about doing good’? Is there not something in life more valuable than personal honor? With the spread of the Christian gospel life reached a height which early man had never dreamed of and which the world before Christ’s coming only feebly and uncertainly touched. The key- word, “Live!” was still retained, and so was the struggle it represented, but living now began to mean something more even than ‘“‘live and let live.’ Edwin Markham has caught the idea: *“*Tive and let live!’ was the call of the Old, The call of the world when the world was cold, The call of men when they pulled apart, The call of the race with a chill on the heart. IT OUT INTOVETRE “But ‘Live and help live!’ is the cry of the New, The cry of the world with the Dream shining through, The cry of the Brother-world rising to birth, The cry of the Christ for a Comrade-like Earth.” “T am come,’ said Christ, ‘‘that they might have life, and that they might have it more abun- dantly.”” He came to help men live; and he himself lived life to the full because he was taken up not only with his own experiences, but with the joys and sorrows of everyone he knew. Many men are still living on the live-and-kill- if-you-will level; others have reached the idea of living and letting live; and one of the first ques- tions for which life will demand an answer from you is whether you have strength, brains, and sym- pathy enough to live the lofty life of helpfulness of a completely grown man. You have the oppor- tunity of living like an animal, like a self-centered pagan, or like a Christian: you may be hostile, indifferent, or brotherly toward others; and which- ever attitude toward life you choose, you will find ample companionship. The challenge to success.—In one respect you will find life the same everywhere. There is always a chance for success in it. Every day brings its opportunity for achievement. Of course if there is in life a chance for success, there must also be a chance for failure. To men who forge ahead it never ceases to be a brilliant adventure. Robert Browning exclaimed: ‘How good is man’s life, the mere living! how fit to employ All the heart and the soul and the senses forever in joy!”’ 12 THE TRULY:GREAT LIFE Yet there are those who have somehow failed to discover its secret. Robert Burns, on a blue Monday, wrote: “O life! thou art a galling load, Along a rough, a weary road, To wretches such as I!’ You may depend upon it that you will be sing- ing either the tune of Burns or of Browning forty years hence. There is something fearful about the possibility of losing in the game of life: it makes one shudder to think of himself as a broken, sad old man. A healthy youth, therefore, remembering that there could be no victory unless there were also a chance for defeat, accepts life as a challenge to do his best, and submerges every fear of failure in—what? When you have finished studying this book you will be better able to answer. Success is too thrilling to describe. It is the tide of fire that rushes tumultuous through your mind when you know you have done a thing well; it is the felt immensity of the power that God has implanted in you. Success—who would not strive for it? Three kinds of success.—And yet, is every success equally desirable? If there are three grades of human ideals, it stands to reason there must be three kinds of success. The success of the man who preys upon his generation must always be accompanied by the hate that his fellows bear toward him. He has chosen the way of the jungle and he must pay its price. The first Napoleon made himself monarch of Europe. He was a success, doubtless, and many 13 OUT INTO LIFE people envied him. But he was the general who called men ‘‘cannon-fodder.’’ H. G. Wells says of him: He had a vast contempt for man in general and man in particular. There is no proof that this unbrotherly, un- humorous egotist was ever sincerely loved by any human being. He had no familiar friend. No one who knew him felt safe with him. He died a lonely man in exile, and Europe sighed in relief. Is the success of those others who, in self-con- tentment, seek only to live and let live, really enjoyable? A man shot himself recently in a great city, as many men do daily. He was a club- man who lived in easy luxury. He had servants to wait upon him. He was a genial fellow, but he never made himself responsible for any one save himself. He sowed indifference, and it was indii- ference which he reaped. He had no real friends who cared. Finally he concluded, probably with truth, that his life was not worth the living. The good-Samaritan type of man never, as long as he lives, lacks the joyous consciousness that his life is supremely worth while, for his is the subtle and wonderful delight of having friends. James Whitcomb Riley understood the secret. To one of his many friends he wrote: . . . You cheer me, My old friend, For to know you and be near you, My old friend, 1 Outline of History. The Macmillan Company, publishers. Used by permission. 14 THE TRULY GREAT LIFE Makes my hopes of clearer light And my faith of surer sight And my soul of purer white, My old friend.’’! For Discussion 1. Is the world really any better to-day than it was cen- turies ago—in the time of Jesus, for instance? 2. Does every man, even the most Christian, show him- self in a pinch, as, for instance, in the excitement of battle, to be really a savage underneath? 3. Suppose Jesus had planned his life on the live-and-let- live principle. Would he have gone about teach- ing? Might he have been a carpenter? the best kind of carpenter? Would he have been crucified? 4. We speak of “making friends,” but can one really cause people to be friendly to him? Is not friend- ship like popularity in that it comes to those who seek it least? 5. Of the three principles, live-and-kill, live-and-let-live, live-and-help-live, which one are the nations living by? and America? 6. Which do ordinary business men have to live by? For FurtTHER STUDY 7. Study the story Jesus told as you find it in Matthew 18. 23-35. Is it a principle of life that we can expect from God only the kind of treatment that we give our fellow men? 8. The text reads: ‘‘A healthy youth . . . submerges every fear of failure in—what?’ How would you answer the question now? 1 From the Biographical Edition of the complete works of James Whitcomb Riley, copyright 1913. Used by special permission of the publishers, The Bobbs-Merrill Company. 15 OUT INTO LIFE 9. Read a brief life of some successful man and point out what made him a success. 10. Briefly but honestly, how do you yourself hope to achieve success? For REFERENCE H. E. Luccock, The Haunted House, Chapter I. G. S. Lee, Crowds, Book II, Chapters II, XIII. 16 CHAPTER II WHY AN UNSELFISH LIFE You have been taught the duty of living a strong, unselfish life since earliest boyhood. But if you have the stuff of manhood in you, you are no longer willing to believe a thing simply because you have been taught to believe it. It is no longer a case of ‘‘this is so because Aunt Matilda says it’s so!” Your elders have always insisted that living and helping live is the best rule of conduct; but maybe they were wrong! Nietzsche said, “Every man for himself” was a better rule. Maybe he was right! How will you know? There is only one way. It is clear that you must think the matter out for yourself. Look at the world you live in squarely: see what it is; draw your own conclusions. The world is opportunity.—One thing is certain: the world (and by this we mean the universe, everything in life taken as a whole, the sum of all things) is presented to us as opportunity. It lies before us almost limitless—to do with as we will. It is not something we have earned, but comes to us as a free gift. We are no more deserv- ing of praise for having it here than for causing the sun to shine. The whole warm health-giving earth, the long stirring history of the past, with its book lore and practical wisdom, the whole army of heroes, eager to show us the way of success —they owe nothing to us, and yet they are all 17 OUT INTO LIFE at our service. We are the heirs of all the centuries. What is this “‘world” which provides us oppor- tunity? Where did it come from? What is its purpose? What lies behind it all? If you received an anonymous Christmas gift of several thousand dollars, you would immediately and properly leap to the conclusion that some rich person was inter- ested in you. No poor person, much as he might have wished to, could have given you such an amount. The world is, as it were, an anonymous gift, or, rather, a number of anonymous gifts. The best way to find out where it came from and what lies behind it is to examine it, a giver being known by his gift. At the heart of the world there is Power.— Look, for instance, at the sky on a cloudless night. Many of those stars, some of which have a circum- ference greater than the orbit of the earth, are racing through space at a rate of more than a score of miles a second. What energy! Everywhere, indeed, in earthquakes, storms, or less sudden manifestations, the world exhibits tremendous forces. Are we not bound to avow that the giver of such gifts must possess power? ‘The cause must have in it as much energy as the effect. In the source of the world there must be Power. At the heart of the world there is Intelligence. —But the world is more than the forces of nature. The men in it are part of it. When we remember the great thinkers of the past, such as, for example, Isaiah, Aristotle, Galileo, Newton, a moment’s reflection makes it clear that the world cannot have been given us by a mere mechanical force. Such a blind power could perhaps produce a vol- 18 WHY AN UNSELFISH LIFE canic eruption, but it cannot have created Aristotle. No stream flows higher than its source: no creation can be more intelligent or in any way rise higher than its creator. You cannot conceive a thinking man made by a force which is not itself capable of thinking. In the source of the world there must be Intelligence as well as Power. At the heart of the world there is Love.—And another of the world’s anonymous gifts is Jesus Christ. I cannot watch him going about doing good and finally choosing to go to his death rather than be untrue to his friends, without saying to myself: “It is certain that the One who gave us Jesus Christ must be like him—filled with good will.” In him we cannot have gathered a grape of a thorn, nor a fig of a thistle. The world itself must have a heart like Christ’s, to have been capable of producing him. In the source of the world there must be not only Power and Intelligence, but Love as well. The force which lies behind the world, since it possesses power, intelligence, and love, is not a thing but a Person. Not being neuter in gender, it is properly spoken of not as “it”? but as “‘he.” He is God. God is in the world as you are in your body. He is the loving, intelligent power who controls it. ‘‘Every good gift and every per- fect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father.” So the situation is something like this: it is a loving God who has intrusted a life to you and me—the very one we now hold, for success or failure, and the only one we ever shall hold. We did nothing to win or deserve it, but it is ours. 19 OUT INTO (RIB Life is an affair of honor.—Can any real man escape the feeling that, since he has received so much from God, he is on his honor to make the best return he can? Doctor Kelman quotes a quaint bit of modern autobiography. A British traveler on a walking trip through France, “waking in his grassy bed in the open air, felt how hos- pitably he had been treated in the great hostelry of Nature, and left certain coins on the wayside in payment, feeling that he was in debt to some- body for such entertainment.’ This was an idle vagabond’s fancy, but a like sense of gratitude for the world he lives in is the feeling of every heroic person. There are doubtless, however, better ways of showing one’s gratitude to God than by leaving him a tip. When the country is in danger you will rise to defend it. It is a simple affair of honor. The country has given you security, education, pleasant © neighborhoods. Whatever you possess of true greatness will compel you to feel a debt to it. You will attempt to repay that debt by doing what it wants you to do. In precisely the same manner a man attempts to repay his debt to God—by doing what he wants him to do. There are men who admit their obliga- tion to the past, but refuse to act so as to benefit the future. ‘“‘What has the future done for me?” they ask. They forget that their debt is not to the future as such, but to God, and that it is only through the future that they can repay him for all the opportunities he has stored up for them during the past. Strip the problem of life of all its trimmings and you can state it simply: God 20 WHY AN UNSELFISH LIFE has done much for us—what are we going to do for him? What does he want us to do with our oppor- tunities? How can we best show our gratitude? By living selfishly, without regard to the rest of his children—or by living and helping live? It is a plain question. Your life will show whether you are a cheap ingrate or not. Thinking straight.——Now, then, does all this appeal to you as true? If it does, well and good. If it does not, what is your own thought about life? The essential thing is that you, and every other one of us, should work out our own beliefs; and we may rest assured that if those beliefs do not correspond with facts—if, for instance, we do not think God exists when he really does, or if we think we owe him no gratitude—we are en route for failure and unhappiness. You will not sail far with an improperly adjusted compass. Get the facts of life and think them through to what they imply. | To-day’s the day!—All that has been said of life as opportunity may be amplified a hundred- fold to-day. You face the most thrilling years the world has ever seen. The meek past can only congratulate you. If you would know how inter- esting a neighborhood the planet has become, glance at the headlines of the morning paper: “SAyS INTERNATIONAL DEBT IS Not UNDERSTOOD” We await the expert in finance who by sheer ability to think will rescue his nation and his gen- eration from burdens now becoming intolerable. 21 OUT INTO LIFE “FRANCE AND GERMANY MAy CLASH TO-DAY” Mutual suspicion and hatred still sway the policies of nations: if you were a senator, would you have the inward vision and strength, when the many-throated mob murmured against you, to hold your ground and stand for peace? No war of the past held the terrors the next war will unfold. “PLANS TO IMPROVE CITY OF JERUSALEM”’ That ancient stronghold of the Jebusites has been waiting thirty centuries for modern engineers. “RADIO NEWS” The telegraph was a miracle one hundred years ago: you may be the inventor who will make the radio seem old-fashioned. “INSANITY SHOWS DECREASE” Never before has the human race attacked with such vigor and success the diseases of body and mind. ““MoRE DISCUVERIES IN AZTECS’ HOMES” If you love research, discovery, study, you have more information and equipment at your disposal than Plato or Copernicus had. The world into which you are stepping is marvelous beyond the wild conceits of prophets: yours are summoning times! Why this preparation?—You fling the question to your advisers: ‘‘Well, then, if I am to find my place in life, to achieve, to become someone, to 22 WHY AN UNSELFISH LIFE pay back to God my debt of honor, to live and help live, why not begin? Why this delay? Why this pastime of schooling?” Doubtless some of your friends are already out doing the world’s work. They are independent of school restrictions, they have money of their own, they go where they like, not hounded by studies; they are, or seem to be, captains of their fate. But think. The young brave in a tribe of savages comes to his own much sooner than either you or your friends. He has learned all the arts of war and peace, has won the scars of his first battle, has done his courting and married his wife long before his twenty-first birth- day. The lower a man is in the scale of civilization, the less he has to learn and the shorter, consequently, is his period of education. If you desire to live like a savage, you may cease training your mind as early as he. Your friends do not look very far into the future if they regard as a headstart in the world what is really the handicap of inadequate training. The ill-prepared man is sure to be out- distanced, however early he may have started. To fulfill your debt of honor, to live a truly great and useful life, make thorough preparation! For Discussion 1. Should not a young man always obey his parents— even to the point of believing what they teach him to believe? 2. Which shows greater power—a great volcano or a great man? 3. Do not give a saintly answer to this one: Which does the world need more of—intelligent men or good men? 4. If God is good, why does he send earthquakes and 23 OUT INTO LIFE other disasters? Is it God who sends them? Will we have to wait until we know more than we do now to answer these questions? s. Does God, who is himself all-powerful, need your help in the world? xe 6. Has any man ever made good in life without prepara- tion? For FurTHER STUDY 7. Study the story Jesus told in Matthew 25. 14-30. Did the third servant get a square deal? What should we do with our opportunities? 8. Take six headlines in your morning’s paper and from them illustrate six needs of the world. g. Chesterton says, “A man is known by the philosophy he keeps.’”’ What does this mean? Why is it so immensely important that a young man should have a clear idea about God and the world? Do a man’s beliefs make any difference in his life? to. Write out briefly why you believe in God. For REFERENCE L. P. Jacks, Religious Perplexities, Chapters I, II. H. C. King, Greatness and Simplicity of the Christian Faith, Chapters II, XII. 24 CHAPTER III A CALL TO LIFE-WORK THERE are obviously three main strands in a man’s life: his vocational life, his life in his com- munity, and his home life. The importance of life-work.—How can I be truly great in my life-work? is a question which sooner or later each of us must ask himself. If the number of hours spent at anything is a test of its importance, work is more essential than sleeping, eating, and everything else save breathing. From one half to two*thirds of one’s whole waking life is devoted to business or profession. If you were a South Sea Islander you would not need to give many days to worrying about life- work, for the tasks of every man in a savage tribe are practically the same—hunting, fishing, fight- ing. The more civilized men become, the more they specialize. One group is delegated to do the hunting, another the fishing, another the fighting. Once every man was his own medicine-man, for there were only a few healing herbs and incanta- tions to be learned and distinguished; but it would be sheer waste of time to-day, with the years of preparation involved, for every man to be his own physician. By division of what was once common labor have arisen all the arts, sciences, professions, and businesses; and to-day, if a young man desires to be useful in the world, he picks out some occupation in which he may perfect him- self, and in that capacity he serves his generation. 25 OUT INTO LIFE It goes almost without saying that some men are better fitted for certain tasks than others. What a loss it would have been to the world if Raphael had gone into agriculture instead of art, or if Milton had become a ‘‘mute inglorious”’ vicar, or if J. J. Hill had been prevented from building railroads! You can doubtless pick out a number of men at work in your community who would really do better in other positions—a natural salesman who now runs a lathe, a person “apt te teach”? now occupying a clerk’s stool, or some one of unusual organizing ability plying the solitary trade of selling books. Each man to his own bent! Do you know that on the average a young man changes his job three times in two years? In many cases this means nothing but unwise choosing. As a matter of fact, men often do not attempt to exercise their choice at all, but, rather, hunt a job and take the first one offered. You would have your own opinion of a young man who took for his wife the first young lady he met on the street, regardless of her character, health, mental equip- ment, and appearance, and yet, when you take the long view of your whole life, selecting an occu- pation is almost as momentous as selecting a wife. Take the money return alone and the difference between a life-work properly chosen and a job blindly accepted may mean, when the annual wages are totaled, millions of dollars. You would deem it a staggering misfortune to lose such an amount of money after you had earned it: do not lose it now, by failing to choose wisely! Aside from the money question, an unwise choice crip- ples a man’s ability to live well and help live well. 26 A CALL TO LIFE-WORK Boys without books on the subject and without friends to advise them are sometimes forced to try out a number of positions before they discover the direction of their own talents: Abraham Lincoln was by turns a farmer, lumberman, rail-splitter, deck-hand, teacher, postmaster, army captain, store- keeper, surveyor, lawyer. But you are not a youth in the backwoods, and with friendly counselors, ample literature, and your own imagination, you may make your own choice more quickly and more certainly. The choice of a life-work is a matter of fitting together two complementary objects—a vocation and yourself. The first question is, What are the various channels of usefulness which life offers me? The second is, What are my own qualifications? Am I designed by my Creator to be a doctor, lawyer, merchant—or what? The first question calls for telescopic study, the second, for micro- scopic: to make an intelligent choice a young man must survey the whole range of vocations pre- paratory to selecting one of them, and must also nicely scrutinize his own capabilities. Are all occupations equally Christian?—But is a Christian young man to regard all the vocations as possibilities? Are not some of them less holy than others? Is manufacturing, for instance, as decent and noble a profession as the ministry? It was once thought—do you think so?—that the call to professions offered by the church is different from all others, and more divine, because it comes with an irresistible attraction, which never wholly abates. Dwight L. Moody said of such an experience in his own life, ‘‘There God kindled 27 OUT INTO LIFE a fire in my soul that has never gone out.’ The prophet Ezekiel described the terror and splendor of his summons to the ministry: I saw a vision of God. . . . I saw a huge cloud, a mass of fire, in a brilliant sky. . . . Above it was what ap- peared to be a sapphire throne. Seated on it was one who resembled a man. . . . There was a bright light around him, like arainbow. It was the Lord made visible in his glory. When I saw him I fell upon my face, and I heard a voice speaking to me. . . . And he said o me: Son of man, I send you! ... When such a call comes to a man, it is as if his destiny were once for all made clear to him. There are definite calls to secular occupations. —It is not to ministers, prophets, and mission- aries alone, however, that such visions have come. There are few ministers who have had a call of the intensity of William Wordsworth’s. He felt an indescribable necessity upon him. ‘‘An inward compulsion came to him as one night after a party he returned home through the land of whose beauty he became ‘priest to us all.’”’ God chose: him to be a poet of nature. Abraham Lincoln had an imperious summons to a quite different field of labor. When a young man he sees ten or a dozen slaves shackled together with irons. He writes later of that experience: “That night was a continual torment to me.” From then on slavery is to him “‘a thing which has and continually exercises the power of making me miserable.’’ Combating the slavery evil became his calling. God chose him to be a reformer. 28 A CALL TO LIFE-WORK In view of such examples, can one maintain that it is only to the “‘church” vocations that strikingly definite calls come? God needs men all along the line of the world’s work and calls them accordingly. The less definite calls.—But are all of God’s calls more or less sudden? What makes a sudden call seem so overpowering? Is it not simply the surge of emotion which it creates in a man? And are these two to be identi- fied—the call itself and the accompanying emotion? The man to whom a highly emotional summons comes is usually emotional about everything. He is likely, for instance, to be much more excited than another in the same position, when he feels himself falling in love, or when he watches a drama. There are men of the more sensitive, highly strung natures and there are men of the more phlegmatic type. Is it reasonable to suppose that when God calls them their feelings will be stirred with equal intensity? Stripped of the emotional elements, is not a call simply a realization that God has made you capable of doing a particular work—that there is a real way in which you can pay back your debt to him— that he has shown you a means by which you, you specifically, can live and help live? Some calls may come almost entirely free from emotional surgings. It is a matter of cold fact that many of the most useful ministers and mis- sionaries have been undramatically led into their work by the mild process of their own logical thought. One missionary put his ideas on paper as follows: 1. There is greater need abroad than at home 29 OUT INTO LIFE for college-trained men who can learn languages easily. 2. I am college-trained and I learn languages easily. 3. Therefore, God calls me to go to the foreign field. William Ellery Channing had great difficulty in his youth in deciding between medicine and the ministry; and, like many if not most of the preach- ers of to-day, he chose the latter profession as a result not of a peremptory vision but of sober inquiry as to where he would be most serviceable. Look thoroughly into the matter and you find that comparatively few calls are sudden and pas- sionate. They are usually gradual, cumulative, deepening into conviction. Your call is likely to be less like Ezekiel’s than like that of Samuel Chapman Armstrong. His biographer relates that at the end of the Civil War he found himself a young man with little to live on but his distinction as a soldier. He wanted a call somewhither, but no divine ecstasy seized him. His call came, how- ever, by the avenue of the common sense which God had given him for just such a purpose. He remembered that his boyhood in Hawaii in a mis- sionary home had given him a uniquely intimate acquaintance with one of the backward races; and during the war he had commanded a regiment of Negroes. Two ideas finally met in his mind: (1) the only future of the Negro race lay in education, and (2) he was singularly well fitted to take up such an enterprise. The result of this ‘‘call’? was the renowned Hampton Institute, which General Armstrong dedicated to God and to the liberation 30 A CALL TO LIFE-WORK from ignorance of a mighty people. He himself later confessed that he was “‘seemingly led.”’ “There is a fatal error in the attempt to stand- ardize the divine methods.” God will call you in the way that suits you best, more probably through your own observation and thought than by heavenly visions or voices. Carlyle’s words were spoken to you: ‘‘The latest Gospel in the world is, Know thy work and do it!’ The useful work which you can do well, you may depend upon it, is divinely your work. That for you is sacred, whether you are called to it with or without an emotional upheaval. If you will study your own abilities and the needs of the world, and so understand God when he does call, even if that call does not come suddenly, you will be amazed some day to discover that you also have been ‘‘seemingly led.” The only danger is that by refusing to meet God half way, you may miss his call and wreck his plans for your life. Keep your mind open to his leading! Remember that he is as likely to need you outside the church as inside, and that he is even more likely to call you through your own thought than by a sudden summons. While God’s part is to call, yours is to seek—to be willing to be called. Seek and you will find! For DIscussion 1. Which man is the better fitted for life—the one who knows something about everything or the one who knows everything about something? 2. If we divide human occupations into three classes, as having to do primarily with persons, things, or ideas, in which class would you put salesmanship? 3 Io. G. OUT INTO LIFE mining? railroading? journalism? education? the ministry ? . Is the post of office-boy as important as that of bank president? Is it as important in God’s sight? . Is a man ever called to an occupation he is not fitted for? . Mohammed was called to be a prophet and preach against the Christians. Was his a divine call? . Is a man ever called to an occupation he does not enjoy? What about Jesus and the cross? For FurRTHER STUDY . Read the account of the call of Isaiah in Isaiah 6. 1-8. Was this a nightmare or a real experience? Which is the most important verse in the passage? . Are sudden emotional ‘‘calls’”’ dangerous for a man mentally? Talk it over with your physician. . Read the life of some successful man and describe how his call came. What various methods of procedure are you pur- suing to make certain that, when God is ready to call you, you will hear him? For REFERENCE W. Fiske, Jesus’ Ideals of Living, Chapter X. CHAPTER IV AGRICULTURE AND THE NEED FOR FOOD You are touched with pity when a single beggar reaches out his hand for bread, but in America to-day there are one hundred and ten million people who ask for it daily. And they will starve unless someone responds to their appeal. The chief men whose work it is to keep this population fed are the company of fifteen million farm workers. A typical agricultural problem.—How would you enjoy working out such a problem as once con- fronted Ellwood Cooper? In 1891 he and other horticulturists in California were faced with the loss of millions of dollars from the depredations of the ‘“‘black scale’? upon their orchards. Mr. Cooper conceived the idea of asking the Legis- lature to appropriate a sum of money “for the purpose of sending an expert to Australia and other adjacent countries to collect parasitic and pre- daceous insects.”” Mr. Cooper then made his ranch a great experiment station in which many species of imported beetles of the type commonly called ladybirds, known enemies of the scale, were tried out. It soon became evident that two species were of particular importance, and these were finally distributed by the thousands to different parts of the State. By this experiment and others of the same nature, Mr. Cooper and his fellow experimenters saved California’s basic industry. General problems.—Every farm manager has 33 OUT INTO LIFE similar problems. He must know how to exter- minate all sorts of insect pests and bacterial blights, and weeds as well. Chemicals are his great allies, if he understands them, for, whereas in the old days he had to adjust his crops to the peculiarities of the soil, he can now modify his soil to suit the desired crops. This calls for infinite experimentation. A useful agriculturist to-day must be constantly alive to his market. He will lose out if he grows crops which are not needed. The man who keeps animals has fascinating problems all his own. He must know the various stock breeds and the biological laws of breeding —laws which his grandfather believed were for- ever to remain beyond the ken of man. He must know the chemical composition of the feeds, so that he can give the most advantageous amounts and proportions for each of the various purposes for which his animals are kept. He must know © the preventives for the more serious animal diseases. If he is interested in dairying, the farmer often becomes a butter and cheese maker, and then all the problems of the manufacturer are opened to him. Farsighted farmers are working to form coopera- tive dairying and general farming associations, such as have made Denmark prosperous. By combining they can establish better market facil- ities; they can meet regularly for mutual improve- ment, studying general and technical problems of every sort, from farm bookkeeping to current world history. It is here that the man consecrated to being useful to his fellow man has a big chance. 34 AGRICULTURE AND THE NEED FOR FOOD Farmers, like all professional men, have to learn how to plan their own time. There are no whistles or bells to mark the beginning of the day’s work or its close, and the year’s labor is so varied that it takes careful organization to eliminate con- gested days of excessive strain on the one hand, and on the other, periods of comparative idleness. Include his work of road-building and draining, and you perceive that the general farmer of to-day is something of a civil engineer, biologist, scientific experimenter, manufacturer, buyer and seller, book- keeper, mechanic, and chemist, not to say plain farmer also. Agriculture is in short a form of service in which a man can use all the brains he owns. Some of the benefits.—One young farmer, Ross M. Craig, says: What is the compensation? This is a question not readily answered to the satisfaction of the city man, who is largely governed in his sense of values by the dollar sign. First, I believe, comes the love of an out- door existence, and an inherent appreciation of God in nature. And there is another thing that appeals to all of us: for the farmer there is no limit to creative ability. Something to appreciate and something to create! —on a farm a man may find the two things needful for mental health. Farming also offers all the conditions requisite for physical health. One of the pleasant features of the occupation is its diversification. You must be at least as various as the seasons: there is “a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted.” 35 OUT UIN TOV: On the other hand, if you care to specialize, there are any number of departments which you may choose: orcharding, gardening, bee-keeping, poultry- raising—what you will. The work need never lack interest or variety. One of the appealing features of farming in this country is the opportunity it offers to a man of small means in reasonable time to acquire moderate financial independence. Now that the federal government makes long-time loans to deserving young men, the reserve of capital necessary to buy land and equipment and make improvements is available when it is most needed. Normally the man on the land betters his condition every year. There are special social advantages in an agri- cultural community. It is the ideal size and type for common enterprises. A delightful life may be built up around the church, the school, the grange, and even the cooperative store. Here, if your life is dedicated to helping others, you can make your power felt. Men who distinguish themselves in such community usefulness are soon called upon to assist in the greater work of the county and of the State. The old idea that because a man is a farmer he must needs have a backwoodsman’s mental equipment is simply untrue; with the net- work of steam and electric railroads, the rural postal facilities, and especially the automobile and telephone, the farmer may now be as well informed and as intimately connected with the rest of the world as any ordinary townsman. The greatest reward of life on a farm, aside from the satisfaction of knowing you are feeding and clothing the world, is perhaps the opportunity of 36 AGRICULTURE AND THE NEED FOR FOOD building a home. A farmer’s wife can share his work to a unique degree; and upon the foundation of this intimacy and understanding a _ happy Christian home may be established. Work in the open air makes strong sons and daughters and trains them in a hundred useful ways. The farm has not, it is true, produced the number of healthy children one would expect from such ideal surroundings; but this is obviously due, not to the environment, but to the present ignor- ance of child nurture on the part of parents— another opportunity for those who know to share with those who know not! One Christian family in which child training is understood can bring health and happiness to all the other families in the community. Would I fit on a farm?—One can to a certain degree try himself out at farming in boyhood before taking it up as a life-work. If you live in the country, you can help on your own farm or at a neighbor’s; if in the city, you can doubtless get someone to give you a small plot of ground for summer use. There you can find out whether you take pleasure in keeping weeds down! If you want to know something of how you like the care of animals, get a pet. If your high school has courses in agriculture, then you have another chance to judge whether you would do well as a farmer. Do you find yourself, as a young farmer naturally would, wanting to take to the fields and woodlands; or do you enjoy inside and city pastimes more? Pick up some of the agricultural magazines in the library or elsewhere and see if they have an appeal. No test is infallible, but if 37 OW TINT O Gir you try in every way you can think of to discover your native leanings, you will not go far astray. The preparation needed.—Training is essential. If you do not desire any better crops than your great-grandfather had, you require no more than his training; indeed, with modern competition and deteriorated soil, you cannot without training do even as well as he did. Like all other sciences, farming shows some new discovery or improve- ment every day—a new chemical for the soil or a new way of applying an old one, a new method of planting, cultivating, or harvesting, a new machine which saves time and money, a new system for cooperative buying or marketing—a continuous advance. If you are to do your best—and God asks no less—you must be trained in the new processes. If you have grown up on a farm, you have a practical education which is more than valuable, but technical courses in agricultural schools will wonderfully increase your success. The State agricultural colleges cannot to-day meet the demand for farm managers, herdsmen, orchardmen, and other experts. If you simply cannot go to a technical school, keep close to the other educational agents—books, the county bureau, the agricultural gatherings, and the rest. You can doubtless save up for one of the shorter summer or winter courses offered by the nearest agricultural school. Knowl- edge is power. And the more power at your com- mand, the better you can live and help live. The fisheries and hunting.—Two hundred and twelve thousand men in the United States work to provide us fish for food. For every three of these men who actually fish there is one man in 38 AGRICULTURE AND THE NEED FOR FOOD the industry ashore working in the canning factory or otherwise preparing the catch for market. There was probably a time in your own life, whether you lived on the seaboard, mountains, or plains, when you wanted to go to sea; but fishing is, in general, only for men who have been born or reared to it. It is a profession which offers adventure, and hardship, and a chance to develop endurance, courage, and strength. It is one way of living and helping live, but it is not a lands- man’s art. Hunting and trapping, ancient and useful arts as they are, in our civilization occupy the life of a comparatively small number of men. All the occupations which meet our need for food provide other necessities also: farming, for instance, gives us linen and cotton clothing; fish- ing gives us sponges and the other products of the ocean; hunting and trapping give us skins and furs. They are indeed, as they are often called, “basic occupations’; and certain it is that they give the men who enter them in a Christian spirit of service a basic satisfaction. For DIscussION 1. Whom would you rather employ on your farm—a young man just out of an agricultural school, or an older man with long experience in practical farming but without technical training? 2. Which of the farm specialties do you believe has the greatest future—stock raising, dairying, poultry- ing, truck gardening, or orcharding? 3. Do you think farming tends to make a man religious, or not? 39 TO. OUT INTO. LIFE . Can one fairly well estimate the usefulness of an occupation by the money it pays? . Which is more useful in a farming community—the church or the school? . Can a man by keeping a vegetable garden in summer test whether he would enjoy farming as a life- work? Why? For FURTHER STUDY . Look over the parables that Jesus told as they are recorded in Matthew or Luke. What proportion of the subjects are taken from farm life? What conclusions do you draw? . Suppose you were a newcomer in a rather backward farming community: tell in detail how you would set about to form an association for mutual aid and education. . What program ought a church in a farming com- munity to have? Should every farmer belong to the church? For what reason? State a number of definite ways in which you, if you were to become a farmer, would intend to make your Christianity count. For REFERENCE F. J. Allen, A Guide to the Study of Occupations. Harvard University Press, 1921. This is a selected bibliography indispensable to vocational counselors. Students who desire to follow up the study of any occupation will find all the important reference material described in this Guide. The following notes on the four books to which most frequent reference is to be made in the following chapters are taken from it: “Boy Scouts of America, Be Prepared, for Merit Badge Examinations. New York, 1919-1920. A series of pamphlets issued by the Boy Scouts of 40 AGRICULTURE AND THE NEED FOR FOOD America in connection with the scheme of awarding merit badges to first class Scouts. Each pamphlet shows something of the nature and history of the occu- pation treated, its attractiveness, how to prepare for it, and its earnings. The treatment is well adapted to boys of the Scouting age, and useful for vocational guidance purposes. “Stella Stewart Center, The Worker and His Work: Read- ings in Present-Day Literature Presenting Some of the Activities by which Men and Women the World Over Make a Living. J. B. Lippincott Co., Phila- delphia, 1920. Selections of narrative, description, essay, and poetry, of interest to young people who are studying occupa- tions. “Frederick Mayor Giles and Imogene Kean Giles, Voca- tional Civics: A Study of Occupations as a Back- ground for the Consideration of a Life-Career. The Macmillan Company, New York, rgr1o9. This book, which is an outgrowth of experience in giving vocational counsel to young people, presents a detailed study of the leading groups of occupations. It discusses their nature, demands, rewards, and other vocational guidance features. It was designed for vocational counselors and life-career classes, and the vocational guidance material of the book is well treated. “E. B. Gowin, W. A. Wheatley, and John M. Brewer, Occupations: A textbook in vocational guidance. Ginn & Co., Boston, 1916. A detailed Brady of the most important vocations, with broad outlines of the more important divisions and summaries of positions and fields of work. It deals mainly with work open to the boy, but presents such essential facts and outlines of study as give it value for general use. One of the best books now available for high-school life-career classes. Well written, logical 4I QUEEN LORE EAE in arrangement, and rich in vocational guidance mate- rial. (This has been completely revised by John M. Brewer and is published by the same house, 1923. The references in this book are to the revised edition.) The Vocational Guidance Magazine, the organ of the National Vocational Guidance Association, issued eight times a year, from October to May inclusive, should be part of the equipment of every teacher who takes seri- ously his responsibility in vocation guidance. It is published in Cambridge, Massachusetts, F. J. Allen, Editor. For Agriculture: Giles and Giles, pages 31-45. Gowin, Wheatley, and Brewer, Chapter IX. S. S. Center, pages 165-169, ‘““The Red Cow and Her Friends.” For Fishing: 5S. S. Center, pages 306-310, ‘““The Salmon.” CHAPTER V LOGGING, FORESTRY, MINING “YES, there is plenty of romance in our business,”’ says U. Morgan Davies, a young man in the logging industry in the Great Lakes region. Logging.—First there are the land surveys to be made. The amount and quality of the timber is thus estimated. This may mean long days on foot through trackless wastes. After the maps and descriptions are prepared, men with a com- plete knowledge of logging methods must go in and stake out locations for roads and railroads, and in general plan for and organize all the opera- tions. When, as is often the case, the population of a lumber camp is as large as that of a small town, the task of providing in advance for the multitudinous needs of the community is, to say the least, a bit of a problem. Each of the depart- ments of actual logging, felling and bucking, skid- ding and yarding, transportation, measurement, requires its experts. Logging on a large scale is really a special form of engineering. It is not all romance: it offers no end of hardship, and is quite beyond the power of men who are not robust. On the other hand, logging has its peculiar rewards. Men who have an invincible love of outdoor life will find in it unique satisfactions. In the larger companies there is a life-work for any man eager to be useful. Think of the innumer- able articles of wood we use—furniture, utensils, 43 OUT INTO LIFE paper, musical instruments, to mention but a few —all made available by the logger! Employment for reliable men is continuous, though advance- ment is never rapid at the beginning. The wages are good. Those for actual timber felling, which can be done only by unusually strong men, are high. Active young men who enjoy mechanics find a field in the South and far West where power logging is in vogue. ‘There the skid- ding machines need the constant attention of skilled operators. In all larger lumber operations the logs are transported on steam railroads. ‘The engineers and firemen receive a fairly high wage, but the hours are long. Logging offers a unique chance to be a mission- ary of good citizenship and happiness among back- ward men who live hard lives. Colonel Brice P. Disque was sent during the Great War to the lumber camps of the Northwest, then in a condi- tion of seething unrest. He found a state of mis- understanding between the operators and employers, aggravated by the wretched living conditions of the latter. His sincerity made him friends in both groups, and they put their problem in his hands. In a few weeks he had established decent working and living conditions and had brought about good feeling everywhere by the sheer force of his own Christian friendliness. What form of labor is more Christian than that of planting ideals of service and brotherliness in communities where the law of the jungle holds, of making it possible for men to grow from ignorance and dejection into self- control? The training required comes obviously in large 44 LOGGING, FORESTRY, MINING part from the actual work of logging, but men who aspire to positions of largest usefulness must have theoretical knowledge of woods, wood-machinery, general engineering, and the economics used in the marketing of the lumber. Lumbering, as dis- tinguished from logging, however, is a manufac- turing problem. ‘The technical studies needed for logging can be acquired at an engineering school. By writing to the nearest such school you will be able to get the detailed information you individually need. 3 It is best, however, to learn the life of the logging camp from personal observation. If you are then drawn toward it, it is perhaps the place where you can give your best and happiest service. Talk about the profession to all the logging men you know, read all the literature on logging you can get hold of, think about it, pray about it—and get the best training you can. Forestry.—The forester has no small share in the life of the world: no civilization without wood —no wood without forests—no forests without foresters to look after them. The forester’s task is well described by Captain S. T. Dana in a gov- ernment pamphlet: He must be able to identify different kinds of trees; to draw up a complete plan for protecting the forest from fire and to carry out the details involved in its execution; to control the attacks of destructive insects and fungous diseases; to handle the collection of seed and the production of young trees; to determine the rate at which trees are growing; to draw up a “‘working plan’’ providing in detail for the handling of the entire forest in such a way as to keep it continually productive; to run 45 OUT INTO LIFE compass and transit lines and make topographic maps. He must know the uses to which each tree can be put and the sites to which they are best adapted; how many grazing stock the range will support and how they should be handled; since most of the forests occur in undevel- oped regions, he must know how to open up undeveloped regions by building ranger and lookout stations and con- structing other permanent improvements. The Rewards.—The greatest pleasure offered by forestry is the chance to share in the life of the world: it is another way to live and help live. The initial salary for forest service is fairly high, and there is ample chance for promotion to those who deserve it. Great. wealth, however, cannot be amassed in this profession. Forestry requires a good physical constitution. Often the forester must be away from his home for days or weeks at a time, his bed and provisions on his back or on a pack animal, rain or shine, until his survey is made. On the other hand, it is this very closeness to God’s out-of-doors, the very ruggedness of the life, that appeals to men. A young man with a high-school education can qualify, with a further year’s training, as a forest ranger; but the man who is ambitious to be useful will desire the complete training of a school of forestry. The professional forester has charge of the larger phases of forest supervision. For this he must have general courses in botany, geology, organic chemistry, trigonometry, surveying, draw- ing, economics, French and German, and such special studies as silviculture and forest mensura- tion, valuation, management, and regulation. This means from four to six years of education after 46 LOGGING, FORESTRY, MINING graduation from high school. Other things being equal, the best forester is the man with the best training. Mining.—The United States produce about two fifths of the pig iron of the entire globe. The im- portance of this and the other metal industries may be measured by imagining what would happen if by the magic of some playful wizard all the metal products in the world should vanish. Our houses would crumble to the ground, lofty sky- scrapers and humble cots alike; our ships would founder and break up; our machinery would evap- orate; our tools, even the commonest kinds, would be no more. In short, this is an iron age: our material civilization is built largely with iron and the metals. Coal is a factor in modern industrial life of twin importance with the metals. Since its discovery and the invention of the steam engine a little over a century ago a greater change has come over the face of the earth than all the previous forty cen- turies saw. If we live in iron times, we have fash- ioned them with the heat from coal-furnaces. The man who elects to be a mining engineer may be at ease regarding his public service: the whole manufacturing world looks to him. He makes available the fabrics out of which men are building the Woolworth Buildings, the radio instru- ments, and the other splendid things of the new age. Mining is not necessarily an occupation without pecuniary profit, either. It must always be to a certain extent a speculation, but the actual his- tory of properly conducted mines in America shows them to be one of the safest forms of invest- 47 OUT INTO LIFE ment for capital. Many of our wealthiest citizens, including Andrew Carnegie and J. D. Rockefeller, found their fortunes largely under the ground. Mining, of all the modern industries made possi- ble by mighty combinations of labor and capital, cries loudest for humane, intelligent, and practical men who will devise means to relieve the workers from what is in some cases little short of sheer misery. Men who are in charge of many of the larger mining concerns to-day are doing their utmost to this end. If you are determined not only to live but also to help live, this may be your destiny. The great Kyshtim mines in Russia had ceased paying dividends because of antiquated methods and poor labor. Herbert Hoover was called in. He proposed to scrap the entire plant and move the whole community of several thousand families to a site nearer the mines. His plan was to spend several million dollars to give every man and wife connected with the mines, then living like dogs, a decent house, to pay them real wages, and to provide them new equipment to work with. The owners let him make the experiment. In a few months the new spirit in the workers justified him. The owners were pleased with the money returns; but Hoover was pleased because, by a constructive act, he had made life more livable for thousands of people. A manager like Herbert Hoover has a unique vantage point from which to govern the welfare of his workers. How to do this in the most Chris- tian way, without harming any legitimate interest, is an immense problem—and a more immense opportunity! 48 LOGGING, FORESTRY, MINING The expert mining engineer must know how to locate valuable mineral land, explore and test the deposits, plan the proper method of excavating, install the machinery, appliances, and power, direct the drilling, blasting, breaking, hauling, and _ hoist- ing, the drainage, the support of overhead rocks and earth, the securing of profitable ore-bearing rock, the ore dressing and milling, and the mechan- ical preparation of the ore. He is sometimes called far from the centers of population. In such places ingenuity to meet the problems of difficult trans- portation, insufficient labor, and sometimes unhealth- ful climatic conditions, is at high premium. If you have a bent for mathematics and science and are of a mechanical turn of mind, it is not unlikely that you would make a success in min- ing. But you will need no little preparation. Like all the technical professions, engineering requires long training. The mine operator must be skilled to his finger tips in mathematics, mechanics, physics, and other similar technical subjects. He must be a geologist, mineralogist, and chemist, and something of a civil, mechanical, and electrical engineer. He must be acquainted with the arts of metallurgy, ore-dressing, and milling. And with these as a background he should specialize in the kind of mining in which he intends to work, for the various products of the mine call for different processes. A young man cannot become a prac- tical engineer until he has served a _ practical apprenticeship. It is another chance to serve God by serving fellow men. 49 OUT INTO LIFE For DIscussiIon . Is it true that there is just so much money, and no more, to be made in a well-organized business, and that since this is divided between the owners (in profits) and the workers (in wages), so that the more there is given to one, the less remains for the other, we must expect a never-ending quarrel between the two for the lion’s share of the money? . Would it be better to take as one’s first job a com- paratively big position with a small logging or mining company or a comparatively small position with a big company? . Supposing you had both white men and Negroes working for you, would you give them equal priv- ileges? Even at the receptions, parties, or dances you might have? Would you try to keep them apart? together? . Which would you say has been the greater single cause of forest destruction in America, fires or wasteful methods of logging? . Which has the greater power to better the condition of the ignorant and often alien mine-worker to-day, the owners of the mine or the heads of the miners’ unions’ Is it possible to say? . Would it be better if the government bought the mines from the present owners and operated them at cost for the public benefit? For FurTHER STUDY . Read Jesus’ words in Luke 4. 18 and then write an imaginative sketch about a manager of a mine or logging camp who tried to live like Jesus. How did he treat his men? Was he a successful business man? . What other great use have forests besides producing wood? Why is Palestine, once a fertile country, 50 LOGGING, FORESTRY, MINING now much more arid? Why is there a much greater tendency to violent floods on our rivers to-day than formerly? 9. Read the life of John Mitchell, or some other miner, forester, or logger, and point out in what definite instance he showed himself a Christian. 10. Taking into consideration your own abilities and fail- ings, in which of the three vocations, logging, for- estry, or mining, do you think you could best live and help live? Specifically, why? For REFERENCE Giles and Giles, pages 46-s0, for forestry and logging; pages 50-54, for mining. Boy Scouts, Forestry and Mining. 5. S. Center, pages 131-140, ‘“The Riverman’’; pages 141- 146, ‘“The Toll of Big Timber.”’ The quotations in this and following chapters from “government pamphlets” are from Opportunity Mono- graphs for disabled soldiers, sailors, and marines to aid them in choosing a vocation. They were prepared by the Federal Board for Vocational Education and issued in cooperation with the Office of the Surgeon General, War Department, and Bureau of Medicine and Surgery, Navy Department, in 1918 and 1919. 51 CHAPTER VI MANUFACTURING, THE ROMANCE OF MAKING THINGS By making up raw materials into useful articles American manufacturers yearly add to the wealth of the world the value of more than ten billions of dollars. To-day we are dependent upon the manufacturer for more than can be enumerated: we are aroused in the morning by a manufactured alarm clock from sleep between manufactured sheets in a manufactured bed. We step out on a manufactured carpet, put on manufactured clothes —and find the work of our whole day made easier by the use of things manufactured. The inside of a factory.—The fact that the out- put of American industry has for the last years been increasing from five to ten times as fast as the number of establishments means that the establishments are growing larger and more highly organized. Each concern makes its own divisions of labor, as demanded by its own circumstances. Many to-day are operating under eight depart- ments: (1) finance, (2) purchase, (3) production, (4) sales, (5) advertising, (6) design, (7) research, and (8) industrial relations, as the chart on the opposite page indicates. The heads of these departments meet for fre- quent conference, discuss their problems, decide how to meet them, and then separate to carry out the plans decided upon. If, for instance, at their 52 $394I0A POTTASUQ SIOHIOM PONTAS sI0 7 mreuns era ND [scene] [Teno vsMslIOy Teueunredsg Ss Jozvue Josvuepy sIBdIIHROOT BBNIESHYS abril! soseueyy sos vuL yy . yUHUNosy JoryD Sroenicl auisyseapy S2PWS pue WepPIsaig-o7A ONTANLOVIONVIAL TVOIGAL $30}20N1q] JO pIvog uvUwY) VBE [Sema mo NOILVZINVOUO TVAANAD Peepommas | NYAONOO OUT INTO LIFE conference, the sales manager reports a customer complaining that his last shipment was poorly crated, they turn to the production man, who, let us say, informs them that his packers are men- tally below par—and the industrial relations exec- utive is asked to find him better men, if he can. Each department, though distinct, is, through its manager, in constant cooperation with the others. The financial, purchase, sales, and advertising departments are so closely allied to the general business of finance and commerce that they will be more appropriately treated later. Production, design, and research.—The produc- tion department is the largest of all. In some small concerns it is the only one, including all the rest. The head is usually known as the superin- tendent. In a large plant he has under him divi- sion managers, each in charge of a building or a particular set of processes. Under them are the foremen, each of whom supervises a group of men engaged in the same type of work. Finally, there are the wage-earners, who do most of the manual labor. One of the foremen is the chief shipping clerk, in whose department the finished products are stored or shipped to buyers. The production superintendent who is alive to his task reads all the current literature on the subject of production, visits other plants, and in every way studies how each particular task in his department may be performed most economically and effectively. The engineer of design must know what designs are likely to appeal to customers; and he must 54 THE ROMANCE OF MAKING THINGS know what can be done on the machines of the factory in order to make his designs practicable. The draughtsmen make working drawings of the designs. The pattern-makers shape their patterns from the working drawings. The _ tool-makers make the tools demanded and keep them in repair. Departments of research are conducted by manufacturers who realize the necessity of improv- ing their work. In manufactures where chemistry or physics is called into use, as in the rubber- goods and electrical companies, vast laboratories are maintained, for a new discovery in these fields, where discoveries are being made almost daily, may save millions of dollars. Industrial relations.—Since men began working together in factories there has been recurring trouble about how the profits should be shared. This is often called the problem of Capital versus Labor, as if there were an underlying conflict between employers and employees. Many of the larger and more forward-looking concerns have de- veloped a special department to handle these and all other questions involving the human factor. The responsibilities which fall to the head of this department—and his assistants—are set forth by Edward D. Jones, in a pamphlet published by the government of the United States, slightly para- phrased as follows: His primary functions are to hire shop employees, superintend transfers and discharges, assist in determin- ing rates of pay, study the causes of labor turnover and absenteeism and strive to reduce them, adjust grievances, and recommend changes in working conditions which will eliminate fatigue and accidents or improve the health 55 OUT INTO LIFE and spirit of the force. He analyzes the sources of labor supply and makes studies upon which job specifications, setting forth the qualifications required for each task, can be based. He often supervises the training of em- ployees by apprenticeship in vestibule or shop schools. His efforts may take any one of a variety of forms. In one factory a restaurant may be needed, in another, better dwelling houses. Local transportation may be a problem to solve. A recreational or thrift campaign may need his attention. In connection with the government of the shop, he has a hand in drawing up shop rules. He deduces the significance of complaints and the causes of discharge. He is in contact with shop committees, should such be formed; and is harmonizer and mutual interpreter in all collective bargaining negotiations, striving ever sincerely to reach a fair and permanent basis for loyal cooperation. The rewards of manufacturing.—The rewards of the manufacturer’s profession are obvious. There is joy simply in the making of things. When you were a boy you enjoyed taking clocks apart for the pleasure of putting them together again— doubtless minus a wheel or two! A greater joy than simply making things is making things well. The thrill that a manufacturer feels as he examines a fine piece of workmanship which has come out of his factory is known only by those who make things well. ““. . . God be praised, Antonio Stradivari has an eye That winces at false work and loves the true.”’ To the delight of making things well the manu- facturer adds the pleasure of making things which are useful to his fellow men. If you were a successful 56 THE ROMANCE OF MAKING THINGS producer of automobiles, would you derive no satisfaction from seeing hundreds of families enjoy- ing the open air in the machines your own brains and hands had put on the market? To the manufacturer is given also the joy of creating original things. The system of interchange- able parts which makes possible the convenient use of complicated machinery at a long distance from the place of manufacture is but one of thousands of inventions and adaptations for which the world is indebted to the men in American factories. The financial return from manufacturing is, in proportion to the training required, as large as in any department of labor. The advancement is, as one manufacturer puts it, ‘as rapid as a man’s brains will carry him.” To the man who loves organizing, the enormous modern manufacturing plant has an appeal which few other professions can offer. Many of the commonest products of American manufacture, such as the sewing machine, require the cooperation of no less than one thousand men, each with his own contribution to make to the finished product. Some one must coordinate these many processes into a single whole, constantly adjusting them to chang- ing conditions. Back of all the organization, as Berton Braley wrote, é . stands the Schemer, The Thinker who drives things through; Back of the job—the Dreamer Who’s making the dream come true!” But to the young man who is dedicated to living and helping live, there is a still broader avenue of of, OUT INTO LIFE satisfaction on the human side of manufacture. It is here that William C. Procter, maker of a widely used soap, Charles M. Cox, of Boston, whose motto was “Give your workmen what you want yourself,” and a host of the younger generation of manufac- turers have made their fame. Manufacture is to-day the point upon which a hundred problems converge. The man who can discover ways and means of reconciling the just claims of the too often hostile bodies, employers and employees, is nothing less than a savior of our whole society, for this is one of its weakest and sorest points. Perhaps it is your destiny to work out this prob- lem. Perhaps you will be able to dispose relations between your investors, your brain workers, and your hand workers better than any who have gone before you. Perhaps you will discover that the discontent of the men arises from a lack of the spirit of craftsmanship—for what pride in his work can that man have, for instance, who all day long pulls a lever which eternally stamps out the same pattern? Perhaps you will find the worker un- happy because he is treated too much like a child, and that there is fairness in his demand to share in the control of his own working conditions, if not in the management of the factory as a whole. The whole subject is still in the stage of experi- mentation—awaiting your coming. In his church and his community a manufacturer, if he is the right sort, wields a mighty influence. Many New England towns have derived their spirit from their leading manufacturing family: where that family has been wide awake religiously and socially, the town has become wide awake; 58 THE ROMANCE OF MAKING THINGS where the family has been indifferent, an indifferent town has grown up. The training.—The designer, draftsman, pattern- maker, workman in the main production depart- ments, tool-maker, and experimenter all need cer- tain technical training. This is often to be secured in the factory itself. To-day there are many apprentice schools where men may improve themselves after working hours or, by special arrangement, during certain hours of the working day, still retaining their positions in the shops. But if you are to reach a position of leader- ship, it goes without saying that the best way to prepare is through a course in a technical college. Your State university may offer the needed sub- jects. If not, there are other excellent schools where you may learn all that is known to date in your chosen line. Your salary for the first year after leaving the school may not appear much larger than that of your untrained contemporary, but ten years will show the superiority of the technical education. For the human side of manufacturing the train- ing is differently acquired. A number of industrial relations executives have agreed that the five principal factors in their work are related somewhat as follows: “Character, 35 per cent important General industrial experience, Svar | ak « Executive experience, Pernt Ten és Shop experience, pe vaso ‘ Experience with organized so- cial movements, Bae fs tae ey 59 OUT INTO LIFE If the passing mark for any kind of success is seventy per cent, it is manifest that a man lacking the first item is doomed to failure. No man who is not a thoroughgoing Christian, of deep sympathy and absolutely impartial judgment, can hope to succeed as a mediator between groups of men. And training in character can be had without going to a school or opening a book: it is the gradual acquisition of every man who steadfastly lives and helps live. For DIscussiIon . Formerly craftsmen took pride in doing their work well, and so got joy out of it: is there any chance for this in the standardized labor of a modern factory? . Who should have the power to “hire and fire’ work- men? The personnel manager? The foreman? Should a man’s shopmates have something to say in the matter? 3. How would you debate the question: ‘Resolved, That the great combinations of manufacturing corpora- tions, such as ‘U. S. Steel,’ are beneficial to the country’’? . 4. Supposing you were a foreman in a weaving mill and knew that the management was selling as all wool, cloth that had cotton in it, what would you do? Protest? Leave? Wait till you reached a position of more authority? 5. Should the problem of capital and labor be discussed in church? 6. Do you think it is Christian to push for ‘‘democracy in industry” wherein every worker in the industry will have a chance to elect the officers, from fore- men to president, just as in a community every 60 eH to THE ROMANCE OF MAKING THINGS adult to-day has a chance to vote for mayor and petty officers? For FurtTHER STUDY 7. There are at least four manufacturers mentioned in the book of the Acts—two tentmakers, a silver- smith, and a tanner. What are the stories con- nected with them? 8. Supposing you were a man of wealth who desired to begin manufacturing threshing-machines, in what part of the country would you decide to locate your mills, taking into consideration the raw ma- terials, the market, the transportation, the power facilities, the climate, and the available labor? 9g. In a shoe factory, what per cent of the earnings ought in general to go into wages and salaries? into profit on the money invested? back into the business? Talk this over with some manufacturer. 10. Read the life of some manufacturer, such as Cyrus McCormick, and find out what motives led him into the vocation. What most attracts you about manufacturing? For REFERENCE Giles and Giles, pages 87-107. Gowin, Wheatley, and Brewer, pages 150-167. S. S. Center, pages 178-191, ‘“The Open Hearth.” 61 CHAPTER VII BUILDING THE WORLD WE LIVE IN IF you desired to build a home for yourself, you would doubtless begin by applying to an architect to advise you. As a man trained to plan in advance for every detail of the construction, he should be able to tell you anything about house-building you want to know. When, following your suggestions, he had made his designs for your house, he would advertise among the various firms of building contractors for bids upon the construction; and the firm offer- ing to build for the lowest price, using the materials and putting in the workmanship you ask for, would, if there were no reason for refusing them, be awarded the contract. The contractor.—The contractor’s business is the actual building. He must know the building trades from A to Z and be able to compute to a nicety the probable cost of the material and labor required. He must be a skillful buyer, know where to find labor, and in general have good business instincts. If the firm of contractors is one of any size, for every job accepted they select to represent them a superintendent of construction. Out of the archi- tect’s paper plan this man must conjure the real building. He has under him such subcontractors as are needed—carpenter, mason, plumber, electrician, or others. To touch the imagination of all these 62 BUILDING THE WORLD WE LIVE IN workers and their assistants with a vision of the whole completed work, to give them the enthusiasm which will weld them into a working organization, to keep each man cheerful and self-respecting, is his work. The superintendent of construction is often a master carpenter or mason who has advanced him- self to the higher position, coming to it by a path paved with books and hard work. He must be honest, for he has the reputation as well as the funds of his company in his hands. He must have continual control of his temper, even under the most provoking circumstances. That combination of tact and firmness must be his which is necessary to reconcile the demands of the architect and owner on the one side and those of his foremen on the other. His position, like all others which involve man-to-man relations, requires the qualities of straight thinking, sympathy, and integrity. It is just at this point that a man’s religion comes to his assistance. The joys of building, of being useful, of saving enough money to keep one’s family in comparative abundance, and of standing for the principles of Christ, often when there are heavy bribes not to do so—these belong to the contractor and his superintendent. The mason.—Once the cellar of your house is excavated, the foreman-mason and his corps of workers would be called for. They build the founda- tions, walls, abutments, and chimneys, according to the architect’s plans. Those who have tried brick- or stone-laying know that it takes skill to keep the lines straight even in the simplest job, OUT INTO LIFE and that in such work as mounting an arch, or stone-facing the iron framework of a sky-scraper, only an old hand can make the work perfect. In- side plastering is not learned in an hour, either. Often the main contractor lets the entire mason work on a building to another man, who thus becomes a subcontractor. This man may be his own foreman, hire his own men, and give personal attention to the job, or, if his business is large, employ a foreman. The foreman must be able not only to read working drawings and teach his men how to read them and have the general technique of masonry at his finger-tips, but he must be able to work with men and keep them working with him. He must be as conversant with their view- point as with that of his employer. He must be able judicially to weigh any situation and make an impartial decision. He too needs the mind of Christ. Masonry is largely an open-air occupation, afford- ing one well-rounded physical fitness. Though in most years there are periods when even the most expert mason is out of work, yet his annual wage, if expenses are not unduly heavy, gives him a comfortable home. If he is sufficiently ambitious, willing to study, and keen in observation, he can go the road which leads from subcontracting to general contracting, and in instances even to architecture. | There are two ways for a young man to learn the trade. After the high-school course is com- pleted he may either enter a trade school or hire out to a master mason as apprentice. Apprentice- ship training has come to be recognized in many 64 BUILDING THE WORLD WE LIVE IN centers as one of the most important functions of a building contract. The master-and-man relation is one of solemn responsibility. If you have enjoyed your courses in mathematics and drawing, and if you like to work with tools, perhaps masonry is the means whereby you may best live and help live. And if you are to make good, the perseverance, the desire to do things well, the wish to be of service, those very qualities which you find in Christ will be in you your strong- est aids. The carpenter.—The carpentry in the house you are to build would doubtless be handled by another subcontractor. In a frame dwelling house the carpentry is the main part of the construction, since the entire skeleton—not to mention the doors, windows, roof, and floor—is of wood. Like masonry, carpentry may lead, after several years, to the larger business of contracting. If a young man has the necessary artistic gifts, and is able to find time and money for further study, there is nothing to prevent him from making his way into architecture, one of the best paid of the professions. The training needed for carpentry is also gained by schooling or apprenticeship, and the same traits of Christian manliness which make for success and standing in the other crafts are demanded here. The plumber.—In any house you build plumbing would be another chief consideration. This work is also let by subcontract to a man or firm. The plumber—to use the title in its widest sense— must be an expert in heating, ventilation, and sanitation. He must obviously be able to follow 05 OUT INTO LIFE plans and specifications correctly, put in the proper order for materials, and, in general, advise the contractor, architect, or owner regarding plumbing problems. His work calls for a certain inventive- ness to solve the perplexities each new construction presents. Plumbing has grown from the small lead-workers’ trade of one hundred years ago to an occupation by which more than a hundred thousand men earn their living to-day; and with the increase in our wealth and in our skill as builders, the profession of plumbing is bound to be lifted to an even higher level. It is on the whole healthful. To an alert man of mechanical talent it offers the fascination of invention. There is steady employment in it for the reliable. There is fair financial remuneration. Best of all, there is opportunity for advancement. Many plumbers have become contractors, and a few, who have been able and young enough to give themselves the advantages of study, have risen to the rank of sanitary engineers, and as such have become authorities on water supplies, sewerage sys- tems, and the kindred problems of cities, towns, and lateen private enterprises. Plumbing has a disagreeable association to most of us, to whom it means cleaning stopped-up drain- pipes. There are, however, such distasteful tasks in literally all occupations, and it is a source of no small satisfaction to a man of sterner stuff to be able to do these unpleasant though necessary jobs from which weaker natures shrink. Away with lily-white Christianity! Plumbing is learned in trade schools and by apprenticeship. If you have had a liking for your 66 BUILDING THE WORLD WE LIVE IN courses in geometry, drawing, and science, and enjoy doing the smaller repairs in the piping at home, possibly you would find in plumbing a way of living and helping live. The electrician.—The electrician is in almost as general demand as the plumber. He also would be a subcontractor for the building of your house. Like all contractors he must on the one hand be something of a business man and an organizer, and on the other know the mechanics of his trade. He and his men install the wiring for the bells, lights, motors, and other electrical appliances. He must be able, if the plans call for it, to put in a complete power plant. He must be familiar with the rules of the fire underwriters which specify conditions under which certain types of wiring may be used. The more theoretical knowledge of elec- trical currents he possesses, the higher he can go in his business; and if he can by hook or crook get sufficient book-preparation, the profession of electrical engineering stands open to him. Possibly your courses in electricity and mag- netism have already given you a hint of your own inclinations. Electricity may have been your hobby since childhood. A few months as a helper to an electrical contractor may assist you in your de- cision. If you do decide to go into this line, get all the training you can afford—in a trade school or elsewhere. The trade of practical electrician is useful, healthy, and tolerably well paid. God called Thomas A. Edison to this profession, and it has been the means through which he has done more than one service to his race. Perhaps God will call you to do a like work. 67 OUT INTO LIFE The structural iron worker.—As we live in an age of steel, no list of men engaged in building is complete without mention of the structural iron worker. With his engine he lifts the ponderous steel girders, joists, and beams to their place, and with his riveter he makes them fast. You prob- ably will not select this as your own occupation, but it has its peculiar satisfactions to level-headed men of mechanical bent who are sober, quick- thinking, and cautious. The foreman in such work needs all the attributes of Christian leadership called for in any other foreman. The painter and decorator.—After the others have finished their labor on your home, the painter and decorator will begin. Painting and decorating, although they seem to require a high degree of taste, are often the lowest paid of the building trades. There is no reason, however, why young men who unite in themselves a trained artistic sense and business brains may not find a real field for their mental gifts in painting and decorating. Whistler and other artists have become famous through their interior decorations. The unions.—In many parts of the country the building trades are thoroughly unionized, and you cannot go far without being a member. Some unions, being under ignorant leadership, are a hindrance to an ambitious man. One man writes from Chicago: “In this region the unions make it difficult for new men to get into some of the trades —as lathers, for instance—to keep a shortage, the contractors say. The despotism is complete—and violent.”” This is not true of all unions, however, and, in general, the best way to better conditions 68 BUILDING THE WORLD WE LIVE IN in a trade is to join the union and help improve it from the inside. This requires independent think- ing and courage to express that thinking in words. It requires, in a word, intelligent Christianity. For Discussion 1. Which calls for more ingenuity, masonry, carpentry, plumbing, or electric wiring? 2. If you were a member of a union which had called a strike, ought you to leave work, if you yourself, believing the strike unjustified, had voted against it? if your family was dependent on you for daily bread? 3. Americans have the right of keeping undesirable peo- ple out of the country: do members of unions have a right to keep non-union workers out of the trades? 4. Some employers refuse to employ men who are mem- bers of unions. Is this right? 5. Will the increasing use of iron and steel in building injure the carpenter’s trade? 6. Painting, owing to the danger of lead-poisoning, has been a dangerous business. Why, then, has it not paid better wages? For FurtTHER STUDY 7. Nehemiah was the contractor who rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem. Read chapters 2, 4, and 6 of his book. Why did his laborers do their work so well? Did their religion have anything to do with it? Did Nehemiah’s religion make him an abler leader? How? 8. Write to the nearest trade school for a description of the courses offered, and also find out from a neigh- boring mason, carpenter, or plumber what he would teach an apprentice. Then compare the 69 QUT INTO Liki apprenticeship with the corresponding course in the school: which is the better training? 9. We say that Christianity is a practical help in daily work. In what ways'—describe at least three. 10. Which would you rather be, a mason, carpenter, plumber, electrician, structural iron worker, or painter and decorator? Talk the matter over with the men successful in these lines in your own neighborhood. For REFERENCE Giles and Giles, pages 109~120. Gowin, Wheatley and Brewer, Chapter XII. al Nestea ak fo ed feta y verte nares F ee | IU ab ge \ ~~ F « i tposinichs aoe | { auior) : = i = 1. * , me neater =e ange t @ » arhaneieths 3 . 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Rg peo FT sain) a tw ww ‘ ' or 7 ‘ tae . 1 # iv? : Sasa? 3 7 h ' PT: 39 4 . , i f sobre romad Savvis : Per Wp Dadi j , ! 1 , ‘' YI erst, ; ; me a i ‘hy . ; Wu ; i j ore dies od a ew Pert gqake te — a i" el ae Oe ! eee it Porites ; 4 bi tulathnintd view : t v " Fe Lf siiimaihed nee” ; >a ‘ \ tee Coote va eee pre Fond neha (2h : 2 ey : = } 7 ; : te) a : em ap pee P we pe ORs eee econ) ey ( % : A vee wlig’t" the : hy , bonus “sie? h 7 ' bt oii Sf . ‘ Ce ei eed ieee - | ly ~ " ‘ te) few rm picne re tel | © J : » f a . . ry Li I leva “GG d pee J | i ae one CON ot ere y : A ee A - ‘ 4 CHAPTER VIII MAKING THE NATION A NEIGHBORHOOD TRANSPORTATION WHEN a man in the United States travels by train, one of fifty-five thousand passenger cars carries him; and if it is a consignment of goods he wishes to send somewhere, one of almost two million and a half freight cars will serve him. For his convenience the railway companies have laid a network of tracks which, if laid in a straight line, could reach to the moon and more than half way back again. The operating department of a steam railroad.— The chart on the opposite page, though no two railroads are managed exactly alike, shows the general type of organization according to which most roads are administered. Only the traffic and operating departments are indicated in detail—or treated elsewhere in this chapter—since they are the only ones peculiar to a transportation company. The real estate, legal, mechanical, purchasing, engineering, and financial departments, though indicated on the chart only by the titles of their chief executives, are also highly organized. The head of the operating department is the general manager. His vast responsibilities are delegated to several subdepartments. The chief of police, his inspectors, and captains protect the company’s men and property from unauthorized practices of every character. 71 OUT INTO LIFE The supervisor of wage schedules is in close touch with the work the employees do, and sees to it that their wages accord with their useful- ness. The statistician gathers data for the general manager. The supervisor of safety and examinations seeks by circulars and personal conferences to keep the public and the employees trained to ‘‘safety-first”’ habits, and conducts investigations of the causes of major accidents and the methods of avoiding them. The general mechanical superintendent is in charge of one of the most important subdepart- ments. Under him there are general shop superin- tendents and mechanical superintendents. The latter are assisted by the master mechanics, who in turn have under them the locomotive engineers and firemen. The engineer’s duties are very exact- ing. He must recognize the color and position of signals instantly. He must know his engine and constantly watch its running condition. Under the master mechanics also are the general foremen, the road foremen, who give most of their time to riding and examining engines which .are not steaming or pulling properly, and the shop fore- men, who have charge of repairing. The superintendent of dining cars is another official who reports to the general manager. The contract agent has charge of letting con- tracts to use the stations and trains for adver- tising or other outside business purposes. A special assistant to the general manager receives all complaints and suggestions regarding the service at the various stations. With him works the agent 72 MAKING THE NATION A NEIGHBORHOOD who looks up the claims presented for lost or dam- aged freight. The most important subdepartment is under the direct supervision of the general manager, who is assisted by general superintendents. The entire railroad is divided geographically into units called divisions, each generally making half a day’s run for a train crew. In charge of each one of these, and under the general superintendents, is a division superintendent. Assisting every division superin- tendent are trainmasters, who supervise the con- ductors and brakemen in a given area, and train dispatchers, who control the moving of freight and passengers. The passenger conductor collects fares and is responsible for his train and its passengers. The freight conductor directs the picking up and setting out of cars, carries the waybills for the freight on his train, and, like the passenger con- ductor, has general charge of his train. The station agent takes orders from both the trainmaster and the dispatcher. Whether he is the only man in a village station or the head of a great city station, with a large salary, he must understand the business of his road—traffic rules and rates, ticket selling, freight billing, and railway bookkeeping. Through him most of us come closest in touch with the railroad, and his make-up and manner will win or lose business for his company. The engineer of maintenance of way and his assistants keep the roadway in good condition. The signal engineer does the same for the signal system. The general superintendent of electric communi- cation and transmission with a large corps of men 73 OUT INTO LIFE under him keeps the electrical equipment in work- ing order. The electrical engineer is a special adviser to the general manager. The traffic department.—The traffic department of a typical road is outlined on the chart. The titles of the officials indicate the various spheres of their authority. Freight pays a company three times as much as the passengers and requires a horde of workers. A local freight agent must have strength enough to load and unload cars, and brains enough to handle office records and waybills. He, like all railroad men, must also know how to work with others. Competition between railroads is so intense that men are employed to seek out and contract for business. In the freight department this is done largely by personal interview with the shipping heads of large mining, manufacturing, or agricul- tural concerns. For passengers, all the common mediums of publicity—magazines, newspapers, fold- ers, and roadside and street displays—are utilized. Would you fit?—There may be work for you next summer in your local station in the ticket office, baggage room, or freight sheds, where you might at least imbibe the atmosphere of railroading. Such an experience might help you estimate your own aptitude for the business as a life-work. The man who is likely to be a success in rail- roading is the one who possesses the characteristics which gave Andrew Carnegie his advancement. He had come to America with no capital save brains, pluck, and honesty; had become a telegraph mes- 74 MAKING THE NATION A NEIGHBORHOOD senger; had picked up telegraphy while waiting for messages; had learned to receive by ear while others used the paper slip; and had mastered the duties of a train dispatcher while sending the messages of his superior. When his chief’s arrival at the office was delayed one morning and the division was in confusion, he muttered to himself, he afterward reported, ‘‘Death or Westminster Abbey!” and sent out the orders in the dispatcher’s name. It proved to be Westminster Abbey for the little white-haired Scot, and he went on through an assistantship at eighteen to a full division superintendency at twenty-four. And so he continued, on and on. Carnegie had a willingness to obey constituted authority. A railroad employs such an army of men that it can be operated successfully only if each individual adheres to the discipline of the whole. That man is most useful who does his own work faithfully, open-mindedly receiving his orders from his superiors, and giving orders to his assistants in accordance with the regulations. Carnegie had organizing ability—a prime requi- site, since any railroad, even the smallest, is a highly complicated organization. The companies all have room at the top for men who, on the one hand, no matter how many other men are involved, can keep in view the end they are together work- ing to achieve, and, on the other hand, have the analytical gift of separating a task into its natural parts and assigning each to the individual best adapted to it. Carnegie was also a good executive. And there is need for such—for men who can carry ideas into effect—who can get their own work done, and see 75 OUT INTO LIFE that the work of the employees in their depart- ments gets done too. Upon men who will not abuse it, immense and thrilling power is conferred by the railroads. This is one point where the gospel of Christ proves its worth. The thoughtless, unsympathetic, vindictive man cannot in the nature of the case win others to work with him as does that man who believes that under God all men are brothers and as such are entitled to opportunity, encouragement, and forbearance. When a president of one of our large railroad systems was asked for the principles of success, he replied, ‘‘Hard work, honesty, sincerity, good character, and good habits.” He might have said simply, ‘Good character,” for this includes the rest—and the foundation of good character, as a workman named Paul suggested many centuries ago, is a first-hand knowledge of Jesus Christ. The training for the technical part of railroading is to be had without unusual difficulty. The way of apprenticeship is open; and certain city boards of education, Young Men’s Christian Associations, and railroad companies themselves provide instruc- tion. It is not so easy to get the needed training in character, though the school where it is taught is not far from any one of us, and the courses, though brief, are numerous—our own day-by-day moral decisions. The operating department is unionized through- out; and collective bargaining, by which wages and hours of work are set by conferences between representatives of the unions and representatives of the management, is the rule. If you applied 76 MAKING THE NATION A NEIGHBORHOOD for a regular position as fireman, say, on the ordinary road, you could not get the job if you were not a union man. No one else would work with you. Seniority promotion prevails to-day because the unions have forced it. The oldest fireman in service is first to be made engineer, and the oldest engineer is assigned the best run. This method is obviously inferior to a system of promotion for good conduct and efficiency, but (say the unions) before the seniority regulation, promotions were made simply through favoritism, and that was worse yet. The unions in their way are attempting to solve our gravest national problem, the relation between those who employ and those who are employed. Warren S. Stone, grand chief of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, is a member of a church, and a straightforward, man-to-man Christian. Who can compute the benefit bestowed upon the world by a man of such a character in such an office? Perhaps the chair of chief of one of the Brother- hoods is awaiting you. Who knows? What an influence for Christ you could exert from that position! Water transportation.—A steamship line is, in general, organized like a railroad. Some depart- ments are larger, others smaller, than in land transportation. The handful of men constituting a train crew becomes, for instance, the ‘‘ship’s company”’ of a great liner. The captain has general charge. His first mate supervises the routine work. The second mate is the navigator. The chief engineer and his assistants care for the machinery. The boatswain has active charge of the deck crew. The steward 7h OUT INTO LIFE is responsible for the food, heat, ventilation, and sleeping quarters. The sea is God’s and he made it—and he has imbued it with a romantic attraction which some men find irresistible. It has called, as Tennyson knew, to such men as “Ever with a frolic welcome took The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed Free hearts, free foreheads . Strong in will To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield 1??? For DIscussIon 1. Can you determine the place of any species in the scale of life by the radius of its activity? Is the bird, for instance, a higher form than the reptile because it can cover more ground? And is man higher than either? Any exceptions? 2. Ought the national government to own and operate the railroads? 3. Of all the varieties of work on the railroad, what do you consider the most dangerous? Ought a rail- road to be compelled to insure its employees? 4. Would you rather be a worker in a nonunion com- pany and have more independence or be in a unionized company and have more pay? Is this a fair question? Why? 5. Which is most important, the transportation of peo- ple, things, or ideas? 6. Who is the more useful man, the one who can do three men’s work, or the one who can keep three men at work? For FurTHER STUDY 7. How did people travel in Bible times? Give instances. Write a brief history of land transportation from 78 MAKING THE NATION A NEIGHBORHOOD the taming of the horse to the taming of steam and electricity. 8. Make a chart of organization under which an electric street railway company could economically oper- ate. 9. Do the same for a steamship line. ro. Great rewards come to men who devote themselves to railroading. Which would appeal most to you? For REFERENCE Giles and Giles, pages 59-80. Gowin, Wheatley, and Brewer, Chapter XIII. Boy Scouts, Seamanship. Rudyard Kipling, The Ship that Found Herself and .007 in The Day’s Work. 79 CHAPTER IX THE SERVICE PERFORMED BY MACHINIST AND ARTISAN WERE you a manufacturer or builder, you could not do business without calling in the help of machinists and artisans. We use the term “arti- sans’ in its broadest sense, as meaning men skilled in some mechanic art. ‘The machinists are those artisans whose special business it is to construct and repair machines and their parts. Machinists.—The range of a machinist’s work is shown by the number and kind of machines he uses: lathes for turning, millers for cutting down surfaces, planers for smoothing them, boring ma- chines and drills for making holes through thick and thin metals, grinders for polishing or sharpening, bolt and nut machines, screw machines, broaching machines, cutting-off saws, profiling machines, chas- ing and engraving machines, rifling machines, and a score of others, and all of them in various forms and sizes. With them the machinist can produce from properly molded parts anything from a nut to a locomotive engine. If he is to handle heavy objects, he is provided with a hoist or crane. The machinist usually works inside, often in a room full of machinery. He must take reason- able precaution against being struck by unpro- tected belts, gears, and shafts. A skilled general machinist who has the ability to direct men is in line for promotion to the posi- 80 SERVICE BY MACHINIST AND ARTISAN tion of foreman. If he can also figure costs and devise economies in production, he is fitted for a higher administrative office. It is the old story over again: a man with training can advance higher and make himself more useful in the world than he could have done without it. With the specialization of machine-work in industry to-day, the old system of training by general apprentice- ship is becoming less practicable. In many manu- facturing cities there are good part-time schools which permit a combination of instruction in theory and actual practice in the shop, with a small wage besides. Certain cities maintain full- time schools where a young man may acquire a general experience with machinery before he enters any shop. With the growing electrical industries, a new kind of machinist is demanded—the man who can make electrical machines, such as generators, switch- boards, and transformers. Training courses of great value are provided by the larger companies for their employees in which both theoretical and practical instruction is given. A high-school course or the equivalent is an absolute essential. Ma- chinists need Hiram Golf’s religion. Molders and sheet-metal workers.—Allied to the machinist’s craft are molding and _ sheet-metal working. The molder’s kingdom is the foundry. It is one of the most interesting of places. In its simplest form molding is the process of pouring molten metal, pure or alloyed, into a mold formed by a pattern in sand or loam. Making the pattern is the task of another craftsman who works in wood. When a part is to be subjected to hard 81 OUT INTO LIFE usage, forging and hammering rather than casting may be the process used to shape it. Drop forgings are made with power hammers and dies. Large molds are made on the floor with shovels and various hand tools. This is heavy labor. Bench and machine molding involve no excessive physical strain. Promotion comes, here as elsewhere, to those who are willing to study more than is prescribed for them. There is advancement for those who have some knowledge of metallurgy, who can cal- culate costs, and who can govern men. The sheet-metal worker is the survival in modern in- dustry of the village tinsmith. Workers at the trade are employed mainly at cutting out shapes or patterns, bend- ing and forming these shapes on machines or with hand tools and assembling the parts by hand. Edges are fas- tened together by riveting, soldering, or by lock seams. So Eugene C. Graham describes the work in a government pamphlet. The men in a job shop are called upon both to make sheet-metal parts and to install them where they are to be used. Their work is therefore both inside and outside. They must know how to place all the roofing, skylights, gutters, down spouts, cornices, and metal ceilings needed on a building. In this regard theirs is a building trade; but sheet-metal men are also needed in the automobile industry for the bodies, fenders, tanks, and radiators, in factories which pro- duce kitchen utensils, stamped sheet-metal ware, or cans for canned goods, and, one might almost say, in every place where machines are made, for all ordinary machines have sheet-metal parts. 82 SERVICE BY MACHINIST AND ARTISAN. The sheet-metal man needs good eyesight, strong fingers, and a clear head. To be of value he must know how to draft a pattern. A foremanship usually awaits the man who is proficient in his art. If he can estimate costs and is something of an execu- tive, he may reach a position of even greater service. Boiler-makers.—Boiler-makers are a _ distinct group from sheet-metal workers. Their work is in sheet steel. They make such fittings as boilers, condensers, smokestacks, and heavy tanks. A good boiler-maker can read blueprints and lay out his work either on paper or metal. Blacksmiths.—Most villages still have their black- smith, but to-day the more pretentious smithies are in the factories. ‘The modern blacksmith uses steam or compressed air hammers, oil or coal fur- naces, coal or gas forges, cranes for handling heavy work, dies, sledges, and small hammers. The work calls for considerable physical strength. High- grade labor, such as spring making, is performed only by men of long training and experience. Enginemen.—Every factory has connected with it a power plant. An engineman is employed to superintend the plant and keep the engines running smoothly. In a large factory he has as his assistants enginemen of different grades, switchboard atten- dants, dynamo tenders, firemen, and water tenders. The engine and dynamo rooms generally furnish comfortable working conditions. The fire room, however, where most enginemen serve an appren- ticeship, is usually very hot, and the work there exhausting. The engineman who can take care of one of the titanic modern plants capable of producing eighty 83 OUT INTO LIFE thousand horsepower earns a good salary, but he does not come by it without long preparation. He must know something of mathematics, mechanical drawing, and the mechanics of steam production, boiler installation, and engine design, together with the practical knowledge which only experience can give. If the power is electrical, he cannot know too much concerning the properties of electricity. Molders, sheet-iron workers, boiler-makers, black- smiths, enginemen, all need Hiram Golf’s religion. Automobile maintenance.—Another type of ma- chinist is the one who maintains in good running order that machine which in the last few years has become more common than any other—the automobile. Repair-shop men deal with cars when they are out of order. Starting and lighting experts repair and adjust electrical equipment, including wiring, lights, motors, and generators. Ignition experts look after the testing, adjust- ment, and maintenance of current supply, contact breakers, vibrators, spark plugs, coils, condensers, distributors, and magnetos. Starting and lighting and ignition men need practical experience and a technical knowledge of electricity. Certain men charge, rebuild, repair, test, and keep in condition, storage-batteries. A knowledge of chemistry would help a man to become a bat- tery expert. Tire-repair men take care of the splicing, patch- ing, retreading, building up, inside repair, and vulcanizing of casings and tubes that have been disabled. 84 SERVICE BY MACHINIST AND ARTISAN For all of these branches a general education is always an aid, especially because considerable reading must be done to keep pace with new develop- ments in the industry. For a foreman or manager a knowledge of business is an asset. Other trades.—The welder is an artisan whose work is coming more and more into demand. Weld- ing is the art of uniting metals by heating them until they may be fused together. In forge weld- ing the blacksmith’s fire is the heating agent. The oxy-acetylene welder handles a torch or blowpipe, at the tip of which a flame is produced by the burning of a mixture of two gases, acetylene and oxygen. In thermit welding heat is brought about by chemical reaction. There are two kinds of electric welding—resistance and arc. The former is similar to forge welding in that the parts to be welded are heated to a plastic condition and then forced together by means of mechanical pressure. In arc welding the parts are heated until they fuse together without the application of mechanical pressure. The oxy-acetylene flame and the arc are also used often for cutting certain metals. Space fails to speak at length of the garment trades, tailoring, designing, sample making, cutting, machine operating, and hand sewing, or of the fac- tory woodworking trades, or of the jewelry trades, designing, modeling, engraving, stone cutting, melt- ing and rolling, pressing and stamping, and die- making, or of photography, photo-engraving, and three-color work, or of the many crafts connected with commercial baking, or of the other trades, each of which has its own appeal and requires its own training. 85 OUT INTO LIFE Printing.—No discussion of the crafts is com- plete, however, without consideration of the print- ing trades, which in the United States employ nearly half a million people. Composition is the art of putting the types in the forms ready for printing. Under this general head would be placed hand composition, which includes setting up straight matter, advertisements, and job work, linotype, and monotype operation. Press work includes proofreading, which in itself involves a thorough knowledge of English, copy writing, made up from the general suggestions of customers, and printing-press work proper. Bindery work in the simplest form includes receiving and handling printed sheets, counting, straightening, cutting, folding by hand and machine, gathering, stitching, trimming, punching, number- ing, padding, and wrapping. It is evident that printing requires a good educa- tion. One of the greatest men America ever pro- duced, Benjamin Franklin, was proud of being a printer. Automobile men, printers, and all SU artisans need Hiram Golf’s retour What is Hiram Golf’s religion? Hive Golf, the New England cobbler, a character made famous by George H. Hepworth, stated his creed in plain lan- guage: “T am a shoemaker by the grace of God. To the Jedg- ment-seat I'll carry up a sample of the shoes I’ve been makin’, and fall or rise accordin’ as the sample represents good or bad work. Just look at that,” and he took up the battered shoe of a child; ‘‘that belongs to a little feller 86 SERVICE BY MACHINIST AND ARTISAN of six. If he should catch cold some muddy day, and get pneumonia, his father might lose the child. Now, then, I propose to mend them shoes as though my salvation depended on it. God is sayin’ to me, ‘Hiram, I have sot you to makin’ shoes, and I want you to make ’em good; don’t put no paper in the soles, for the sake of a little extra profit; and see that your uppers is well tanned.’ Every time I pull a thread I want to say to myself, “There! that stitch will hold! I’ve put my religion into it.’” Hiram Golf’s religion! How we need it! If you would serve God and man, go into the industrial world and do your part to substitute for the will- ingness to “get by” with slighted work the Hiram Golf spirit of usefulness and craftsmanship. Put your religion into your stitches! You will not only find a subtle happiness in your daily toil, but also open for yourself a path toward financial and all other kinds of success, because in the long run the world does justice only to those who do justice to the world. For DIsScussION 1. If a man gets hurt at his machine, should he be blamed, or the owner of the factory? What are the workmen’s compensation laws of your State? . If a person possesses Hiram Golf’s religion of doing all work well, is it necessary for him to go to church? 3. Will the automobile industry grow as fast in the next ten years as it has in the last ten? 4. Are the number of printing establishments in a city an index of its cultural importance? What reason do you give for your answer? s. Certain persons have called religion “the opiate of the people,” meaning that it makes men contented to 87 S OUT INTO LIFE accept their lot and work hard for oppressive mas- ters when they ought to be awake to the injustice and demanding their rights. Do you think it has this tendency? 6. Is it better for a young machinist to begin work in a small shop or a large one? For FuRTHER STUDY 7. Read Acts 19. 21-41. How would you criticize Demetrius and the silversmiths’ union? What should they have done? Do you think unions make for lawlessness—or for law and order? 8. There are at least twenty-five different machines mentioned in this chapter. What is each one for? g. When was blacksmithing invented? printing? Write an imaginative story of the first blacksmith or a historical sketch of the first printer. to. Of all the trades mentioned in the chapter, which one do you feel you are best cut out for? Give all your reasons why. For REFERENCE Giles and Giles, pages 87-107. Gowin, Wheatley, and Brewer, Chapter XI. S. S. Center, pages 124-130, ‘‘A Potter’s Wheel’; pages 208-217, ‘A Printing Office.’ ; 88 CHAPTER X THE COMMERCIAL TRADES—THE BUSINESS OF BUYING Mucu of the furniture used in the United States is produced in the factories of Grand Rapids. That so many thousands of homes should be enjoy- ing the products of a single community is, when one comes to think of it, little less than a miracle. It could never have been brought about except through our wholesale and retail furniture dealers. Commerce is service.—Now think of the tens of thousands of other commodities distributed in the same way, and you have an idea of the vast- ness of the service of American commerce. Shop- keepers, small and great, by buying in large quan- tities from single sources of supply, and selling as the public requires, so reducing the costs for every- body, are not only making their own living, but helping the world live as well. It has been said: “God could not answer for most people the prayer, ‘Give us this day our daily bread,’ if it were not for the corner grocery man.” The producer of goods needs both the wholesale and retail buyer to help him distribute them. Where, however, there are more distributors of goods than necessary—five stores where two could more economically serve the public—their useful- ness 1s correspondingly curtailed. The present-day trend toward merging or linking retail establish- ments is therefore in many places a movement in 89 OUT INTO LIFE the right direction. Another call for Christian men!—since anybody can be a competitor, but to make a good cooperator it obviously takes the Golden-Rule ability of sharing the other man’s point of view. In spite of the diversity of the goods—battleships and buttons and everything between are articles of trade—there is a similarity in the work of all who buy and sell. The chart of the management of a store for mechandise, shown on the opposite page, may serve as a general model for any retail house, though each trade will require its own modifications. In this chapter we consider specifically the subject of purchasing. Whether this is done by a single person, as in a small store, or by a staff, certain sets of problems must be faced. The buyer must first, as the chart suggests, know what things cost. He must watch the fluctuation of publicly quoted prices. He will ordinarily try to buy wool, for instance, when wool is low, and avoid buying when it is high. Besides the quotations of the market, he will seek special prices upon goods for which he can in some way make it profitable for a seller to give him a reduction. The success of the five-and-ten cent stores is due partly to the large-scale buying which secures special bids from manufacturers. The decisions as to just what, just when, and whence to purchase, are a critical test of a buyer’s judgment. * When the order is placed it may need following up to insure prompt delivery. When the goods are delivered they must be carefully examined and checked up with the specifications of the order, go THE ORGANIZATION OF A STORE (After Gowin, Wheatley and Brewer, and Others) The manager Superintendent of purchasing division Chief of quotations department Head of office for general market quotations Head of office for special bids i Chief of orders department : Chief of stock rooms Head of receiving office Head of inventory office Head of disbursing office Superintendent of selling division Head of inside sales force Salesmen Chief outside agent Canvassers (Retail dealers) Chief of advertising department Superintendent of general office \\Superintendent of credits and collections Superintendent of accounting division Superintendent of shipping OUT INTO LIFE put in place in the stock room, priced, marked, and finally issued to the counters as called for. In some stores this disbursement to the counters is under the selling division, with the inventory office as a link between the buying and the selling. Every store has its own special arrangements. So movable articles are handled. It would be a bit difficult, however, to keep city lots, farm lands, dwelling houses, and other buildings in a stock room! Real estate men must therefore often do business outside their office. They either buy for themselves, with intent to sell when prices are higher, or purchase and sell on commission for other parties. In either case they must be familiar with general market prices and with all circum- stances, legal, architectural, and geographical, which enhance or diminish the value of real estate. Purchasing ability.—A buyer must have perfect technical knowledge of the article he is buying. The Roman proverb, “Caveat emptor’’—‘“Let the buyer beware’’—may not have the force to-day that it did when it was good form to fleece a buyer in proportion as your knowledge exceeded his ignorance; but there are still enough men selling goods who lack the virtue of truthfulness to make it absolutely necessary for a buyer to be able to judge the quality of the wares he buys. Besides, a seller may sometimes in pure carelessness send out defective goods which the buyer, if he knows his business, must discover and refuse. A buyer must possess a sense of relative values. A story is told of James Jerome Hill, who found fame and fortune in building railroads, that once when his young son teased him for a twenty-dollar Q2 THE BUSINESS OF BUYING miniature train he had seen in a toyshop window he told the boy that he would give him the money to buy it the next day. When the next morning came, the shrewd father had provided himself with twenty shining new silver dollars, which he laid down, one by one, in a row, before his son. “Now,” said he, ‘‘you may spend these and buy your train, or you may let the train go and save these for something you may want more later.” How those bright coins shone! The more the boy looked at them the more his desire for the train waned. The boy’s problem, as to whether the train or the twenty dollars would do him more good, is the peculiar problem of every buyer. A grain dealer, for instance, must decide every time he contem- plates sending in an order whether at that time his money is worth more to him in grain or in spot cash. The more he knows about the entire grain market, both from the point of view of the farmer and of the consumer, and about general business conditions, the wiser judgment he will be able to make. Apnreciation of relative values is a rare gift: it is not mere chance that the owners of large concerns are usually more willing to intrust the selling than the buying to hands other than their own. A retailer does all his buying from the point of view of those to whom he will sell. To him “value”’ means always, selling value. A buyer of ladies’ millinery, for example, will not buy hats covered with gold lace, however valuable they may be in themselves, because he knows that women will not wear them. Buyers often receive their best 93 OUT INTO LIFE training in the sales department, where they learn what is salable. Preparation.—For a buyer, then, two lines of preparation are necessary: first, knowledge of the thing to be bought, whether it is a pin, a plow, or a palace. The more complicated the thing is, the greater study it will require. Almost anyone may be a good buyer of cheese cloth, for its points of excellence are soon learned; but only an engineer with a professional training can be a good buyer of electric locomotives. The second line of educa- tion, being more general, is more difficult to acquire. Every buyer must, however, in some way or other, learn discrimination between values. ‘This comes as a result of experience, observation, and memory, though courses in high school and college which call for real thought are useful. Boys who wish to become buyers usually enter the lowest positions in the buying division of the concern they select, and work up. If they have exceptional ability, they may advance, either in that house or another, to offices which command great influence and a high salary. Buying and honor.—When a buyer gives an order he gives his pledged word as a gentleman that he will buy upon the terms agreed upon. It is a con- tract—a solemn promise. Relying upon it, the seller goes to work to fill the order—hires extra labor, perhaps, borrows money from the banks, purchases materials to go into the goods ordered. If the buyer breaks his word, all the business thus built upon it goes to smash. The curse of the business world—or one of the curses—is the buyer who breaks his promise. There 94 THE BUSINESS OF BUYING was a time when contracts, though given only by word of mouth, were usually kept in good faith, but lately cancellation of orders has grown into a serious evil. Defaults of this nature have been made by citizens of every nation of the world— even our own. Not long ago the British Board of Trade sent to the United States Chamber of Com- merce for their action no less than twenty million dollars’ worth of contracts broken by American business men. The call is for buyers who will maintain their own and our country’s honor—for men who are dedicated to Christ and his ideals. If you are such a man, we need you! Let a business man speak—Mr. Oliver M. Fisher, president of the Boston Boot and Shoe Club: I would not venture to suggest the crying need of a background of a religious life except from the viewpoint of a business man who sees in it our only hope for the future. We are becoming an irreligious people, which means an irresponsible people, responsible to neither God nor man. No thoughts of the rights of the other fellow enter our minds. Our whole commercial structure rests upon the sanctity of contracts, and they in turn upon solemn moral and religious obligations. The back- ground of a religious life will make our contracts sacred. Prosperity is of little account and cannot exist without the maintenance of good faith. We need a deeper reli- gious conviction underlying every walk of life. Yes! If you go into business and expect to help your country, especially if you go as a buyer, you must take your code of honor from Christ. Every man a buyer.—Of the thousands of business 28) OUT INTO LIFE failures which take place every year in America, seventy-five per cent are due to unwise buying: of the hundreds of thousands of life failures which take place every year, all are due, in a larger sense, to unwise buying. Our young married people often buy a five-hundred-dollar automobile before they own a two-dollar book. The average Amer- ican spends twenty cents a week for the entire world-wide work of the church, and forty cents a week for ice cream and candy!—and two dollars more for perfumery, soft drinks, chewing gum and other such luxuries which he might be healthier without. We are lacking in a sense of relative values. We need to cultivate the buyer’s judgment and to apply it not only to material things but to life as a whole, carefully weighing luxuries and bodily comforts against learning and religion. Begin early! In the daily decisions you have to make now, get the habit of balancing off alter- natives. A young high-school graduate of pleasant manner, much in demand at parties, readily gave four or five nights a week to affairs of his friends. The expenses he incurred for clothes, dance tickets, and incidentals took almost all his savings, kept him out of college, and so made him less useful, finally, as a citizen and Christian. That young man lacked a buyer’s judgment. No doubt his pleasures with his friends were beneficial, but were they worth the price he paid for them? The kingdom of heaven needs men with buyers’ minds. For Discussion 1. Would you rather be a buyer of real property, live 96 To. THE BUSINESS OF BUYING stock, machinery, tools, electrical devices, agri- cultural products, clothing, furniture, or carriages? Why? Give the reasons why you would turn down each one of the others. . Would your town be better off with more or fewer retail stores? . Which would you prefer to be, the buyer for a whole- sale or a retail house? . Supposing you were given twenty-five dollars to buy books—what would you buy? . Many churches pay more for Sunday-morning music than for religious education. Is this good buying? In what ratio of importance do you place the two? . Enemies of England, from Samuel Adams on, have called her ‘‘a nation of shopkeepers.’’ Could this epithet be fairly applied to America to-day? Is it an epithet to be ashamed of? What is our dom- inant interest? What should it be? For FurtTHER STUDY . Read the famous story Jesus told as it is given in Luke 12. 16-21. In what sense was the man a good buyer—and in what, not? How does a man be- come “‘rich toward God’’? . To be a good citizen what ought a single man with no dependents on a salary of fifteen hundred dollars a year devote to his church? the town charities? his own self-culture? insurance? What ought he to save? . Suppose you have been commissioned by your church to buy a hundred hymn books—the best you can find for the money—get a friend to act as sales- man, and demonstrate the making of a good pur- chase. What questions will you ask? Write a brief theme telling what further preparations 97 OUT INTO LIFE you would need before you actually took up the selling of the article named in answer to Question 1. For REFERENCE H. E. Fosdick, The Manhood of the Master, Chapter X. S. S. Center, pages 96-107: ‘“The Wheat Pit.” 98 CHAPTER XI THE COMMERCIAL TRADES—THE BUSINESS OF SELLING Settinc is another link in the great production- distribution-consumption chain by which business supports the people of the nation. The chart in the last chapter shows how a store might be organ- ized for it. The sales force.—There is an inside sales force in all ordinary stores. The man behind the counter has it in his power, through a pleasant, tactful manner, to build up the business of his depart- ment by winning and holding good customers. His line of natural promotion is indicated on the chart. Many retailers and almost all wholesalers employ men to work up trade outside by calling on pro- spective buyers. Every manufacturing concern has its salesmen on the road. Most positions of this sort require so much traveling that men who object to being long from home do not find them to their liking. Travelers usually receive better pay, how- ever, since fewer men are qualified for their work, than salesmen in the same line at home, and to some men travel has its own fascination. The salesman has a better opportunity than most other men to demonstrate his worth, for the sales he makes are at any time an instant indication of his value to his firm. His ability to secure repeat- orders from old customers and preliminary interest from new ones also is a factor his firm considers. 99 OUT INTO LIFE His also is the advantage of having a personal relation between himself and his purchasers. Ad- vance to whatever post he may, or transfer to whatever firm, these customers will remain loyal to him. A man with a large clientele of this sort is in a position to secure a good wage—or to set up in business for himself. What makes a salesman?—A successful salesman writes in a federal government publication: A salesman must be able to talk fluently and con- vincingly. He must possess a good knowledge of Eng- lish, an understanding of human nature, a thorough knowledge of his wares, a familiarity with business cus- toms, an appreciation of business ethics, and a fund of information regarding general business conditions. If we had to reduce this excellent statement to bare generalities, we might say that there are two essentials for a salesman: a thorough knowledge of the wares he is selling, and an understanding of the man to whom he is selling them. If a salesman does not know his goods, though for a little he may deceive those who are more ignorant than he, he will presently meet the expert who will unmask him, and from then on his repu- tation in the business world is clouded. In many cases knowledge of the goods requires long pre- liminary study. Recently one of the rubber com- panies needed a man as adviser to the management of the sales department. Going over the heads of a number of employees matured in the service, they chose a comparatively young man. Why? In his odd moments this man had been collecting a library on rubber—and learning the contents 100 THE BUSINESS OF SELLING of it. The library proved to be one of the best of its kind in the country, and the young man to be an expert on the theory of rubber manufacture. The company would have given him almost any position he asked for, for with his technical knowl- edge they could not afford to lose him. Even more important in a salesman than knowl- edge of the wares is the mental characteristic we may loosely term ‘“‘selling ability.”” This is in the main a knowledge of human motives. While the buyer must know the relative value of things, the seller is concerned more with people: he must know what they are likely to think and do in given circumstances. Everywhere in the Gospels we come across sentences like the following: “Jesus, knowing their thought, said...” “Knowing at once what they were reasoning within themselves, Jesus said...” “Jesus knew what was in men.”’ Anyone to whom God has given even in slight degree this faculty of understanding people that he bestowed so abundantly upon Jesus should harbor a profound gratitude. It is a gift, but it is a gift which may be cultivated. Although no two people act from the same motives, there are two or three very general prin- ciples upon which all good salesmen plan their conversation with prospective buyers: 1. To win a man’s attention to a proposition one must establish a favorable point of contact with him. Then: 2. To win a man’s interest in a proposition one must fasten it to his other interests. Then: 3. To win a man’s decision upon a proposition IOI OUT INTO LIFE one must lay it before him in clear statement, contagious enthusiasm, and evident sincerity. These principles, or others like them, with all their corollaries and applications, are taught by every firm to its sellers. Why not try yourself out at salesmanship after school hours or during vacation? You might be either a counter clerk or a house-to-house can- vasser. You would make little money, but if you studied yourself in the light of these principles, you would acquire some experience. ‘‘Salesmanship is what ails us.”’—The trickery of selling people what they neither especially want nor need is one of the chief blights on American business. There is an idea abroad that selling is a kind of game which one must win at all costs. A good salesman, some think, is one who can sell anything to anybody, regardless of whether the sale is a service to the purchaser. A man in a large department store puts it: The pleasure of baiting the hook and watching the good old public bolt it! I am one of a band of genial highwaymen, otherwise known as retailers, who supply you with all sorts of things you don’t need, and only charge the market price, plus the cost of tickling your palate. No! This is all very well as an amusing descrip- tion, but too many salesmen make “baiting the hook” their serious aim in life. Can a real Chris- tian sell goods without a thought for the interest of his buyer? Will he make money at his brother’s expense? It is here that you may make your weight felt 102 THE BUSINESS OF SELLING if you enter the profession of selling: you may add your strength to those already doing their best to make the vocation thoroughly Christian—to sell to men only what you would have them, in reversed circumstances, sell to you. In the words of Mr. Filene, the Boston merchant, “‘Business, in order to have the right to succeed, must be of real service to the community.”’ Mr. Filene also points out that the greatest service is to enable people to buy goods cheaply. This is a direct denial of the old idea that a man has a right to get as much as he can for his wares. A man must sell goods for more than he pays for them to recompense him for his labor and the risk of loss he incurs; but his labor and his risk have only a given price. The man who makes an excessive profit was called during the Great War a “profiteer,” and was branded as a robber of his fellow countrymen. Is he anything else in peace time? Advertising. — Salesmen — retailers, wholesalers, travelers, auctioneers, and canvassers—usually work through personal interviews, but the advertiser is the salesman who puts his ideas into print and picture and encourages people to buy by appealing to them through the eye. A government pamphlet outlines his work: Consider the sign over the door, the labels on pack- ages, the leaflet or catalog describing goods, directions for using, sign cards, window posters, mailing cards, and the like; then, the business letter answering inquiries, or soliciting orders, the follow-up system that turns the inquiry into an order, the trade-aid work of many kinds that helps the manufacturer make good distributors of 103 OUT INTO LIFE his dealers—and you have a bird’s-eye view of some forms of advertising work that are almost universally used. Add to these the demand for sales-producing “copy” for newspaper, magazine, and trade-paper adver- tising; the preparation of illustrations and typesetting necessary to put the advertising into effect—and it is at once apparent that an army of workers is needed to carry on this work. This is without taking into consideration outdoor advertising—billboards, bulletins, and painted signs, electrical advertising display, street-car display, street-car advertising, propaganda campaigns, civic and organization advertising, each of which offers fields of great extent. | Advertising calls for all of a man’s mental abil- ity, and the opportunity for promotion is bounded only by the limit of his capacity. There are many schools which give courses in the various branches. The commercial trades, being ‘‘white-collar’’ jobs, are sometimes supposed to call for less energy than the manual occupations. Do not be deceived. Eight hours at a desk or counter is just as fatiguing in its way as eight hours at a machine. Advertising furnishes as great temptations as it does privileges. The temptation is insincerity. How easy to make your silent spokesman say that your goods are one hundred per cent pure—when they are not! The public will believe anything for a while—why not gull them a bit? But can you gull them without making yourself a hypocrite, not to say a common liar? Can you imagine Jesus in his carpenter shop advertising as real quartered oak, wood which was only stained and ‘‘grained”’ to resemble it? 104 a ce ts —_ THE BUSINESS OF SELLING Advertisers with ideals are strongly backing the “truth-in-advertising’”’ movement which they them- selves started. They are realizing that theirs is a privileged position of public trust; and in behalf of their own good name as well as for the public interest they are driving dishonest advertisers out of American business. They are looking for young men to come in and help them in their crusade. Foreign trade.—If you are one who delights in travel, you may find an occupation to your liking in American business in the foreign field. To serve in an American office overseas is to help bind the nations of the world together. The Christian salesman.—It is all very well to say that the crying need in the salesman’s trade is for honor—but how does a man keep himself honor- able amid the terrific temptations of business life? The life of John Huyler helps to answer that question. When he was a very young man with no capital, he decided to go into the candy business. He made only one rule—to sell good candy. Others have started in with a similar rule, but when dis- honest shortcuts to apparent success offered them- selves they let the rule go. Huyler somehow knew the secret of how to stick to the rule. He began by renting space in another man’s store. Soon he was able to rent the whole store, then to buy it, then to rent or buy another—and still others. In his later years, when he had become a very wealthy man, his pastor remarked on one of the checks he handed in to the church the note: For M. P. The next time he saw him he inquired out of curiosity what this stood for. “They mean 105 OUT INTO LIFE ‘My Partner account,’”’ said Mr. Huyler. “But I thought you had built up your business without a partner,” said the minister. ‘‘No,”’ said the man of only one rule, “I have had a Partner from the beginning.”? And the minister understood the secret of how he had stuck to his rule. For Discussion rt. Would you rather be a counter-clerk, traveling sales- man, wholesale salesman, auctioneer, or canvasser? Why? Why would you not choose any one of the others? 2. A seller of lace slightly though regularly cheats his buyers, but as he never remains long in any one town, he has never been called to account and has made money. Is not dishonesty a good policy for him? 3. Criticize the advertisements in a current magazine or newspaper. Why does each attract your atten- tion? or fail to? Why does each really interest you? or fail to? Which most makes you desire to purchase? Has American advertising anything to do with American extravagance? . Some say that every man is, in a sense, either a buyer or seller. Under which head would you classify a farmer? miner? manufacturer? builder? lawyer? doctor? minister? s. Is it in general better for a salesman to stay with one concern or to change to a different employer now and then? 6. How much profit ought a man ordinarily to make on asale? Ten per cent? one hundred per cent? What? Should he have one price for all or, like doctors who have both millionaires and charity cases among their patients, charge more to those customers who have more money? 106 ™ THE BUSINESS OF SELLING For FURTHER STUDY 7. Read Matthew 21. 12-13. Did Jesus then think that selling was wrong? Why did he drive the men out? 8. Write out your observations on the way in which a good salesman sold you something. Was he dressed neatly? Was he gruff? How did he greet you? How did he find out what you wanted? What suggestions did he make? How did he take leave of you? Did he strike you as being a Chris- tian? g. On the basis of the principles of salesmanship given in the chapter, write a letter to an employer asking for a job. How would you “sell yourself’? Is modesty a virtue? 10. Definitely, why do you consider yourself cut out rather for a buyer than a seller—or vice versa? For REFERENCE Boy Scouts, Business, pages 18-20, for selling. Giles and Giles, pages 121-134, for selling; pages 139- 142, for advertising. Gowin, Wheatley, and Brewer, pages 235-240, for selling. S. S. Center, pages 108-123, ‘“The Man Within Him.” 107 CHAPTER XII MEN AND MONEY IF you wished to set up in business for yourself or to increase the size of a business already estab- lished, your first need would be for money—to be converted into equipment and material. You would find money for this useful purpose only in the hands of those who by dint of energy or otherwise had saved a surplus over their current needs. The financial world is sustained by men who have learned to save. Financing a business.—If you were to follow a common practice, you would make your need pub- licy known, and as an inducement to possible investors you might promise to each man who gave a part of the amount needed (in technical terms, who subscribed to a share of stock) a voice in controlling the policy of the business. This would be similar to the vote that each American citizen has in controlling the government’ of his town and nation. As a citizen, however, a man can have but one vote, while as a financier he may have as many votes as he has shares of stock. In our civil government we cannot all be present in Congress to make our laws, and we therefore elect representatives to act for us; so also in com- panies where the stock is held by a number of people, representatives, “‘directors,’’ are elected to meet and direct affairs for the stockholders. The directors put the actual administration of the con- 108 MEN AND MONEY cern into the hands of a competent manager who is employed on a salary. They determine what use to make of the company’s profit; whether, for instance, to apply it to a further expansion of the business, save it for a rainy day, or divide it up into “dividends”? among the stockholders. Some shares do not carry with them the privilege of a vote. The company usually promises to give the holders of such stock a first claim upon any dividend declared or upon the general assets of the company in case it should fail. Concerns much more rarely finance themselves by an issue of bonds. People then lend them money outright, accepting in exchange, in the simplest type of bond, a promise that the money will be paid back at a certain time and a certain interest paid periodically in the meantime. So governments often raise money. A bondholder’s claims upon a company are prior to those of a stockholder. One of the moral problems you may be called upon to help solve lies in this field of finance. As most concerns are at present organized, the profit, if any, goes entirely to the stockholders, on the theory that they furnished the money which made the profit possible. Another idea which is begin- ning to receive support is that the men in the office who manage the concern and work on salary, and the men in the shop who work for wages ought also to share the profits—and the losses, when they come. This viewpoint has led to many so-called “profit-sharing” systems. These vary in form from doles handed out at the end of a good year to faith- ful employees and grants of stock to the workers at the end of certain terms of service, to regular sys- 109 QUT INTO LIFE tems of distribution in which stockholders, manage- ment, and labor share. Some men believe that “profit-sharing” is the solution of the whole prob- lem of capital versus labor, and it is certain that in many cases where a scheme of the sort has been attempted, the returns to the company, both in money and good feeling, have been even beyond expectation. Mr. Milton S. Hershey, who for years has been working this out in his chocolate factories, feels, to judge from his own words, a positive ex- hilaration in the thought that he has discovered the way to treat the men who work for him as he would wish to be treated himself. This may be the field of your call to life service. It takes men of clear vision and iron nerve to con- vert business into more Christian forms. But what is more needed? Credit.—Thanks to the ‘credit’? system, com- paratively little actual money is used in the com- merce of the United States. Credit is postponed cash payment. The system has obvious advan- tages. It relieves a man from continually with- drawing the money he has invested. If a man owned a house, and little else, but desired to buy an automobile, on a strictly cash basis he would be compelled to sell his house to pay the automobile agent. By the use of credit he simply gives the dealer a written promise that he will pay him at a later date and that in the meantime he will give him periodically a small amount of interest for the privilege of delaying the main payment—and the car is his. Then he will set about earning enough to make this payment and so be saved from selling his house. IIO MEN AND MONEY Banking.—Let us suppose the dealer needed spot cash and the householder would not pay him that way. Under a cash system the dealer would lose his sale; but on a credit basis he would accept the note of promise (technically, ‘the bill of exchange’’) and then sell it to a third person for what it was worth. He would thus make both his sale and his money. This third person who handles notes in modern business is the bank. We often think of a bank merely as a place to put money for safekeeping, or for bearing interest, but it is much more than that. It engineers the credit system of a community by buying and holding the many kinds of notes of promise. It is able to pay interest on deposits because of the interest it receives on these notes. These notes of promise are “negotiable,” that is, they may pass through any number of hands and represent any number of business transactions before reaching the bank. They are not money, but they are as good as money, for it is known that a bank will pay money for them. With them American business men are able to do twenty-four dollars’ worth of business for every cash dollar used. Through our Federal Banking System, which cor- relates the work of all our banks, the exchange of notes of credit is reduced to its simplest terms. Let me introduce you to John DeHart Harrison, who, though he is a young man in the banking business, can give you an inside view of it: The compensations of banking? Making enough to live on in comparative comfort, and the prestige and power of one’s business connection, are important con- ITI OUT INTO LIFE siderations but certainly do not constitute determining factors. On the other hand, working under almost con- stant pressure where things of importance are usually happening, the stimulus of continuous competition, and the assurance that the opportunity is there as soon as you are ready for it, are things that strongly appeal to the man of normal ambition who is not looking for a sinecure. The man in a trust company cannot expect to make a name for himself or a fortune overnight. Final success, if there is such a thing, comes, he knows, only after years of development. There are some of us who can do our best only when we find inspiration. Here, I think, the banking house of to-day holds something distinctive for a man. It must win and keep the confidence and support of a discrimi- nating public and must give honest service. Such an institution cannot afford to stoop to petty, questionable things. It must stand out always for high principles; it must and does try to raise the standards of finance and general business and attempts in every possible way to educate the public to the point where they will demand the high standards which it advocates. Manifestly, bankers must be trustworthy. What the banks are to our financial system, trusty men are to the banks—a bulwark. And borrowers must be trustworthy too: credit is often extended to men simply on their general reputation, without any security being placed in the hands of the lender. The very word ‘“‘credit’’? comes from the Latin credere, “‘to trust.’? Yet it has been said that Christianity is not needed by business! Insurance.—Every business man knows that stable conditions are best for trade. The smaller the element of chance, the better. Wrecks on rail- 112 MEN AND MONEY roads or highways and at sea, earthquakes, fire, and pestilence—these are some of the circumstances which make for uncertainty. Three centuries ago a group of shipowners who met in Lloyd’s Coffee House decided to enter into an agreement that if any one of them suffered a loss at sea, the rest would give him financial assistance. Upon this principle all insurance is based: that the losses of the individual should be borne by the many. In- surance is the branch of finance exclusively devoted to reducing the effects of chance. An insurance agent has all the opportunity of any salesman to build up his business. Promotions to positions as agency managers, superintendents, and field supervisors in life, fire, accident, or other insurance companies are constantly given to men of ability and experience. The financial returns of insurance salesmen depend almost entirely upon each man’s ability. Begin- ners should have at least a high-school education, and more advanced training is always an asset. A successful insurance agent once said: “‘I am in the Christian ministry! I spend my time teaching people to look after themselves and those who are near and dear to them—by insuring against mis- fortune. I doubt if there is any greater pleasure in life than that which is mine when, after some disaster—death, or fire, or other—I carry to the survivors the check from my insurance company. It is a symbol of man’s care for man.” This is worth thinking over. Brokerage.—‘‘Brokers’’ make a business of buy- ing and selling for others, stocks, bonds, and other such substitutes for money. This business requires 113 OUT INTO LIFE a buyer’s instinct to the nth power, for buying a block of stock is really buying part of a business. The liquid flow of capital, which is the life-blood of business, would be absolutely impossible without the work of our brokers. One hears much of speculation in stocks in Wall Street and other financial centers, and there are failures reported from this cause almost every day. Business could well do without plungers. It is here that the Christian broker who is really trying to be of service can make his weight felt. By eternal vigilance he can discover and assist in running out of business men who have a perversion for gambling in stocks, and by his own integrity and careful methods he can help hold the business world to a high Christian level. Accounting.— Wherever money is concerned there must be accounting. A competent accountant, therefore, who knows the method of present-day business is no mean citizen of the financial world. A man trained as an accountant may remain in his profession and establish a large clientele, or he may gradually interest himself in some one indus- trial or commercial concern and eventually turn his entire attention to management. His salary limit is wholly dependent upon his own ability. His success will depend largely upon his judgment and his imagination. Upon a background of good general education a man who has an aptitude for mathematics and organization can make himself an accountant by the study of theoretical and practical account- ing, auditing, economics, corporation finance, and business management. This means years of training 114 MEN AND MONEY —at least two—preferably four. There are local colleges in every large business district where the requisite courses are given. Young men often—and wisely—take a short-time position in a business office while they are educating themselves in the theory. Public accountants are public servants. John Alexander Cooper, C. P. A., says of his calling: There is no profession, not excepting that of the min- istry or of the law, in which it is more imperative that the practitioner be governed by the highest code of morality—so great is the influence which our profession can and does exercise upon business affairs. Since money is the index of business strength, the financial men, bankers, brokers, and the like, who direct the larger investments of money, wield real power. They can weaken a crooked concern and strengthen an honest one. The bankers in the towns and cities throughout the country in general have a most healthy influence. What a pride America can take in her Henry P. Davison and the other international financiers who have de- voted their lives to build peace between the nations! Give us a nation of Christian financial men to-day, and to-morrow we will have something like a Chris- tian nation—and even possibly a Christian world. For DIscussion 1. Is money good or bad for the human race? Why? 2. Some say that all the profits of a business belong to the workers, for they are the only ones who do the work, and that no dividends should ever be paid on mere money investments, since money does not work. What do you say? 115 Io. _ OUT INTO LIFE . Should a man legally bankrupt try to pay his debts? . Are there more lucky breaks for men in finance than in other business enterprises? . Why is gambling a menace to sound business? . Should a certified public accountant advertise his talents as a merchant his wares? For FurRTHER STUDY . What did Jesus mean in the words recorded in Luke 16. 9? What do the commentaries and Bible dic- tionaries say? . If you were an international banker, how could you promote the cause of peace? Ask a banker. . Describe the profit-sharing plan in use in some fac- tory you know about. How could you best live and help live—by being a promoter (one who raises money for business enter- prises), a banker, an insurance man, a broker, or a C. P. A.? Definitely, why? For REFERENCE Boy Scouts, Business, pages 14-17, for insurance. Giles and Giles, pages 80-86, for banking. ». 9. Center, pages 77-80, ““The Romance of a Busy Broker’; pages 81-95, ‘““The Woman and Her Bonds.” 116 CHAPTER XIII CLERICAL WORK: THE FOUNDATION OF BUSINESS In somewhat the same sense that manufacturing, building, and similar trades are based mainly upon machine work, so commerce depends largely upon desk work. Machine operators and desk clerks are sometimes distinguished as hand workers and brain workers. No distinction could be more absurd. Both vocations call for the use of both brains and hands. General clerical work.—A missionary in interior Turkey, going one morning recently to the city post office, found the mail dumped in the Turkish fashion in a pile on the floor, whence the dozen or more people who were expecting mail were attempt- ing to rescue their own. Being a friend of the postmaster, the missionary suggested that the mail might better have been distributed. He replied, “We have not had time—it has been here only four days!’ But the missionary had come prepared: he drew from his pocket a clipping from a news- paper which stated the number of letters and telephone calls received and efficiently handled every day in a large business concern in America, a number which ran into the high thousands. The official read it with growing scorn and handed it back: “‘A newspaper lie—a humanly impossible task!” The task of receiving, classifying, and answering 117 OUT INTO LIFE the daily mail and handling other business papers by which even a medium-sized concern is deluged would be humanly impossible without an army of clerks, keen, quick, and accurate, who know the technique of office work. A clerk must know the various indexing and filing systems in use; and in an office of any size he must know how to operate the various labor- saving machines. Adding machines have been in use for many years, but to-day calculating machines which, in the hands of skillful clerks, are capable of almost every mathematical wizardry, are installed in all large houses. Every time goods are sold on the floor of a department store, every time goods are bought, every time any man of the millions employed in manufacturing and in the other trades is paid, calculations must be made in the accounting departments. This inconceivable volume of cler- ical labor called for by American business is readily handled by the clerk with his pen and ink and his machine. The benefits derived from general clerical work are by no means insignificant. A clerk has, or may have, the pleasure of knowing that he is useful. Without him the clock of business would stop and our whole national life collapse. The work has its own fascination for people who are fond of doing things systematically. The clerk, being in close touch with the manage- ment, is not seldom raised to a position of executive responsibility. If he possesses qualities of leader- ship and has had sufficient commercial training, he may be made office manager. The office manager is the foreman of the whole 118 THE FOUNDATION OF BUSINESS office force. He has to see that work passes through the office with all speed and smoothness. This calls for a knowledge of people, tact to deal with them, ability to organize the classifying and filing of papers, together with good general knowledge of business methods and of the business world. The average American high-school graduate will not take long in learning the fundamentals of general clerical work, especially if he has a native liking for arithmetic. In this occupation, however, as in others, the young man who has the best train- ing stands the best chance for promotion. There is a difference between a Christian clerk and an unchristian clerk. Where does it lie? A man who knows that he is working in a friendly world and that by performing his useful daily task he is really helping his brother men, not to say his Father in heaven—such a man surely goes to his office with greater joy than a man who sees neither rime nor reason in the interminable grind of setting down figures. Will there not also be a difference in the kind of work they do? Longfellow’s words are still familiar: “Tn the elder days of Art Builders wrought with greatest care Each minute and unseen part, For the gods see everywhere.”’ It is as such a builder that the Christian clerk regards himself. His work is done under the eye of his Father. It is therefore painstaking, accurate, patient, strong. Note the coincidence: It is just such qualities which make for success and promotion! 11g OUT INTO LIFE Bookkeeping.—The profession of accountancy has already been discussed. The most natural entrance to it is through bookkeeping. Certain savages cannot count over ten. What would one of them do in face of such a problem as daily confronts a bookkeeper!—two hundred barrels of flour sold, money received for eight hundred barrels previously sold, one hundred barrels sold on an installment plan, fifty barrels damaged in transit, five thousand dollars borrowed, interest reckoned and paid on a debt, insurance premiums due on a dozen different policies, etc.—all of these and one hundred other items the successful bookkeeper handles with ease and decision. Bookkeeping to-day means keeping books accord- ing to the double-entry system, whereby every transaction is recorded both on the side of debits and credits, the one a check upon the other. Amer- ican business owes a debt it cannot repay to the clerk who invented this method and to the clerks to-day who by its use keep the business world balanced. Besides the possible advancement into account- ancy from bookkeeping, there are other channels of promotion. A trained man may become an expert in a single field, such as cost-accounting or auditing, or he may fit himself for the position of head bookkeeper in a big business institution. The bookkeeper who knows his business is sure of permanent employment. He is rarely released when business depression calls for retrenchment in a company’s pay roll. Generally speaking, the more one knows of the science of accounts, the higher he will rise as a 120 THE FOUNDATION OF BUSINESS bookkeeper. Perhaps you have already studied the rudiments of bookkeeping in the public high school. There are excellent private business schools throughout the country; and many _ universities now have their departments of commerce. What has been said of the Christian clerk holds true of the Christian bookkeeper. He finds a joy in working and maintains a standard of excellence in workmanship that his unfortunate unchristian brother does not possess. His brother is poor in comparison, no matter how much greater his salary may be. “But,” you may reflect, “there are so many bookkeepers in the world, how can I with any eagerness anticipate becoming simply another book- keeper?”? Only remember: God did not make anyone of us to be, and will not reward anyone for being, a man of special distinction. He did make us to be, and will give us his own reward for being, useful helpers in his growing kingdom. The sense of being such a helper is one of the few things worth living for. A tremendous partnership! And yet the humblest may have it. Each man must do his share. Snowflakes in the form of glaciers have chiseled our continent! And that is what all of us are: snowflakes at work on a continent called the Kingdom of Heaven. Stenography.—A man who can write as fast as a person naturally speaks earns his salary. Cer- tain law court stenographers who do perfect work receive a high salary, but these are as exceptional as they are high. The chief advantage of the occupation is stated in an official publication of the United States Government: 121 OUT INTO LIFE In no other occupation is one thrown into such con- stant and close contact with the business executive to whose advantage it is to promote an employee who has shown capacity for more important and profitable work. Many prominent men might be named who owe their success to some extent to their ability to write shorthand. They had the chance to go to school to the best teachers of business in the world, that is, the executive heads of their respective concerns. A pamphlet advertising stenographic positions for young men puts down the following as necessary qualifications: ; . Character. . Good general health. . A forward-looking and optimistic mental attitude. . Training in English. . A knowledge of common business customs. . Facility in the use of figures. Num WwW DN With these as a foundation, a high-school grad- uate should be able to cultivate an expert acquaint- ance with shorthand in from six months to a year. Secretarial work.—While simple stenography is a first stepping-stone to an executive position, the step is usually taken through the office of private secretary. This position is much larger than that of stenographer, but a good secretary must have shorthand at his command. A government pamphlet outlines the duties: The trained secretary relieves the executive of all de- tail by keeping him informed as to important happenings in the business world that may be of particular interest; by making notes of appointments and preparation of papers and speeches; by standing between him and the 122 THE FOUNDATION OF BUSINESS public, when the demands upon his time make it neces- sary to deny requests for interviews without in any way offending those who are refused; by attending conferences, and making notes on important points; by arranging for transportation and hotel accommodations in connection with traveling, and, in every way, by keeping the execu- tive’s time free for the more important managerial re- sponsibilities devolving upon him. Why are stenographers and secretaries who are out-and-out Christians so much in demand? Is it not because their position is, first and last, one of trust? Which man is likely to be more trust- worthy, the one who is trying to be like Christ, or the one who is quite indifferent? This is a question that only you can answer for yourself. It is a question that you cannot avoid answering if you would be your best self. The Federal Civil Service.—The greatest em- ployer in America is the United States government. If you are inclined toward clerical work, or, indeed, toward any other occupation, it would be prudent for you to look up the possibility of the federal service. Five hundred thousand persons are em- ployed by Uncle Sam in this service, about one tenth of them in Washington, forty thousand appointments being made every year. Before you apply for a position, however, be certain to look up the possibilities of promotion in that department. Detailed information may be secured from “The United States Civil Service Commission, Wash- ington, D. C.”’ The army, navy and marine corps.—The army, navy, and marine corps offer practically as many types of vocations as are found in civil life. If 123 OUT INTO LIFE you are at all inclined to serve your country in any of these “‘services,’’ write to your congressman. He will tell you what advantages they afford and how to enlist in them. Now and then a scandal is unearthed in one of our government departments which reveals the plot of a group of men without Christian conscience who have been stealing money from the public treasury. They are more dangerous to the nation than an invading army. Our only deliverance is to keep our national offices filled with honest, God- fearing men. Young men hurry to enlist in the service of their country in time of war: are you needed any less in time of peace? For DIscussion 1. Girard, the wealthy merchant, once ordered a clerk to perform a task the clerk thought unchristian. The clerk refused and was discharged. The next day Girard highly recommended him ‘as a man of principle” to another merchant. Did the clerk do right? Was he loyal? Was Girard justified in discharging him? . At one time there was debate whether every: person should be taught to write. Has the time come now when every person should be taught to write shorthand ? 3. Would you rather serve your country in the army or navy? Why? Can a man in ordinary civil life be of quite so much service to his country as a military or naval man? 4. A stenographer recently discovered that his chief was defrauding his clients. What should he have done about it? s. Of a bookkeeper and stenographer, which has the 124 iS) THE FOUNDATION OF BUSINESS better chance for promotion in a bank? in a de- partment store? in a factory? 6. Many of the speeches made by public men are written by their secretaries. Is this a justifiable practice? For FurtTHER STUDY 4 7. Jesus on many occasions condemned the ‘‘scribes.”’ Why? Were they like our scribes or clerks? Are clerks likely to become men who do not think for themselves? 8. Interview a bookkeeper and make a list of the details for which he is responsible. 9. Interview a stenographer and do the same. 10. Where would you do better work, as the manager of a large office force or as the executive’s private secretary. Give reasons in detail. For REFERENCE Boy Scouts, Business, pages 1-13, 20-23. Giles and Giles, pages 134-139. Gowin, Wheatley, and Brewer, pages 242-246, for clerical work; pages 256-263, for civil service. S. S. Center, pages 42-45, ‘“The Mail Order House.’ 125 CHAPTER XIV THE HUMAN SIDE Tue human race would be foolish to do anything which would cripple and wear out its own members, but each of us becomes so interested in building up his own business and increasing the size of his own pay envelope that we often forget to ask whether other people are getting a fair living. Too much work.—One of our great industries from its beginning employed men in certain kinds of labor for twelve hours a day and seven days a week. But of late the leaders in the industry have reached the conclusion that so many hours of work per week make too severe a strain upon men for their own good and do not leave them proper time for recreation, sleep, and the duties of their own homes. If you go into industry, you will have the priv- ilege of casting your lot with those men who are lending their influence to outlaw the idea that things may be produced at the expense of men. Child labor.—It is not only men who are some- times worked too hard for their good. Says Harold Cary: I have seen seven-year-old boys and girls who work regularly ten hours a day on their hands and knees in New Jersey; fourteen-year-olds, in Pennsylvania coal mine breakers; boys and girls in New England cotton mills; in Wisconsin factories; in New York tenements.? 1 Courtesy of Collier’s The National Weekly. 126 THE HUMAN SIDE Collier’s Weekly points out that This nationwide crime of child labor is not dying away. Why? Because stupid and greedy parents want to work their kids, and careless employers let them do it. The last census (1920) found 1,060,858 children between ten and fifteen at work. Children at work, but under ten, were not counted.’ If you are to fight the child labor evil, you will have to do more than make an inquiry regarding the age of those who apply to you for employment. You will be called to make your influence felt in the community outside of your business, to teach parents the value of education for their children and to convince them that they are committing a crime when they keep their children from healthy play and sufficient sleep. Too little work and too small a wage.—Perhaps, when you know these people at first hand, you will find that the trouble lies deeper yet—that some of these poor folk are so often out of employ- ment or, when they are employed, get such a miser- able wage that they are virtually forced to put their children to work. You will certainly study how to arrest the periodic scourge of unemploy- ment, and possibly you will conclude that wages in general ought to be higher. Industrial casualties.—Over twenty-three hun- dred men were killed in the coal mines in 1919, almost five hundred in the metal mines, and about seven thousand on the railroads; and yet there is no good reason why there should have been a 2 Ibid. 127 OUT INTO LIFE single such death. And as for injuries, more or less serious, industry is full of them. Within the last years the responsible men in industry have been making their mines and mills accident-proof. ‘The fly-wheel that was formerly exposed and monthly took its toll of broken legs or arms or necks is now sheathed. The miner has his perfected detector for poisonous gases. Pro- tective devices‘of all sorts are being used increas- ingly. Perhaps even more shocking than the accidents are the diseases due to the dust-laden and chemically poisonous air in some factories and mines. Lin- gering and terrible plagues visit the men who work, unprotected, in lead paint, or over an emery wheel, or at any of a score of other tasks. But good blow- ers will chase the poisons from the air and are now used for dangerous occupations by reputable man- ufacturers. Other inventions have reduced other: abuses, but there is much yet to be done in im- proving conditions in some quarters. You yourself may be the means, when you have made your place in the world, of saving the lives of thousands. Spiritual casualties.—You may have read the oft-quoted words of Carlyle: Tt is not to die, or even to die hungry, that makes men wretched. But it is to live miserable, we know not why; to work sore and yet gain nothing. It is to die slowly all our life long, imprisoned in a deaf, dead, Infinite Injustice. Have workers in the business and industrial world never impressed you with the dullness of their lives?—you with your bubbling, enthusiastic youth? Is it nothing to you? To give men a 128 THE HUMAN SIDE sense of dignity, of manhood!—to make these who work with you feel the usefulness, the grandness, the romance of their life! To do this is not only to bring joy and color into lives that are drab, but also to make life for yourself richer than ever you guessed. It is hard to see how you or anyone can do this without calling upon religion. Here is the story, told by Charles W. Wood, of a man who took the dullness out of the lives of his business associates by treating them as brothers: Arthur Nash was president of the A. Nash Company. There were twenty-nine employees. They were working for starvation wages, and still the company was not making a profit. Mr. Nash decided he would start in paying Christian wages instead. But what were Chris- tian wages? The only answer he could arrive at was the Golden Rule: Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them. The twenty-nine were notified of wage increases ranging from fifty to three hundred per cent. In two months the firm had an excellent balance in the bank! Jt had done three times as much business as it had done tn the same period the year before! Only one addi- tional employee had been hired !3 In 1918 the A. Nash Company did only $132,- 190.20 worth of business all told. Since the begin- ning of the Golden Rule period in ror9, this figure has increased to many millions. The company now employs thousands of workers and is the largest business of its kind in the United States. Its rise is the amazement of the business world. $ Courtesy of Collier’s The National Weekly. 129 OUT INTO LIFE “Do you think your scheme would work with the damned aliens and Bolsheviks in our shop?” Mr. Nash is often asked. “Tt won’t work with aliens,” is his answer, ‘‘and it won’t work with those who are damned. It will work only with brothers and sisters in the human family.’’ b Competition and cooperation.—There are two well- established methods of dealing with competitors. A great railroad company once operated a line of boats between certain ports on the Pacific Coast. Their fares were high. An independent company started in competition, with a more reasonable schedule of fares. The railroad company, perceiv- ing they were being beaten, lowered their fares to almost nothing. They could do this temporarily because of their large resources. Traffic came their way again, and the independent line failed. Then the rates went up again to the original figures! This is one way of handling competitors—to crowd them out of business. It is a survival of the fittest—if I do not eat you, you will eat me. There is another method. Recently young Doctor Banting discovered a way to mitigate the dreadful disease of diabetes. People suffering from this illness, many of whom are wealthy, would give all the wealth they have, to be cured. Had the doctor made his treatment a secret, he could have become a millionaire in a year. What did the fool do? He did what any doctor would have done—told all his competitors about his discovery so that it could be used by anybody anywhere. Paul called himself a “‘fool in Christ’”’ for about the same reason. ‘ Courtesy of Collier’s The National Weekly. 130 THE HUMAN SIDE We might all wish that modern business had in it more “fools” of this sort. But face the facts. Such an act is possible in the medical world, for from its beginning this has been part of the ethics of the profession. But in the business world there is no such precedent of generosity. If, in the jungle, the deer discovered secret means of protecting himself against the tiger, should he tell the tiger all about it? There are, indubitably, men in the business world who know nothing better than the way of the tiger. If a man in business invents a device, he has it patented to prevent others from copying what is rightfully his own. No doctor would patent and exploit what was discovered by a fellow prac- titioner, but there are plenty of men in business who would capture another’s invention if they could, patent it, and make a fortune on it, even if, as has sometimes been the case, the inventor himself went to the poorhouse. Has not the in- ventor to consider his own family? Must he not protect himself, so that he will not be hunted down by tigerish competitors? You are beset by a real dilemma. To treat your competitors as you would like to be treated yourself, or to combat them, lest they annihilate you—this is the problem that confronts a Chris- tian business man every day of his life. From this conflict no one man may deliver him- self, for its roots are grounded in the world around him. He cannot move faster toward the Golden Rule than that world, but he can exert his strength in pushing that world in the right direction. His task is to get the rest to act with him, to lift the 131 OUT INTO LIFE ethics of his whole society to the plane, say, of medicine. To do this he will contribute his energies where the Christian spirit is growing up in the community at large—in reform movements, in the various business clubs and trade associations organ- ized for good will, in the churches, and, at every opportunity, by word and example, in his own business. In the frontier town every business man had to carry a gun to protect himself. Many good men saw this practice was contrary to the Christian spirit and wanted to give it up. But if any one of them had put by his gun, he would have been held up the next day and robbed. All they could do was to work toward converting the community as a whole to the idea of disarming, and to show their own eagerness to give up their guns when the rest did. Finally they won the day. So the dilemma of ideals versus circumstances in which every man finds himself must be solved in the business world. That world is in process of development, gradually being educated by its Christian members. Be not impatient! Work toward the more per- fect day, and meanwhile thank God that you have the spirituality to feel the dilemma. Your inward revolt at being compelled by present circumstances to obey the law of the jungle is your mark of divin- ity. The brute accepts that law as final. You follow the gleam! For DIscussIon 1. Is there any hope of preventing unemployment per- manently ? ? 132 Io. G. W. D. W. Clark, Child Labor and the Social Conscience. THE HUMAN SIDE . Do you not think that a man with the business ability of Mr. Nash would succeed whether or not he organized his business according to the Golden Rule? . Had you been a director of the railroad company which operated the boats on the Pacific Coast, how would you have voted to meet the competi- tion of the independent company? . Who are likely to be more useful in solving the human problems of industry—the young men or the old men? Why? . Since in our free country men may choose their own place of work, does an industry do wrong in hav- ing a twelve-hour-a-day schedule for labor? Why? . Are Rotary Clubs and similar organizations worth the money they cost? Why? For FurtTHER STUDY . Read what Jesus said in Matthew 5. 39-42. Can business men apply these principles in modern competition? If so, how? Does our chapter give you any light on the matter? . What is the present status of child labor reform in the country? In your State? . Write a synopsis of the life of John Joseph Eagan, of Atlanta, or of some other man who has made a notable contribution on the human side of busi- ness or industry. Does business or industry appeal to you as a field for life-work? Perhaps you are undecided. Think carefully and write down what attracts and what repels you in this field. For REFERENCE Fiske, Jesus’ Ideals of Living, Chapter XVII. 133 CHAPTER XV THE “PROFESSIONS”—RESEARCH AND ART HuMAN beings, to live a complete life, need not only things but ideas. The professions.—The occupations which deal mainly with ideas are called professions. The doctor, the lawyer, the minister, and other pro- fessional men are each experts in one department of the world’s ideas. Nonprofessional men of course use ideas in their business, and professional men are concerned with things, but in general the stock in trade of the nonprofessional man is material, and of the professional, mental. This is no invidi- ous distinction, things being as necessary as ideas, and ideas as things. The research worker.—One of the discoverers of ideas is the scientist. In the words of J. Arthur Thomson: Science reads the secret of the distant star and anato- mizes the atom; foretells the date of the comet’s return and predicts the kinds of chickens that will hatch from a dozen eggs; discovers the laws of the wind that bloweth where it listeth and reduces to order the disorder of disease. Science is always setting forth on Columbus voyages, discovering new worlds and conquering them by understanding.! 1From Outline of Science, by J. Arthur Thomson. Courtesy of G. P. Putnam’s Sons, Publishers, New York and London. 134 RESEARCH AND ART The Great War, our commercial prosperity, and many other matters which to-day seem to us to be the most momentous circumstances of our era, will doubtless, one hundred years hence, have faded into insignificance in comparison to our contem- porary scientific discoveries. Science may be roughly divided into five branches: geology and astronomy, or the study of the earth and the heavenly bodies; chemistry and physics, or the study of matter; biology, or the study of life; psychology, or the study of the mind; and soci- ology, or the study of human society. Science may be interpreted to be synonymous with research and so cover the whole field of scholarship, including, if sociology is broadly construed, even such subjects as history, economics, and biblical criticism. The general procedure of the scientist, whatever his field may be, is always the same. His first step is to get the facts. Isaac Newton’s discovery of the law of gravitation was preceded by a thorough observation of the motions of planets. This work had been done for him by Kepler. The scientist’s second step is to arrange the facts. This is a process of analysis and comparison. In this also Newton was indebted to Kepler, who had noted that each planet describes an elliptical orbit, and that the sun occupies one focus of the ellipse. The scientist’s third step to which all the others are preliminary is to draw the inferences arising from the facts in hand. Newton inferred that the sun and the planets attracted each other according to a certain law—which has ever since been asso- ciated with his name—that ‘every particle of 135 OUT INTO LIFE matter in the universe attracts every other particle with a force whose magnitude is directly as the product of the masses and inversely as the square of their distance from one another.”’ The scientist’s fourth step is to verify his general- izations. Newton was in constant correspondence with the astronomer-royal in order to test his law with every new and refined measurement of the planetary orbits. Rewards.—There is a romance about science. Here is Walter Reed, just after he had discovered the cause of yellow fever, writing, ‘‘I could shout for very joy that heaven has permitted me to make this discovery.’”? What would one not give to be a Charles Darwin, who imparted to the world an idea which has revolutionized all thinking! Few of us will achieve such greatness, but even the humblest scientist may have the essential rewards of his profession. Chiefest of all is his chance to pursue truth, live with it, and make it prevail. The world in general is so much interested in things that it does not pay large wages to those who are devoted to the discovery of ideas. Per- haps it is for this reason that so few men in our country are pursuing the vocation of pure science, unyoked to any more lucrative profession. The great universities provide a living for a few research workers whose ability has been proved. Some of our large industrial establishments do the same: the rubber companies, dye works, electrical concerns, camera manufacturers, each have their staff of experimenters, and among these are a few distinguished scientists who are given free rein to 136 RESEARCH AND ART work out their own ideas. The federal government and such institutions as the Rockefeller Foundation for research have also built up similar experimental departments. But generally the profession of pure science is yoked with another which pays better—most often with teaching. Many believe that research should always be combined with teaching, for the stim- ulus that each lends the other. When a man begins his career as a teacher his courses are usually so elementary that there can be little connection between them and his research work. He must make the latter an avocation for off-hours. A man who has achieved standing as a professor, however, may usually plan his courses to corre- spond with his research. In the same way the industrial scientist must at first guide himself during working hours by the arbitrary demands of his company. When Charles P. Steinmetz came to America in _ his twenties, knowing hardly a word of English, alone, penniless, he found employment with the General Electric Company and did what he was asked to do. Five years later, sure of his loyalty and judg- ment, the concern made him chief expert and per- mitted him wide latitude in research. If you have enjoyed your courses in subjects which require observation, such as elementary physics; if you have not been one of those who “abhor mathematics’; if you have something of the ability to distinguish between essentials and nonessentials; and if you really like to study, you should doubtless give consideration to a life of constructive scholarship of some sort. 137 OUT INTO LIFE There are, however, so few opportunities for pure research that, unless you have independent means, you should fit yourself, if science is your dream, for teaching, or industry, or some other kindred livelihood. There can be no such thing as a scientific career for you or anyone else without preparation. Edison cut hours from his normal time for sleep, to study. The quickest way to prepare is to take work in a good college and, if possible, graduate work in a school which specializes in the department of your choice. A generation ago it was believed by many that in order to become a good scientist a man must give up his religion. The number of unreligious scientists gave some weight to this opinion. To-day, however, by contrast, outstanding scientists are also outstanding men of religion. Robert Andrews Millikan, winner of the Nobel prize in science, himself a deeply religious man, has published a long list of other distinguished men of like con- victions, beginning with the names: Charles D. Walcott, President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Henry Fairfield Osborn, Director of the American Museum of Natural History. Edward G. Conklin, head of the Biology Depart- ment of Princeton University. Religion and science are, in fact, in close coopera- tion. They both take it for granted that the world is an orderly unit made up of a number of parts. They come at the problem from opposite ends: science is interested in the parts, and out of them, as they are one by one discovered, is seeking to 138 RESEARCH AND ART build up a description of the whole; while religion is first of all interested in the Whole—in God, who is all and in all—and by the Whole it interprets the parts. Each supplements the other: a universe scientifically described in all its parts but not religiously interpreted in terms of God’s great purpose is worthless—a universe religiously inter- preted but not scientifically known is empty. There is a call as insistent for scientists to stand squarely for religion as for Christians to support the work of the scientists, the truth seekers. Art and literature.—There are many arts—music, painting, sculpture, architecture, town-planning, and others—but they have in common the aim of contributing beauty to the world. Rewards.—As in pure science, so in art, there is little or no financial return. Unless one happens to have inherited wealth, it is only in later years, when one’s name is made and one is comparatively secure, that he can cut loose entirely and devote himself to unalloyed art. The artist, however, also has the expedient of entering a paying profession akin to his own in which a portion of his time is left him to pursue his passion. Teaching is possible. Many of the greatest artists of the opera and concert stage continue teaching even when they are in their prime. Artists can usually make an alliance with some form of profitable business. The pen and brush artist has a field in illustrating books or drawing cartoons. The musician or the actor may put himself in the care of a theatrical manager, and though this means that he must keep his eyes 139 OUT INTO*EIPE open to public demands, it also means that he will have some chance to follow his art. “Three fourths of my calling has been and is drudgery,’ says a musician. Since the artist works through a medium—paint, voice, instrument, or some other—he must go through the long appren- ticeship of mastering that medium, and even after he has made himself master of it, he must continue practice. Victor D. Brenner, designer of the Lincoln penny, devoted five years in Paris to continuous study. And even when the artist has achieved a technique, he must maintain it by continued exer- cise. Paderewsky has said that to be at his best he must practice on the piano four hours a day. “Tf I miss a day, I notice it—two days, my wife notices it—three days, all the world notices it!” Stevenson said no one could be an artist unless art was ‘‘the ardor of his blood’’; but if you do love one of the arts so much that it is a form of religion to you, as it was to Burne-Jones, you are doubtless called to take it up. H. Walford Davies quotes Burne-Jones exclaiming: That was an awful thought of Ruskin’s, that artists paint God for the world. There’s a lump of greasy pig- ment at the end of Michael Angelo’s hogbristle brush, and by the time it has been laid on the stucco there is something there that all men with eyes recognize as divine. Think of what it means. It is the power of bringing God into the world—making God manifest. Literature.—There is one form of art to which, at one time or another, almost everyone aspires. If you like books and like to write, if you possess that craving for perfection which makes you un- 140 RESEARCH AND ART happy as you write until you have thought of just the proper words and construction for the thought you are expressing, you may be a writer of literature. Your first years must doubtless be spent in some profession apart from literature though useful to it. Mark Twain was a Mississippi River steamboat pilot. Many modern novelists began life as cub reporters for the metropolitan press. Only the man who has something to say can write real literature. George Bernard Shaw is, in general, right: He who has nothing to assert has no style and can have none: he who has something to assert will go as far in power of style as its momentousness and his con- viction will carry him. This is the reason religion and real writing are so closely bound together. The world’s master- pleces—the ‘‘Tliad,’’ the Gospel of Luke, the ‘“‘Divine Comedy,” and the rest—which one is not shot through with the sense of God, with the knowledge that there is destiny at stake in human life? Ernest Poole had the wealth to become a loafer. He mingled with the underfolk of our land. He caught their spirit. He began to share the sympathy of God for his oppressed children. Then he began to write literature. For Discussion 1. In which of the five branches of science, geology and astronomy, physics-chemistry, biology, psychology, or sociology, would you say that the greatest ad- vances are being made to-day? 141 Io. HOUT NG Gabber . Which man serves his generation better—the indus- trial scientist or the teaching scientist? Give the reason for your view. . Which would you say America is best known for— her science or her art? England? France? Italy? Greece? . Do motion pictures educate us in art? Sunday news- papers? most novels? most theaters? jazz? ordi- nary architecture? . Would you call Christian living an art or a science? On what ground? . Is a writer’s popularity a test of his greatness? Is there any other test? For FurTHER STUDY . Read the first chapter of Genesis. How do you make this description agree with modern science? Ask your minister. . What should a man who has made a scientific dis- covery do when he finds another man claiming the same discovery? What did Leibniz and New- ton do? Darwin and Wallace? Adams and Le- Verrier? . What is the aim of the American Association for the Advancement of Science? of the National Acad- emy of Design? What does each do to accomplish its aim? Give several reasons that lead you to think your own temperament is scientific rather than artistic or vice versa. For REFERENCE E. E. Slosson, Creative Chemistry. Any chapter. Boy Scouts, Architecture and Sculpture. Gowin, Wheatley, and Brewer, pages 33-35, 37-39, for architecture. Giles and Giles, pages 220-224, for art and music. 142 CHAPTER XVI THE ENGINEER, MASTERER OF THE FORCES OF NATURE THE daily papers and magazines are full of the feats of engineers. We read, for instance, that the Lincoln cut-off of the Union Pacific Railroad across Great Salt Lake proposed by the engineers and at first opposed by some of the directors of the road as costing too much, saved sixty thousand dollars the first year after it was completed. We read that in late years engineers have been respon- sible for the subways in New York and other cities, for the bridges over our great rivers, for the elec- trification of many steam roads, and for our vast highway improvements. We are not surprised that William A. Wheatley, an expert in vocational guidance, reports that he has been “‘plied with more questions concerning engineering vocations than any other life-work.” The different kinds.—Long ago there were only two kinds of engineers, the military engineer, who built fortifications and machines of war, and the civil engineer. ‘The work of the latter has now become so varied that it is divided among a number of specialists. The man with the title “‘Civil Engi- neer”’ to-day usually confines himself to designing, constructing, and maintaining roads, bridges, tun- nels, canals, railroads, lighthouses, irrigation sys- tems, and river and harbor improvements. The mechanical engineer designs machinery of all 143 _ OUT INTO LIFE kinds except electrical, and supervises the con- struction, installation, and operation of it. The electrical engineer designs, manufactures, installs, and operates electrical apparatus large and small. He is an expert in telegraphy, telephony, and radio telegraphy, and in all types of electric traction and power transmission. The automotive engineer is an expert in the design, manufacture, and operation of self-propel- ling machines, such as automobiles, aeroplanes, and motor boats. The marine engineer plans and supervises the building of ships. The work of the mining engineer, the municipal or sanitary engineer, and the chemical engineer or industrial chemist has already been mentioned. The engineer takes the ideas given him by the scientist and artist and applies them to problems of construction on a comparatively large scale. An engineer, for instance, takes the formula for gravity discovered by a scientist and the outlines of an arch designed by an artist, and uses them in building a bridge. Engineering is one form of applied science and art. | Plainly the engineer fills a need. He not only makes the larger material equipment for our ciy- ilization, but he also is an expert in preventing our larger losses. Along both of these avenues future serviceableness stretches out before him limitless. ‘‘We have not enough engineers,” says Thomas A. Edison. Witness the preventable loss of property in the United States alone. Last year there was a wastage about our mines, about our farms, in our forests, 144 THE ENGINEER and in our cities, estimated by conservative stat- isticilans at billions of dollars. This means work for engineers. And the projects already begun for nationwide, Statewide, and municipal improvement in material facilities—the proposed linking together of the central generating stations in giant reservoirs of electrical energy, for example—will need engineers and more engineers. Yet there are probably too many young men looking toward engineering as a life-work at the present time! Persons who have investigated say that the coming supply of men is even greater than the demand. You should, therefore, think twice before electing this profession. If your heart is set on it, and you have an abundance of the personal qualifications needed for it, that is one matter, for enthusiastic and able men are needed in the most crowded of professions; but if you have only a slight leaning toward the work and no out- standing talent for it, it will hardly be a Christian act for you to enter engineering. If your aim is to live and help live, look further. some of the rewards.—The engineer, however, who is really performing needed service has that greatest of rewards, the knowledge that he is living according to the will of God and for the good of man. Again, work which is creative brings its own reward. A young man, Russell S. Walcott, who understands engineering, also understands this secret: You can see your own personality in your work always. There is a delightful inventiveness in it. The satisfaction 145 _ OUT INTO LIFE is tremendous of having a building really develop into a physical thing from a picture you have formed in your mind. I don’t believe there is any compensation equal to it in business where the satisfaction of a result obtained is-‘measured mostly by a financial return in some form or other. Good engineers have a good income but do not as a rule make fortunes. Most engineers find their work delightfully varied. When a structure is finished, it is finished for good, and a new task may be taken up. The work is healthy. Most engineers must spend a good deal of their time out of doors. One of the chief advantages of the profession is the chance to cultivate and keep mental health. As Gano Dunn says: The engineer’s intellectual relations with his subject involve a contact with nature and her laws that breeds straight thinking and directness of character, and for these the world is constantly according him a higher and more honorable place. The nomadic life many engineers must lead is an obvious disadvantage. It offers more adventure, but to a certain extent it withdraws one from the good things found only in a community—neighbors, long friendships, the privilege of serving in offices of church or civil government, and the rest. The young man who contemplates engineering should be interested in how things are made. He will have enjoyed his chemistry and physics. He will have taken real pleasure in his mathematical problems. The professions all require long preparation, and 146 THE ENGINEER engineering is no exception. After high school must come college, and after college a technical school. Sometimes the college and technical train- ing may be combined. The ethics of engineering.—The code of ethics in engineering is, in general, higher at the present time than that in ordinary business; and it is not yet perfectly certain whether engineering, being so young an occupation, is to maintain its standards at this “professional” level or allow them to sink to the lower one. Questions of conduct are constantly arising. Should one engineer, for instance, attempt to under- bid another for employment by reducing his usual charges? This kind of procedure is the order of the day in the business world, but in the genuine professions—medicine, law, and the rest—so com- pletely does the spirit of guild-brotherhood for public service dominate, that man-against-man competition for gain is not tolerated. Which way will engineering go? | The danger that engineering may go the business way is due largely to the fact that many engineers finally work into the business end of enterprises in which they have previously served simply as professional advisers. Upon such men, as one of the engineering journals puts it, “the exigencies of selling are so constantly forced that it produces in their circle a commercial atmosphere quite at variance with strict professional views.”’ This “commercial atmosphere” means, in plain words, money-getting. ‘There is, of course, nothing wrong in the legitimate making of money, but when this motive outweighs every other it is the 147 . OUT INTO LIFE end of the professional and the Christian spirit alike. If you go into engineering, it is at this point you may make your influence felt. Be loyal to the best traditions of the profession. Lend your weight to keeping it free from the money craze. Help the other men of principle to win it to the service of Christ. Engineering often takes men into places of unusual temptation. The mining engineer may find the mouth of his mine a gambling hell. The civil engineer may be called away on a job a hundred miles from home and the restraining influences of his community. In such situations it is sheer character that counts. The engineer is often the best-educated man in a community. He is looked up to by all because he is the man who can do things. No one is in a more favorable position to influence the life of those about him. There is story after story of strong-muscled, red-blooded, big-spirited engineers who have been rocks of spiritual strength and springs of inspiration to their workers, their asso- ciates, their neighbors—and even to their com- petitors. Such a man was James Nasmyth, the engineer who developed the famous Bridgewater foundry at Patricroft, England, and invented the steam ham- mer. The sketches he had drawn for his hammer were not put into use immediately, and while they were still in his notebook, unpatented, two French engineers, visiting his plant during his absence, copied them. He knew nothing of this until, two years later, he found a hammer, constructed from his designs, in actual operation in the French 148 * THE ENGINEER foundry. Instead of flying into a rage of jealousy that competitors had materialized his plans sooner than he, he was delighted at the successful achieve- ment of his brother engineers, and when he learned that the machine was often out of order, he would not rest until he had remedied every defect for them. This was the generous, Christlike spirit which made him a beloved leader among men. Such a man also is George Washington Goethals, the engineer who built the Panama Canal. Jesus’ Golden Rule was his law all through the long years of digging, digging, digging. Once a week, as Mary R. Parkman writes, he would keep open house for all his workmen—and their families: You might see foregathered there the most interesting variety of human types that could be found together anywhere in the world—English, Spanish, French, Ital- ians, turbaned coolies from India, and American Negroes. One man thinks that his foreman does not appreciate his good points; another comes to present a claim for an injury received on a steam-shovel. Mrs. A. declares with some feeling that she is never given as good cuts of meat as Mrs. B. enjoys every day. “Of course, many of the things are trivial and even absurd,” said the colonel; “but if somebody thinks his little affair important, of course it is—to him. And that is the point, isn’t it?” “He is the squarest boss I ever worked for,” declared one of the locomotive engineers.! Such a man also was Alexander Murdoch Mackay, the engineer who brought Christian civilization to the heart of Africa. In 1876 the African explorer ‘From Heroes of To-Day, by Mary R. Parkman. Used by per- mission of The Century Company, publishers. 149 _OUT INTO LIFE Stanley appealed for missionaries to teach Chris- tianity to the king and people of Uganda. Mackay, a trained engineer, started for the field with seven others. Two of them were murdered; others died; Mackay was the only man of sufficient stamina to reach Uganda. During his fourteen years of residence there others came and had to leave. Mackay himself at one time was driven out, but he returned and held on. His engineering skill and his religious ardor being put to the service of the people about him, he soon became to them an embodiment of power, material and spiritual. When, a few months before Mackay’s death, Stanley met a number of the natives, desiring to tell him they were Christians, they could only describe themselves as ‘“‘Mackay’s children’—for “Mackay” was to them a kind of synonym for “‘Christ.’”?> Uganda’s splendid roads and bridges of to-day, as well as the happiness of Uganda’s people, are reminders of Uganda’s debt to its missionary engineer. For DIscussion 1. Which has the world most need for to-day, the civil, mechanical, electrical, automotive, or chemical en- gineer? Why? 2. If you could not go to a technical school, which would likely prove the more profitable in prepara- tion for a profession—the acquaintance of people already in the profession, or the reading of books on the subject? Give the reason for your answer. 3. Some have said, ‘‘It was the engineers who won the Great War.” Do you agree? 4. As a Christian engineer, would you consider it good ethics to advertise your services? Why? 5. As a Christian engineer, if you found a brother engi- 150 THE ENGINEER neer doing faulty or fraudulent work for his client, should your loyalty to the profession prevent you from informing the client? 6. In most engineering societies the question is con- tinually arising whether, on the one hand, stand- ards of membership shall be set up and all appli- cants rigidly excluded who do not meet them, in order that prestige may be created for the profes- sion such as medicine enjoys; or, on the other hand, membership shall be open to any man who is making his living by engineering, in order that he may be educated to higher personal standards by the influence of the men of stronger character in the society. How would you vote on the question? For FurtTHER Stupy 7. In 2 Chronicles 26. 1-15 occurs one of the two ref- erences to engines in the Bible. Write an imagina- tive sketch of how a young man came to invent an “engine to shoot arrows.”’ 8. To what factors do you attribute the success of George Westinghouse or any one of the engineers mentioned in the text? Illustrate. 9. Name three of the engineering problems of your own or a neighboring city. How would an engineer’s religion help him to overcome them? 10, Which one of the engineering professions makes the greatest appeal to you at the present time? Def- initely, why? For REFERENCE Giles and Giles, pages 195-203. Gowin, Wheatley, and Brewer, Chapter XVI. Boy Scouts, Electricity. 151 CHAPTER XVII MEDICINE IN THE SERVICE OF HUMANITY Your working life, if it is of average length, will probably be twice as long as it would have been if you had lived three hundred years ago! For so much are you indebted to the physicians and sur- geons. Theirs has been and is the tremendous task of keeping the human race in health. They cure the sick and keep the well from being sick. Meeting a need.—Not long ago there appeared at the door of an American hospital in China a blind man led by his son. He had lived for thirty years in gathering darkness, as a citizen of a city of a quarter of a million people, but not one of his fellow citizens had been able to cure him of his blindness. He had tried all the temples, but the gods had not aided him. A young physician met him in the office, examined him, and at once, thanks to his education, discovered the man’s ‘trouble. The next morning he operated upon his eyes. In two weeks the man was walking away from the hospital, guided by the eyes which for years he had not used. What joy in that man’s heart! What gratitude! But the doctor who watched him leave says that the man’s joy could not compare with his own. The lives of doctors and surgeons both in this country and in other lands are made up of a suc- cession of such experiences. That there is need 152 MEDICINE IN SERVICE OF HUMANITY for physicians is sure: in the United States three millions of people are always seriously ill, and every day, it is said, there are seventeen hundred unnecessary deaths. Of the twenty million children in school to-day, two million will die, if the present condition continues, of tuberculosis. In the class from which the army is ETE one man in five suffers from syphilis. Modern doctors realize and are making the world realize that an ounce of prevention is worth many pounds of cure. They believe it to be a greater achievement to maintain a pure water supply than to cure any number of people of typhoid fever. They preach personal hygiene, and they work not only to check the spread of disease through the community but also to prevent the bequeathing of disease to our children and our children’s children. Perhaps you have read of the famous Kallikak family. Martin Kallikak, Jr., feeble-minded, mar- ried Rhoda Zabeth, normal, in 1803. Of their 470 descendants, 143 have been feeble-minded; 33, sexually immoral; 24, alcoholics; 8, brothel-keepers; 3, epileptic; 3, criminals—and 82 died in infancy. Modern medical care, which is concerned as much with the human race as a whole as its individual members, seeks to prevent such conditions as this. There are two general types of medical activity, that of the general practitioner and that of the specialist. In the smaller communities physicians must be prepared to deal with any type of accident or disease. In the cities the tendency is to special- ize on some particular disease or bodily ailment. Some disadvantages.—The difficulties of a phy- sician’s work are patent. If the practitioner is any 153 OUT INTO LIFE lover of his kind—and if he were not, he would hardly have entered the profession—he will find his contacts with the sick, not to say the dying, a mental and spiritual strain. What need for faith in his own heart!—for faith that God, in spite of all appearances to the contrary, cares for his people. The physical strain requires a robust constitu- tion. During an epidemic the doctor is allowed only time enough for sleeping and eating, and on any night he may be summoned from his sleep. He is out as often in foul weather as in fair, and continually he faces the danger of infection. In medicine, as in other professions, it takes no little time to establish oneself. After the shingle is hung out, a year or two of hard work and small income must be expected. Some rewards.—Do the advantages outweigh the disadvantages? Listen to what Addison H. Bissell, M.D., a young man who has been a practitioner for half a dozen years, has to say: The practice of medicine is to me a right enjoyable occupation. In fact, if it were not for an occasional inter- ruption of sleep, I would class it as fun rather than work. I enjoy the mere acquisition of knowledge, slight as has been my acquisition, and I thoroughly enjoy the detec- tive work necessary in applying this knowledge to a case. The irregular hours are an especial boon for me, for I detest a routine day. Practically every case is interesting, and the daily developments of almost any case are great for the growth of humility. I have ample time to study and play, as well as work. Too much work should be avoided, by a doctor especially, for, while it brings in the cash, it hinders one’s education. I cannot think of ‘154 MEDICINE IN SERVICE OF HUMANITY being anything but a doctor. My occupation is a rare one. It offers a livelihood at a ninety-eight per cent congenial work, with only your own conscience as boss. Sometimes I find him a harder one than the old man sitting in the mahogany-furnished room with ‘‘Private”’ on the door. Who but a country doctor—unless it is a country poet—can have a daily swim and round of golf all summer, and skate and play squash all winter? Would I change for a New York City bank job at twice my in- come? I would not. Surely there are few professions which give in greater measure the satisfaction of living and help- ing live. To be able to give people sight, hearing, health! To keep them in possession of vital strength! To give the race long life and vigor, and so a chance for happiness! How it must thrill a man to know that his profession, to quote the words of William Osler, “is distinguished by its singular beneficence’’: Search the scriptures of human achievement and you cannot find anything to equal in beneficence the intro- duction of anesthesia, sanitation, with all that it includes, and asepsis—a short half-century’s contribution toward the practical solution of the problems of human suffer- ing, regarded as eternal and insoluble. Not that we all live up to the highest ideals: far from it—we are only men. But we have ideals, which means much, and they are realizable, which means more. Of course there are Gehazis among us who serve for shekels, whose ears hear only the lowing of the oxen and the jingling of the guineas, but these are exceptions. The rank and file labor earn- estly for good, and self-sacrificing devotion animates our best work. The physician generally has a position of public confidence unequaled by any other person in the 155 OUT INTO LIFE community. What satisfaction to realize that the whole community trusts you! But be not misled: this trust is not given to all physicians, simply by virtue of their profession. It is inspired only by those who have proved themselves worthy. For most men the physician’s chance to see all types of people, and to see them when they are most themselves, without the veneer of their so- ciety manners, has its attraction. The income of a well-established practitioner is sufficient for himself and his family. Only a very few men in the profession win large financial rewards. Some qualifications.—A young man in high school or college may look forward to a medical career if he has a sound body and if he enjoys study, espe- cially the subjects prerequisite to a medical course, the natural sciences, drawing, and handwork. He must be keen in observation, though here he may improve himself by education. In general, he must be mentally alert. If he becomes a doctor, the day will never dawn in which he can say, “J am now completely edu- cated.” Every day he will be learning from his books and journals and from his_ professional brethren, for medicine is breaking new ground continually. The quality a man needs more than any other has already been suggested. Read the words of Dr. H. L. Smith, published in a government brochure: It goes without saying that the physician, because of his close relationship with his patients, must be of the highest moral character, in order to gain and retain the 156 MEDICINE IN SERVICE OF HUMANITY confidence of his patients. One great element of success is faithfulness to the patients one has. This means love for the work and enthusiasm over the idea of service to mankind. Upon what soil does ‘enthusiasm over the idea of service to mankind” grow? As surely as brother- hood depends upon common sonship that kind of enthusiasm finds its root and ground in what might be called companionship with God. Wilfred Gren- fell, who fitted out the first hospital ship to the North Sea fisheries and was the first trained phy- sician to go to the desperately needy thousands along the Labrador, had his first vision of useful- ness in a tent-meeting where Dwight L. Moody was calling young men to the service of the King of kings. Edward Livingston Trudeau, “the Be- loved Physician,’’ who made come true his dream of a great sanitorium at Saranac which should be the everlasting foe of tuberculosis, declared that his success in the treatment of his patients was ‘‘the victory of the Nazarene’’—his Consulting Physician. Preparation.—After college the candidate for medicine must take four years in a medical school, the first two of which are spent largely in the ana- tomical, physiological, pathological, pharmacological, and other laboratories, and the last two years in close contact with patients in dispensaries and hospitals. Then one more year or, as is more usual, a year and a half as an interne in a hospital and his course is completed. The faint-hearted will not endure so long an apprenticeship. But if you are to be such a servant of Christ as the many who in our cities and rural 137 ,OUT INTO LIFE districts toil day and night to relieve suffering, then any preparation short of the best is insufficient. Dentistry—The only branch of medicine in which America is distinctly above the other nations of the world is dentistry. The dentist teaches people how to care for the mouth and remedies difficulties of the teeth and gums. The dentist must have all the skill of hand pos- sessed by the surgeon. His personality and character have the same bearing on his success as in the case of the physician. His ruling motive, stated in the first article of the Code of Ethics of the National Dental Association, is also service: The dentist should be ever ready to respond to the wants of his patrons, and should fully recognize the obligations involved in the discharge of his duties toward them. He should be temperate in all things, keeping both mind and body in the best possible health, that his patients may have the benefit of that clearness of judg- ment and skill which is their right. The historic aim.—The whole aim of the med- ical profession is made plain in the oath of Hip- pocrates. That oath has been taken by young men entering the profession for more than twenty centuries: I swear that according to my ability and judgment I will keep this oath and stipulation. I will follow that system of regimen which, according to my best judg- ment, I consider best for my patients, and I will abstain from whatever is injurious. Into whatever houses I enter I will go for the advantage of the sick. With pur- ity and holiness will I pass my life and practice my art. Is it surprising that Christ was a physician? 158 Nur Io. MEDICINE IN SERVICE OF HUMANITY For Discussion . Do you believe there is any future for eugenics? Why? . Should the state be allowed to vaccinate all school children, even against their parents’ wishes and their own? Upon what ground do you hold your opinion? . Is it all right for a doctor to advertise? . Should a doctor on any occasion disclose informa- tion a patient has given him in professional con- fidence? . To save a patient’s life, should a doctor deceive him? . Should a doctor have different prices for different patients? For FuRTHER STUDY . One of the Old Testament authors was a physician, and so also was one of the New Testament authors. What books did they write? Who was Gehazi, to whom Dr. Osler refers? . Interview your doctor on the subject, ‘“What per- sonal qualities make a good physician?” and then write up the interview as a reporter would. . Find out what attitude the medical profession is taking to the prohibition of alcohol as a beverage. Would you rather be a medical missionary or a prac- titioner at home? State the advantages on each side. For REFERENCE Boy Scouts, Public Health. Giles and Giles, pages 152-161. Gowin, Wheatley, and Brewer, pages 278-282. L. W. Crawford, Vocations Within the Church, Chapter IX. 159 CHAPTER XVIII SOCIAL WORK: HELPING OTHERS TO HELP THEMSELVES SocriAL work, which is concerned with the well- being of people as members of the community in which they live, is one of the most recent of the applied sciences. The needs of city and country.—When the Rev. William S. Rainsford became rector at Saint George’s Church in New York City, he found a situation which would have discouraged the most optimistic. The old church, though large, was practically empty. It stood in a downtown district from which almost all the stronger and more help- ful members had moved away. There were still people in the neighborhood, but they were the poor, the foreign, the down-and-out. There were only two alternatives: either to move the church out into the suburbs whither the former, members had gone or to make the church a medium through which the remaining members could minister to the less fortunate of the neighborhood. Deciding upon the latter course, the church and the new rector made a great venture: they built a huge house for the welfare of the community. Here, and in the other buildings acquired later, the poor were aided in finding employment and, in cases of extreme need, were clothed and fed. Classes were established to teach the women the arts of dress- making, cooking, and home-building and the men 160 HELPING OTHERS TO HELP THEMSELVES the various crafts which would make them better bread-winners. Down-and-outers were given a friendly hand in the mission and shown that God’s world is one in which new opportunities are always opening, even to those who have previously failed. Lest others should fail in the same way, a system of religious and moral education, graded from in- fancy to youth, was established. So the problem of the city was met. The social problem is so evident in the cities that social service is sometimes thought of wholly as a city profession. There is truth, however, in the old saying: God makes the country; man, the city; and the devil, the village and small town. A county in one of our Eastern States was notorious for its dance halls, road houses, and other unwhole- some resorts. There was no organization in the county through which decent citizens could work to improve conditions. Finally the Young Men’s Christian Association sent a secretary there. By rallying the better element in every village he was able to establish centers where the people might meet under good influences. In one com- munity he used an abandoned church; in another, the town house; in others, the school buildings; and to all of them, certain evenings in the week, he drew the people by pleasant and profitable entertainment. And Christian ideals gradually found their way into the homes of the county. He formed clubs and classes of different ages to study the needs of the neighborhood. In every way, in short, he gave the people a sense of their own strength and organized them to use that strength to lift the moral level of their county. 161 , OUT INTOLEIRE He found one evil from which few counties are free—too much tenancy. Seventy per cent of the farmers rented their land. The tendency of the tenant farmer is not to spend money on the land he does not own but to allow the soil slowly to deteriorate—and then move on. The Y.M.C.A., secretary found that even the land nominally owned by the farmers was generally heavily mort- gaged, and so practically owned by the banks. He therefore set himself to teach the people how to raise better crops and how to market them less expensively. A county-wide cooperative society was founded and prosperity began to appear. And a few years later an observer competent to judge called the section ‘‘an almost ideal place to live and bring up children in.” Social work has almost no limits. The Boy Scout executive, the probation officer in a Juvenile Court, the worker among the foreign born—these and all others whose profession it is to better, by example and aid, the lives of those about them are social workers. Some specialized forms of service.—Most towns have a Bureau of Charities or some similar organ- ization in which the charitable societies of the community—the District Nurse Association, the Hospital Aid Society, the Playground Guild, the Poor Commission, and all others—are represented. Through the Bureau they all cooperate to meet the town’s problems as a whole. They discuss the work which needs to be done, divide it, and each assumes responsibility for a part of it. As the Bureau grows in strength the several organizations which compose it may give up their identity and 162 HELPING OTHERS TO HELP THEMSELVES become departments of the single enterprise. The aim is unity of effort—to prevent duplications and omissions. When there is no such central organ- ization, certain families, for instance, may receive aid from half a dozen charities, and others, equally needy, none at all. The Bureau remedies such injustices. The social settlement is located in a city slum. Here the workers are engaged in the colossal task of changing the type of neighborhood from top to bottom. The work may include anything from running a bread-line to conducting a day nursery for the children of mothers who go out to work. A tenement house which averages two families to a room—and there are many such—can only be a plague-spot. What chance is there to cultivate good health where there is almost no ventilation, or decent habits where there is almost no privacy? To get more commodious apartments built and to persuade the slum families that in the long run it is cheaper to live less like rabbits in a burrow is the Herculean business of some social workers. Health and decent living for the poorer popula- tion are also the aim of those who frequent the lobbies of legislative bodies to push for the estab- lishment of playgrounds and parks—good air and a chance to be by oneself and have some liberty of movement being greater aids to Christian man- hood than one sometimes imagines. Anti-tuberculosis ‘‘drives’’ and other public-health campaigns are fostered by social workers through national organizations often on a nation-wide scale. It falls to the social worker also to superintend the various ‘‘Homes’’ for the aged, for the feeble- 163 ‘OUT INTO LIFE minded, for orphans, and for the morally delinquent. The last two are of paramount importance. Or- phans who have only the lore of their companions of the streets to guide them too often grow up criminals, while many who have had the counsel of an elder-brotherly social worker have become strong citizens. Moral delinquency is often dis- covered to be simply the result of bad environ- ment: the chance of the understanding social worker is to find out whence the bad influences come— from parents, companions, or others—and win the boy or young man to choose new associates and new ideals. The great industries more and more are asking for social workers to study and provide for the needs of the employees and their families. Such work is usually in charge of the personnel manager, under whom visitors, nurses, playground experts, athletic directors, and others minister to the requirements of the community. Workers in this field who keep their minds open soon become aware of some of the sources of irritation in the “‘capital-versus-labor” problem, and it is from their wisdom and expe- rience that solutions for it must largely be drawn. The almost irresistible challenge which this pro- fession makes lies in the directness with which it confronts every one of us, no matter what our gifts are. Do you enjoy scientific investigation? Says Social Service: ‘‘I can give it to you in its most fascinating form—the investigation of how people live.”” Do you enjoy politics and legislative work? “IT need men who have the courage to champion philanthropic laws against intrenched evil inter- ests.” Do you enjoy association with people, 164 HELPING OTHERS TO HELP THEMSELVES things, or books? Writing or speaking? “I can provide you any combination of interests you de- sire.” Do you want hard work in a position of responsibility? The office of executive secretary in a large charitable institution will call into play all the initiative, ingenuity, wisdom, and leadership yoll may possess. In a former day the emphasis of social work was almost wholly upon the cure of community ailments: to-day, as in medicine, the greater stress is laid upon the prevention. The pay.—The man who enters social service will not receive a high salary. Social workers, because they belong to the small class of those who see further into the future than the majority, can never expect the majority to believe in them sufficiently to spare them the salaries they deserve. Yet those who have given their lives to the service have declared that the disadvantage of the small salary is more than counterbalanced by that reward of rewards, the abiding sense of living and helping live. Who executes the will of God more certainly than they? The saint, whose piety con- sists in bead-telling in a cell? John Hay put it squarely: “T think that saving a little child And bringing him to his own Is a derned sight better business Than loafing around the Throne.” Religion and social service: mother and child.— Yet John Hay would have been the first to point out that “loafing around the Throne” and real prayer are two different matters, and that the 165 ‘OUT INTO LIFE latter is as closely bound up with social service as the former is foreign to it. It is simple history that social work was originally begun by church members seeking to put into practice the principles of Jesus. As J. Ramsay MacDonald, prime minister of Great Britain, himself a social worker of large experience, declares: ‘‘You cannot approach the solution of your social problems unless you remem- ber that the spiritual must be the predominant.” Christian faith furnishes in social work both the goal and the energy to reach it: its awareness of God’s Fatherhood teaches it to strive for human brotherhood, and its sense of God’s power gives it courage to do so. Preparation.—There is a certain technique in social work which may be mastered in a two-years’ course at a good school. There are such schools in the largest cities of the country. The New York School of Philanthropy and the Chicago School of Civics and Philanthropy are well known, and there are others. Many large universities have depart- ments for training in this work. This special training will be of value to you largely in proportion to the amount of your previous general training. As in any profession, it is the man who approaches his problems with the broad- est viewpoint, the best-stocked mental treasury, and the best-trained thinking apparatus who is likely to be the most useful. Altruism! bah!—Certain men will scoff at you for seeking an “‘altruistic’’ profession. It is true that your wage will be comparatively small—not nearly so large as a prize-fighter’s, for instance. But then, Jesus’ share of the gate receipts at the 166 HELPING OTHERS TO HELP THEMSELVES crucifixion was not very large. His eyes were on a different sort of reward: he saw a new world: it was enough for him! “Dreamer of dreams! I take the taunt with gladness, Knowing that God, beyond the years you see, Hath wrought the dream that counts with you for mad- ness Into the structure of the world to be!” For DIscussiIon 1. The Czecho-Slovak legation at Washington has no military attaché, but instead has a social service attaché whose business it is to observe social effort in America and send home information. Most other nations have the former attaché but not the latter. Which is the safer policy? Why? 2. If we can make the world better by social service, is not religion a useless ‘‘extra’’? 3. The united charities in some cities conduct annual raffles, because this is apparently the only way to raise the money they need. Is this justifiable? Why not? 4. Is a boy brought up in a bad neighborhood to blame for his bad traits? Is anybody really responsible for his own character? Is not character simply the result of heredity and environment? s. Samuel Gompers denounces “welfare work” in the industries because, he says, since the management supervises it, it is in effect treating the workers like children. Do you agree? 6. Which is more important, prayer or service? For FurTHER STUDY 7. Read John 13. 3-17. What idea did Jesus try to con- vey by his act? Some sects still maintain the 167 OUT INTO LIFE sacrament of foot-washing, as Jesus commanded. Should all churches do so? 8. Give three illustrations of the oft-quoted: ‘‘The charity of to-day is the justice of to-morrow.”’ 9. Upon what grounds can you call a social worker a scientist? an artist? 10. Thomas Mott Osborne is a wealthy man who has done wonders in prison reform. Would you enjoy that type of social work? If not, which kind would you fancy more? In any case, why? For REFERENCE Giles and Giles, pages 183-188. Gowin, Wheatley, and Brewer, pages 318-320. L. W. Crawford, Vocations Within the Church, Chapter XI. F. M. Harris and J. C. Robbins, A Challenge to Life Service, Chapter XI. 168 CHAPTER XIX EDUCATING THE HUMAN RACE A QUAINT story in one of the sacred books of the Hebrews has a world of truth in it: A great drought afflicted the land of Israel. The king called his people together, so that the nation should beseech the Lord to send rain upon the earth. Then the king stood forth and made his prayer, but the sky was as brass and the earth as iron. The priests of the temple made their prayer, but the sky was as brass and the earth as iron. And the lords and great men, the wise men and chief captains, made their prayer, yet still the sky was as brass and the earth as iron. Then there stood forth an old man, poor and in mean clothing, and he made his prayer, and lo! the sky was black with clouds, and there was a sound of abundance of rain. Then the king and his counselors and his captains, the priests and the wise men gathered round that poor man, saying: “And who are you whose prayer has availed with the Lord to send rain in the earth?’ And hesaid, “Iama teacher of little children.” The greatness of the task.—Many historians say that the teacher has affected human life more than any other person in the world. [If the children in the schools of the United States to-day were to join hands, they could make a circle reaching from Florida up the Atlantic Coast to the arctic circle, across to the Pacific, down that coast to Mexico, and so back to Florida again—including practically the whole North American continent! This is an 169 TOUTAIN TORTIE astounding fact, but it is not more so than the thought that these millions of children are all de- pendent upon teachers for the ideas and attitudes which will make them fit or unfit for life. Our own ways of thinking, speaking, and acting, our greatest ambitions and smallest mannerisms are, more often than we realize, due to the teachers we have had in the past. No wonder no sane person to-day questions the need for good teachers. In the old days, especially in rural schools, a single teacher usually taught all the subjects in a grade. Now, in the upper elementary grades and in high schools teachers are limiting themselves to single subjects, certain of which are more readily handled by men than women. There are ten times as many high schools in the United States as there were a generation ago. This means an increasing need for men. Teaching positions open to men are classified by Dr. H. L. Smith in a government publication as follows: 1. Positions in the eight grammar school grades— (a) As teachers of the regular grade subjects in rural schools. (b) As teachers of the regular grade subjects in fifth, sixth, and especially seventh and eighth grades in the city schools. (c) As teachers of special subjects in the grades, such as music, mechanical drawing, manual training, agriculture, commercial subjects, physical training, and playground work, in- cluding coaching in athletics. 2, Positions in high schools, as teachers of practically all subjects, but especially the sciences, such as geology, 170 EDUCATING THE HUMAN RACE physics, zoology, botany, and chemistry; and agriculture, commercial subjects, debating, history, mathematics, for- eign languages, English, drafting, shop work of various kinds, and printing. 3. Positions in all-day, part-time, or evening vocational schools as teachers of vocational subjects. 4. Positions in normal schools, colleges, and universi- ties. The work of organizing and supervising our sys- tem of education throughout the country is in- trusted almost wholly to men. Disadvantages and advantages.—An occupation which is scaled to meet such various demands, from those of the district schoolroom to those of the university lecture hall, calls for workers of many grades of ability. Ordinary grammar-school teaching is not usually classed with the ‘‘profes- sions,” strictly so called, but the work of adminis- tration and supervision of schools in both city and country is rapidly rising to the plane of medicine or law. Teaching in higher institutions of learning ranks in dignity beneath no other calling. The social standing of a teacher depends largely upon these considerations. The financial returns from teaching, as Doctor Smith points out, are not large. But teaching usually pays at least a comfortable living from the very first. The number of years that it takes to reach the maximum salary varies greatly in the different cities. In Massachusetts the maximum salary for men, excluding principals, is not usually reached under fifteen years. In Massachusetts the maximum salary is about twice as great as the min- imum. 171 MOUTSINI OGL EPE A teacher’s position is more or less permanent. When business becomes depressed, men are dropped from many commercial positions, but no enlight- ened community ejects its teachers. The teacher’s day, though perhaps shorter than the ordinary business day, is not so short as it appears. Competent authorities say that the fatigue of teaching one hour is equivalent to the strain of two hours of quiet study or ordinary office work; and besides this, every teacher must add to each day’s classroom work two or three hours for correcting papers and preparing for the next day’s classes. There is opportunity, however, for regular exer- cise in the open air. Barclay H. Farr, a young man teaching in a boys’ preparatory school, him- self an athlete when in college, writes: ) It is a healthy life a teacher leads. Means to exercise are always available and there is always somebody ready for any kind of sport that may appeal. How many busi- ness men could go out and play a game of football after ten years of life in an office? The coach of a boys’ foot- ball team frequently is called on to strengthen the scrubs, or even to play on the school team against a college fresh- man team or varsity scrub. This means that a teacher has an opportunity to keep himself in good physical shape all the time, and at the same time he keeps much of his youthful vigor and enthusiasm. Owing to the mental strain of teaching, the long vacation is a necessity, but it may also be a source of pleasure and profit. One third of the year for travel, or study, or recreation!—many business men would spend half their fortune for the opportunity. 172 EDUCATING THE HUMAN RACE But educating has other rewards. Mr. Farr continues: The teacher hears splendid lectures and concerts, and meets interesting men and women from all over the world. And these are only the obvious rewards. To some men there is nothing that gives them such satisfaction as the knowledge that they are giving more than they are receiving. A good teacher knows this to be a fact, and it is an inspiration to him and makes up for a lot of things that other men have, but which he cannot afford. The greatest gift a teacher can give to his pupils is himself, and this gift he cannot, to a certain degree, avoid giving, since all men are made—as well as known—by the company they keep. The teacher must reproduce himself in the lives of his pupils. How terrifying a privilege! What if the world should become peopled with men just like yourself?—would it be a pleasant place to live in or a bit horrible? The most imperious demand made of a teacher is for a virile Christian person- ality; and it is in being able to impart this that he finds his greatest joy. One teacher writes: If there is anything to compare with the sense of strength one derives from his own prayer-life, it is wit- nessing the growth of that same strength in the lives of those who look to you as teacher. Christian education.—The Christian Church apprehends as it never has before the need for religious teachers. Every modern church has, or is looking forward to having, a director of religious education. The many activities of a large church —the church school with its six or seven depart- 173 _OUT INTO LIFE ments, the young people’s societies, the missionary society, the Scout troops and Camp-fire groups, and the other educational organizations—require unification and general oversight. This is too large a task for the Sunday-school superintendent, who, being usually a busy business man, can have neither the time nor the training for it. It calls for the full-time service of a person who is familiar with the whole technique of religious education. And if the goal of our race is the kingdom of heaven, and if we are to reach it largely by educat- ing our children to it, what profession has a more exalted usefulness than that of director of religious education? Qualifications and training.—Teaching is a pro- fession for which a man can to a certain degree test his fitness before entering upon it. ‘There are always opportunities to teach children. Doubtless there is a class in your Sunday school now which you are either teaching or ought to be teaching. As scoutmaster or assistant you find that a large share of your work is teaching. Wherever, indeed, you are thrown in with people younger than your- self, there is teaching going on. Do you enjoy it? The teacher must have in his own mind the knowledge he is to communicate, and love it for its own sake. In the words of Robert Shafer, a young college professor: ‘‘The best teachers are those who love knowledge for itself and love it better than money. They teach because they wish to make it prevail.” The other essential quality in a teacher is the passion and ability for making the pupil desire to learn. 174 EDUCATING THE HUMAN RACE Training must therefore proceed along two lines. Whether one is looking forward to primary or university work, he must be educated in the facts of his subjects and their relations. He must also possess himself of the technique of teaching his facts and their relations. Pedagogy is a fine art. To master the rudiments of it one must have a year or two in a normal school. Some universities have courses in the subject. All mod- ern theological seminaries have departments for the training of directors of religious education. The librarian.—The library is the natural ally of the school, for its work is primarily educa- tional. Librarians are needed in every city and large town, in many high schools, and in all universi- ties. Any man who has a passion for books, and realizes that the well-being of the country partly depends upon the amount of reading done by its citizens, possesses the first trait required in a libra- rian. He must possess unusual executive ability, for the routine of a large library is very complicated. He must have the business judgment to spend wisely his library’s limited income. He must know his books and their readers. He must be thor- oughly acquainted with the technique of classifying and cataloguing. For this technique, training in a good library school is essential. Thus equipped, a librarian has before him a life of unusual usefulness, and through the years, if he is the right sort, he will gradually, as Sam Walter Foss said, ‘‘grow big enough to fill the great place it is his duty to assume.” 175 Io. . OUT INTO LIFE For Discussion . Should the teaching of religion be allowed in the ordinary public schools? . If Jesus were choosing his occupation to-day, would he take into account the social standing it would probably give him? . Are the better teachers those who teach because they love knowledge or because they love people? . Should we pay our Sunday-school teachers? . Should a university accept a gift to which conditions are attached that certain theories be or be not taught? . Should a professor have freedom to express his views on any subject without hindrance by the trustees of his university? For FurTHER STUDY . Write an essay on Jesus as a teacher, taking up his own knowledge of his subject, his knowledge of human psychology, the clarity of his language and concreteness of his style, and the definiteness of his aim. . What is the object and what the work of the Na- tional Education Association? Of the American Library Association? : . Should a boy of ten have a man or woman as teacher? a boy of twelve? fourteen? sixteen? Talk it over with some person who knows. Does teaching or library work appeal to you more? Give all your reasons. For REFERENCE Giles and Giles, pages 171-177. Gowin, Wheatley, and Brewer, pages 285-290. L. W. Crawford, Vocations Within the Church, Chapters’ VII, VIII. 176 CHAPTER XX JOURNALISM: A UNIVERSAL INFLUENCE THE battle of New Orleans, with its loss of lives and property, fought after the war of 1812 was formally ended, would never have taken place if our modern system of spreading news had been in operation. To-day a bit of knowledge possessed by a single man in the morning can be flashed over the whole world and put in print before evening. The inside of a newspaper establishment.— Newspaper establishments have five main divi- sions: the business office, which controls the publi- cation, circulation, advertising, and finances; the composing room, where the type is set, and the proof-reading room; the stereotyping department, where the matrices are made and the plates cast; the press room, where the actual printing is done; and the editorial department, where all the reading matter except the advertising is prepared. This chapter deals especially with the work of the man in the editorial department. In this department are prepared both the news columns and the editorial comment. The editor- in-chief is at the head of the whole staff. The editorials are written by editorial writers or speci- fied members of the staff who must be well in- formed on public matters. The “colyumist” and “funny sheet’’ editors are also in the editorial department. The amount of news, its arrangement, the 177 - OUT INTO LIFE “make-up,” and division of space is in charge of the managing editor, who is assisted by others whose duties, as assigned on a typical metropolitan daily, are summarized by Dr. H. L. Smith in a government monograph as follows: The news editor looks after all out-of-town news, that is, all news from other countries or from this country outside of a certain distance from the city of the news- paper. The telegraph editor looks over “‘copy’”’ sent in by telegraph and decides what is good and what is poor. The Sunday editor gets up the pictures and other ‘‘fea- tures’? and special articles outside of strictly news arti- cles. The art editor decides upon the pictures to be used and the method of making those pictures. The cable editor prepares the foreign news by filling in cable messages and making long articles out of them. The city editor hires and directs reporters on work within the city, and others outside called local correspondents, though the latter are perhaps as often handled by the suburban editor. ‘The sporting editor looks after news of sports. The night city editor (in a morning paper) covers late news, being in charge after 6 P. M. to receive copy brought in by reporters. The night editor is in charge of the ‘‘make-up”’ of the paper and the getting of the paper to press. Most newspapers also have other editors called department editors for music, drama, so- ciety, finance, literary criticism, railroads, real estate, and stock markets. Disadvantages and advantages.—The reporter is never sure of his hours. On a morning paper he is subject to call at any time of afternoon or evening, sometimes having an afternoon off, but more often working until midnight. On the afternoon papers, though his regular hours are from 8 or g to 4, his assignments often keep him out at night. 178 JOURNALISM: A UNIVERSAL INFLUENCE The men at the desks inside have their own problems, a glimpse of which is given in the report on Journalism by the Collins Publicity Service: As the time for going to press approaches, the copy pours in faster and faster, the composing room signals that the paper is already overset, and yet perhaps now, at the last minute, an item of first importance in the whole day’s events comes in, and room must be made for it. In the midst of all this clamor the desk man must keep his head, racing through the piles of copy, weighing its merits discriminately and giving a cool and very care- ful decision as though he had all the leisure and quiet in the world! On entering the profession a man does not make much money, though he does not have to wait for a year or so, as the young physician often does, before he can pay his living expenses. And it is not long before other advantages begin to man- ifest themselves. Reginald W. T. Townsend, who, though a young man, holds an important editorial office, writes: Rewards! Not always tangible. The real reward is in the joy of creation, and in the joy of honest combat. Here is something creative. In each issue your mind creates a new and—at least to your mind—a beautiful something, a something that is of benefit to your fellow men. Something that takes him out of the dull rut of routine and either cheers or amuses him or tells him of the higher ideals and achievements of mankind. I love my work—there is real thrill in it. It has educated me. It has taught me not only to know and appreciate my fellow men, but it has taught me to seek for the finer things in life, whether they be in music, in art, in litera- ture, or, most of all, in nature itself. 179 COUN DOP er ite And who, more than a journalist, has the spir- itual remuneration which comes from being in touch with men and affairs? He meets the world’s leaders. He is the ‘‘witness and interpreter of great events.” A power for righteousness.—Philip D. Hoyt, another journalist not many years older than your- self, expresses the gist of the matter: The opportunity for usefulness is incalculable in jour- nalism, and even the youngest tyro may exert a powerful influence, either for good or ill. Most of our judgments —the things that go to make up public opinion—are based on information that comes at second hand through the newspapers. The task of analyzing a situation and presenting it in its true light so that the public concep- tion of contemporary conditions shall be true and just is the daily business of the journalist. Too many journals distort and suppress news in the interest of ‘“‘big business” and the political parties. It is impossible to rely on the information regarding either a Republican or Democratic admin- istration given in many newspapers of the opposite political adherence; and because of the great adver- tising and investment capacity of the liquor and allied interests, it is a rare paper which will print the whole unfavorable truth concerning the illicit trade. One of the worst features of “‘yellow journals’’ —happily growing fewer in number—is the exag- geration of exciting news, to increase the sale of the paper. An event announced in huge head- lines will be acknowledged a mere rumor in small print below, and the next day in an obscure corner toned down considerably, if not denied entirely. 180 JOURNALISM: A UNIVERSAL INFLUENCE The ‘‘yellow” sheet appeals to the lowest human motives. It purveys illuminated recitals of crimes and filthy scandals. A certain type of daily panders to our worst prejudices, racial hatreds, and jeal- ousies. President McKinley was assassinated by a man whose unsteady mind had been crazed by the lying virulence of a newspaper. In a word, the journal is a tremendous weapon for weal or woe. The kingdom of heaven will be realized on earth only if the newspaper men ordain it. How mighty the call for men of ideals! Qualifications.—A superior man can work him- self up from reporterhood to the position of editor- in-chief. Mr. Townsend mentions a few of the necessary qualifications for a magazine editor which apply in part also to the newspaper field: An editor has first of all to be a salesman. His market is the whole world and his success depends upon his ability to sell the goods contained in his magazine. The editor must be an able business man. It is up to him to see that the cost will not eat up the profits; to know when to spend money liberally to get returns. The editor must be a sort of factory for ideas. He must live in the future and never pause to rest for a moment, even after an issue appears. He must pick out ideas in strange corners, and must readapt these ideas to his own job. He must possess the ‘“‘news instinct’’—the ability to recognize events of human interest and write them out in readable style. He must know the English language in its clearest form. He must be a mixer, capable of inspiring in others con- fidence in himself. I8I ‘OUT INTO LIFE But if he is to be the editor his generation needs, underlying all his work he will be conscious of a motive which directs all his efforts toward the building of the better world of which Christ spoke. The profession of helping the Maker of all things make his world more beautiful, filled with nobler men—this is journalism at its best. Education.—The journalist cannot hope to suc- ceed without a high-school education. It is diffi- cult for him to go far without a college education. Over twenty colleges and universities now have courses in journalism whereby one can not only acquire a cultural breadth, but also learn much of the technique of the profession—the methods of gathering news, the general management of papers, the history of journalism, the “how” of writing stories and editorials, and of making headlines. The best way to test your aptitude for journal- ism is to report or write for your school or college paper orannual. The editors of these papers, like all other editors, are always eager for items of real news or cleverly written articles. Try your hand! Magazines and books.—Magazines as. well as newspapers wield an immense influence, and call for a high type of man. Those which specialize in news use an English style similar to that of the columns of a daily, while there are others of a distinctly literary character. The editor of the latter type must be an artist in the use of English. In the United States books are published every year in numbers too stupendous for the imagina- tion to grasp. The kind of man who makes a successful publisher of magazines makes as suc- cessful a publisher of books. 182 JOURNALISM: A UNIVERSAL INFLUENCE Religious newspapers, magazines, and books.— If our people are educated by what they read, religious educators and writers are plainly indis- pensable. Approximately one seventh of the hun- dreds of millions of copies of books published annually in the United States are concerned with religion. A large portion of our periodicals and dailies are also religious. What messengers of good tidings the best of them are! They spread the news of the advance of Christ’s church. They carry spiritual quickening to parched hearts. They bring clear thinking to men and women in uncer- tainty and doubt. They provide literature from which children and young people may learn what life is and how it is best lived. One of the chief advantages a book has over a man is that it can be printed in any number of copies and sent to the uttermost parts of the earth. Perhaps you cannot be a foreign missionary. Then write!—and send your words of encouragement and help to those at work upon the frontier. Leonidas W. Crawford puts the challenge unequivocally: The church is seeking to discover and is ready to en- throne men and women who possess writing ability. Here is a field not overcrowded. Success therein gives you an unlimited opportunity for usefulness. If God has en- dowed you with a creative gift, do you not owe it to him to cultivate it and to use it in his name?’ For Discussion 1. Which do you consider the greater educational force 1 Vocations Within the Church. The Abingdon Press. Used by permission. 183 . OUT INTO LIFE in the United States, the school-teacher or the journalist? . Is the influence of newspapers upon public morality in America good or bad? . In Great Britain a newspaper is subject to a fine by the government for emphasizing criminal news. Would you advocate this custom for America, or do you believe in our ‘‘freedom of the press’’? . Should a paper sell advertising space to any person or firm who will pay for it? . What is the duty of the press in time of war: “any- thing to win the war,” or “truth at all costs’’? For FurRTHER STUDY . What kind of books were used in the time of Jesus? What was used for writings not intended to be permanent? Look it up in a good encyclopedia. . Compare what you consider a good newspaper with a poor one. How many columns of news in each? of illustrations? literature? opinion? advertise- ments? What is it which gives the better paper its quality of excellence? . Look up the life of William Lloyd Garrison, Edwin Lawrence Godkin, Jacob A. Riis, or some other great newspaper man. What made him great? 9. Which one of the editors who assist in the managing editor’s department would you rather be? Give a complete answer. For REFERENCE Giles and Giles, pages 177-183. L. W. Crawford, Vocations Within the Church, Chapter X. G. S. Lee, Crowds. Book V, Chapter XIII. 184 CHAPTER XXI THE LAWYER, SERVANT OF JUSTICE To-day (which is but a fair sample of every working day) a missionary priest of the Russian-Greek Orthodox Church of North America came in and laid a part of his troubles on my desk. He couldn’t talk English, so he brought a friend who said he spoke English. It seems there is a fight on in the parish and one of the parish- ioners has stolen the key to the safe and taken the official church documents and seal, which he is proceeding to use contrary to constituted authority. It is a small matter, you will say, but it is the biggest thing in that priest’s life just now, and he would lose all trust in the American system of government if I didn’t help him get the things back. Well, I spent about two hours with him, getting the pertinent facts on which to base a complaint. Then a very paying client came in and asked if I had drawn certain important amendments to the articles of incorporation. I hadn’t, but I surely did get busy im- mediately. After lunch I was called into the sanctum sanctorum of the head of the firm to talk over an unfair competition case. And so it goes—no day like the last, and no one problem just like the next. So writes a young lawyer, Robert G. Bosworth. The duties.—Mr. Bosworth’s description of the problems which are brought to him suggests the wide range of human needs every successful general practitioner of the law is called upon to meet; and yet, as in all occupations, there are certain daily duties for the lawyer which gradually acquire a 185 “OUT INTO LIFE sameness and which can hardly be called anything but drudgery. There is office work—reading letters, composing, dictating, or writing them, drafting pleadings and briefs, and drawing up documents of various sorts for clients. Some time must be spent in work outside the office—hunting up witnesses, looking up deeds and other documents recorded in public archives, going through the account books of a client to run down a claim, or making other similar investigations. It is only a small fraction of his time that the lawyer gives to the more human task of inter- viewing clients or the more thrilling one of plead- ing a case before judge or jury. The lawyer must never cease to be a student. The better acquainted he becomes with the his- tory of the law, its decisions, reports, statutes, treatises, the higher he stands in his profession. The business of every new client, whatever it may be—electrical tractors, chemistry, dry goods—calls for study. Along with all other occupations, law is, branch- ing into highly specialized forms. ‘These are sum- marized by Dr. H. L. Smith in the government booklet The Law as a Vocation as follows: The criminal lawyer limits his practice chiefly to work in criminal courts and deals with offenses that have been committed against society. The tort lawyer deals with damage suits. The work of the tort lawyer is often divided into two fields, that of the plaintiff lawyer and that of the defendant lawyer. The plaintiff lawyer does work for those parties who are claiming damage. The defendant lawyer does work for 186 THE LAWYER, SERVANT OF JUSTICE those individuals or organizations that are sued for damage. Generally the defendant lawyer serves a lia- bility or insurance company, corporation, or other em- ployer. The real-estate lawyer is engaged largely in examining titles, and in acting as trustee and thus holding funds for investment. His work naturally brings him in close touch with both the buying and selling end of the real- estate business, so that he usually, himself, engages to some extent in that business. The patent lawyer assists in getting patents from the national government, and in acting as an attorney in patent cases. Some advantages and disadvantages.—The out- standing disadvantage of the legal profession in America is its overcrowded condition. As Gowin, Wheatley, and Brewer point out: In New York City alone there are more lawyers than {n the whole of Germany or France, and only a small proportion of these men are really lawyers in practice; most of them eke out a living in selling insurance, dealing in real estate, reporting for papers, doing hack work for busy lawyers, or watching with hungry eyes for political jobs. But the law has its peculiar rewards. Although it takes an able man to secure more than a bare competency, the unusually gifted and industrious man who becomes indispensable to his clients earns a really large income. An active-minded man derives enjoyment from the very variety of problems with which the law confronts him. The law brings a man into contact with the 1 Occupations. Courtesy of Ginn & Company, publishers. 187 “OUT INTO LIFE leading men of his community, with whom endur- ing friendships may spring up. But the subtlest of the pleasures the law affords, to quote Mr. Bosworth again, is the chance for human usefulness: Aspirations? Why, certainly a lawyer has them. He doesn’t long to be great, except as every right-minded individual would like to become one of several outstand- ing figures in his community. He longs to be of service in a world where so much service is needed. He is, or should be, constantly conscious of the ideal which led the old English jurist to call his profession ““Ye Publick Profession of Ye Lawe’’—a profession charged with a very real and sacred duty to society and future genera- tions. The lawyer who is really at home in his profession derives real happiness from the constant contact with new problems, from the constant association with men of more than average education, and from the belief that he can and probably will be of more service to his com- munity than he ever could from any amount of “filthy lucre.”’ These are some of the allurements which make me thoroughly contented to stay in the profession of the law. The ethics of the profession.—The oath of ad- mission to the bar commended by the American Bar Association reads in part: I will maintain the respect due to Courts of Justice. I will not counsel or maintain any suit or proceeding which shall appear to me to be unjust. I will never reject, from any consideration personal to myself, the cause of the defenseless or oppressed. The true lawyer’s supreme aim is set forth by Rufus Choate: “‘He shall do everything for justice!” 188 THE LAWYER, SERVANT OF JUSTICE It is for the very reason that the better lawyer sets before himself so high an ideal that he con- demns the conduct and motives of the less worthy members of the bar. ‘There are too many con- scienceless hangers-on in the profession who are seeking not to do justice but to make money. They are the ones who suborn witnesses and bribe juries, dragging down the reputation of the courts by suppressing facts in a trial, concealing witnesses dangerous to their case, misquoting testimony, citing as authority overruled decisions, and working up propaganda in the public press to influence the jury. It is common belief that every lawyer’s motto is, ‘‘Win the case—win it honestly if you can, but win it.’”’ This is an erroneous idea which persists in the public mind because some lawyers -unworthy of the name use their knowledge of legal technicalities to delay or prevent the course of justice. Qualifications.—Of what paramount importance that men who are really dedicated to ideals of pure justice should enter the profession! The Roman Empire in its heyday had its foundations in its lawyers’ justitia, their devoted adherence to justice. The empire crumbled as the tide of personal cor- ruption rose in the profession of the law. If the strength of a nation depends upon the just deal- ings of its citizens with each other, and the citizens intrust their dealings largely to the law, who has a more responsible share in America’s welfare than her lawyers? Immense sums of money are often put at the disposal of a lawyer to tempt him to stretch a point of justice in favor of a client, and political 189 ~OUT INTO LIFE influences are brought to bear upon him which he knows to be powerful enough to make or break his subsequent career, but the first requisite of a lawyer is that he should stand for “justice, though the heavens fall’’—fall even upon him alone. Obviously, the man who can most fearlessly champion justice in the face of gigantic evil inter- ests is one who believes that he has on his side a force greater even than the interests. He is, in a word, a man who believes in God. Of course ‘“‘justice’’ is difficult to define and even more difficult to apply to the complex relations of modern life. It is defined as best it may be in our established rules of law, but in the great ma- jority of cases in our courts each party honestly believes that justice is on his side—and yet one must be found to be right and the other wrong. A lawyer needs remarkable powers of analysis. The most important personal qualifications for a lawyer are stated by Alfred E. Mudge, of the New York bar, to be: Integrity. Sound judgment. Capacity for hard and intensive work. Ability to analyze. Ability to express oneself and to convince others. Training.—It is sometimes difficult for a young man to know whether he possesses these qual- ifications or not. If a man in high school or college has shown himself possessed of a keen sense of justice, and a thorough enjoyment of his courses in classics, history, and mathematics, he will prob- ably be a good lawyer. 190 THE LAWYER, SERVANT OF JUSTICE Unless a young man is aware of a clear urge, he should not allow himself to drift into the law, for he will only make one more in an already over- crowded profession and as such will be, not a useful servant of society, but a dead weight. The man who has the making of a real lawyer in him must attend one of our law schools, the best of which require a complete college course as a preparation. Then he must take his examinations to be “admitted to the bar,” as each State requires that no man shall hang out his shingle as a lawyer who has not reached certain standards. Public life.—No other profession leads one so easily into public life. Nearly all our national congressmen and many members of State Legis- latures are lawyers. Who should be better fitted to make our laws than men whose life-work is the study of law? Lawyers are also eminently well trained to admin- ister the law, and we find the profession preponder- ating in the executive offices of our country: the majority of State governors and city mayors to-day are lawyers. Our judges are all lawyers. Though practical politics makes some exceptions, they are in general men selected for their evident loyalty to pure justice, their solid character, and their learning, to interpret and apply existing laws. Entrance into public life is sometimes spoken of as “getting into politics,” and to some men that is all it is—plunging into the sub-rosa scrabble and grab for the public money. What need for men who see public life as an opportunity for serving the nation, who will dedicate their lives to the 19t OUT INTO LIFE peace and progress of their generation and the generations to come! It was a young man with such an ideal who was some years ago admitted to the Illinois bar. From the beginning of his legal career, all who knew him were inspired by his fine fairness and broad human sympathy. His spirit was shown in a letter he wrote when his partner urged him to take advan- tage of a quibble: You know it is a sham, and a sham is often but another name for a lie. Don’t let it go on record. The cursed thing may come staring us in the face long after this suit has been forgotten. The people voted for him because they loved him—as he loved them! He served in Congress and finally became President of the United States. Does not the career of Abraham Lincoln set you dreaming that you too may be called through law to the nation’s service? For Discussion 1. Abraham Lincoln would defend no man whom he believed to be guilty. Modern legal ethics has it that “it is the right of a lawyer to undertake the defense of any person accused of crime, regardless of his personal opinion as to the guilt of the ac- cused.’’ Which is the better way? 2. Should a man obey a law he believes to be unjust? . Is the popular feeling justified that no lawyer should allow himself to be retained on the regular payroll of a great corporation? 4. How far should a lawyer advertise? 5. Should a lawyer violate a client’s confidence under any circumstances? 192 W Io. THE LAWYER, SERVANT OF JUSTICE . A judge accepted a salaried position as a baseball official while still receiving a salary from the fed- eral government. Was he justified? Why? For FuRTHER STUDY . Read what Jesus has said about the law in Matthew 5. 17; 23. 23 and elsewhere. What did he mean by ‘‘the law’? Why did he denounce the Phari- sees so bitterly? Was not the law a good thing for the Hebrews? Should we still obey the Ten Commandments? . What is the object and what are the activities of the American Bar Association? . Write a résumé of the life of John Marshall, John Hay, or some other distinguished American lawyer. What were the secrets of his success? If you were to become a lawyer, what type of work would you like to specialize in? Tell all your reasons why. For REFERENCE Giles and Giles, pages 145-152. Gowin, Wheatley, and Brewer, pages 295-297. 193 CHAPTER XXII THE MINISTRY AT HOME WHEREAS the lawyer thinks of his community more or less as a unit—for law is no respecter of persons, but takes them in the large—the minister thinks of his community as a number of individuals. He takes them one by one, each person to him being distinguished by his own peculiar needs and abilities. The work.—The service a minister performs may be roughly divided into three parts. The work which brings him most conspicuously before the people is his ministry of public worship. Conducting a service from the pulpit for a brief hour on Sunday morning and perhaps again on Sunday evening may seem a light duty to those who do not know how many hours the ordinary minister must spend in preparation, especially in the nonliturgical churches where preaching is greatly emphasized and unread prayers are the order. To keep abreast of his times he must read and read indefatigably. The more he knows of his- tory, science, economics, and the other general branches of human knowledge, the more intimately he studies his Bible, and the more exhaustively he thinks out the great truths of life, the more illumi- nating he can make his public utterances. A minister cannot dash into the pulpit as many men are compelled to hurry into their business offices every morning, for if his service is not pre- 194 THE MINISTRY AT HOME pared for by prayer and conducted in a spirit of prayer, it lacks an essential quality. A clergyman must be a pastor as well as a preacher. There are many who will come to him for advice. All are glad of his friendship in times of grief. The sick in mind as well as the sick in body turn to him for inspiration and encouragement. Day in and day out, through the years, he must be ready to act as the unfailing friend of his people. And to act as their friend he must be their friend. But a friendly hand which is not strong is of no help. Only the minister who has thought through the reasons for the faith which is in him, who main- tains a prayer life of his own, and who is wholly dedicated to the will of God, can be the rock of strength his people need. Since the minister is connected with a church, there are also duties of organization and adminis- tration. The policy of the work of his church as a whole rests in the last analysis upon him. The leaders of all the societies—the church school, the missionary societies, the men’s club, the boys’ and girls’ clubs—all depend upon him for advice and help. The financing of his church is one of his cares: it falls to him to interest his people in contributing not only to the expenses of the local church, but also to the worldwide work of Chris- tianity. To these three divisions of a minister’s life may be added a fourth, which is not directly connected with the church. If he has the gifts, he becomes a force in the community at large for public moral- ity and reform. It was a minister, for instance, who led the government to suppress the opium 195 _OUT INTO LIFE trade in the Philippine Islands. It was the min- isters up and down the country who, more than any other group, lifted up their voices for the eradication of the alcohol evil. When right-minded men and women gather for a crusade against some civic abuse, they naturally look to their ministers for leadership. The rewards.—Such a life brings its crowning rewards. A young pastor, Thomas Guthrie Speers, mentions three of them: For one thing, the ministry offers a man the chance of being a friend to a great many people, and to all kinds of people. Quite often on the same day I’ll go from one of the poorest and dirtiest tenement houses to one of the most wealthy homes, or from a business office to a school, or a boarding house, or a hospital. There is something tremendously satisfying in the opportunity of being con- sidered a real friend by all those different people, having them trust you, and feeling that they can talk to you about all the problems of their lives and about their rela- tion to God and the cause of God in the world. I believe that real friendship like that is one of the highest forms of service human beings can render. Then, again, the Christian ministry offers a man to-day one of the broadest lives possible. Think of the immense number of subjects that people expect a modern minister to know about! Think of the amount of speaking he is asked to do! I sometimes think it must be hard for a fellow going into business to keep from growing some- what narrow in his interests, but certainly that danger does not seem very real to a minister. His job is so big and so broad and so far-reaching that the more he con- centrates on it, the bigger he grows himself. The modern ministry is tremendously worth while from another point of view. Every important problem 196 THE MINISTRY AT HOME that we face in organized society to-day is fundamentally spiritual. This is true of international relations, crime waves, and labor disturbances, as well as many others that you can name. At bottom they are questions of the attitudes of men toward each other, their desires, pur- poses, characters, that is, their spirit. There is disorder in the mechanism of society, to be sure, but its primary trouble is in its heart. There are many criticisms that can be made of the church, and I agree with a lot of them, but the church, and organizations inspired by the church, are the only ones that are even trying to get at this fundamental problem. It maintains that we never will get any real brotherhood of man until all men recog- nize themselves as children of the same Father and try to live together in his spirit of loving cooperation and service. Is not the greatest reward of all stated in these words of Dr. John Henry Jowett? I have been in the Christian ministry for over twenty years. I love my calling. I have a glowing delight in its services. I am conscious of no distractions in the shape of any competitors for my strength and allegiance. I have had but one passion, and I have lived for it—the absorbingly arduous, yet glorious work of proclaiming the grace and love of our Saviour, Jesus Christ. The necessary traits.—The list of qualifications desirable in a minister might be drawn out to almost any length, for there is no endowment of intel- lectual brilliance, of delicate feeling, of moral earnestness, or of physical strength, which he may not use to advantage. If there is any one virtue which is basic, however, it is moral courage. This he needs in his public life. As the Rev. S. Z. Batten, D.D., indicates: 197 ‘OUT INTO LIFE It is easy for the minister to “accept a situation” and be silent lest he stir up trouble. It is easy for him to denounce unpopular sins, as wife-beating, and get a reputation for brave outspokenness, and to soft-pedal on the major sins, such as economic oppression and com- mercial injustice.? Moral courage he needs even more in his pastoral life. Often he is hated and ridiculed by person- ages who feel in him a standing rebuke to their selfishness—but always, to all alike, without shadow of exception, he must maintain his Christian gen- tlemanliness. This sometimes, as the English say, “‘takes a bit of doing!”’ A young man looking forward to a pulpit and parish should know whence moral courage comes. He must thoroughly understand what Saint Paul meant when he cried, ‘‘I can do all things through Christ, who strengthens me!’ He does not need to know God completely, and, indeed, in this world he never will, since he is not omniscient; but he should know something about God, and long to know him better. Preparation.—Perhaps the best test a young man in high school or college can give himself as to whether he is fitted for this work or not is simply to give as much service as he can to his own church. A Sunday-school class, a young people’s society, or a boys’ club offers, to a small degree, the same sort of opportunities that a minister has. As for preparation—one is never prepared. He never can be wise or skillful or good enough. There are certain tasks which a minister is called upon 1 Used by permission. 198 THE MINISTRY AT HOME to perform—presiding at the communion table, conducting the services of baptism and marriage —which require a certain technique. This is quickly learned. But a minister’s main business is to interpret God to the world, to make people realize the value of life, to give them a sense of reality— and for this he must know the thought of all who have gone before him; he must do original thinking for himself; and he must learn the clearest and most penetrating ways to express his thoughts. For this, four years in college and three in a theological seminary can give him only a good start. A man may feel a religious urge and yet not choose the ministry. The only advantage the ministry offers to a person who desires to live like Christ is the cooperation of the general public. They expect and by their expectancy help a min- ister to devote himself to a career of exceptional religious usefulness. When another man talks religion, people, at least at first, put him down as queer and out of place. A minister, however, never needs to excuse himself or waste time explain- ing his aim, for the people already know it. They feel that a nonclerical man is taking time from his regular business if he does too much direct religious work, but they grant a pastor all the time he needs for it. This gives him immense momentum in his community. To some men who feel keenly the world’s need for God no profession is so satisfying as the min- istry. Frederick William Henry Myers expresses the passion of a preacher’s heart through the mouth of his hero, Saint Paul: 199 SAD LBL ENGL Cee Lite ““Oft when the Word is on me to deliver, Lifts the illusion, and the truth lies bare; Desert or throng, the city or the river, Melts in a lucid Paradise of air. “Only like souls I see the folk thereunder, Bound who should conquer, slaves who should be kings— Hearing their one hope with an empty wonder, Sadly contented in a show of things. ‘’Then with a rush the intolerable craving Shivers throughout me like a trumpet call— Oh to save these! to perish for their saving, Die for their life, be offered for them all! ‘“‘Give me a voice, a cry, and a complaining, Oh let my sound be stormy in their ears! Throat that would shout but cannot stay for straining, Eyes that would weep but cannot wait for tears. “Quick in a moment, infinite forever, Send an arousal better than I pray, Give me a grace upon the faint endeavor, Souls for my hire and Pentecost to-day!” Have you never felt the same way? For DIscussiIon 1. At one time when the minister was the most learned man in his community and books were not in general use, the sermon was a useful feature of the church. Do you think that the minister to-day could put in the time he spends preparing his ser- mons to better advantage in pastoral or educa- tional work? 2. Ought a minister to be active in the politics of the Republican and Democratic parties? 3. Ought a minister ordinarily to wear a clerical collar? 200 THEeMINISTRY AT HOME Why? Why not? Is it better for him to wear a gown in the pulpit? 4. Ought a minister to accept fees, aside from his regu- lar salary, for weddings? funerals? Why? 5. Should a minister seek a church, or always wait until a church seeks him? 6. May sermons be repeated? For FurTHER STUDY 7. Find out all you can about the most famous sermon ever preached—the Sermon on the Mount. Where is it found? Is it one sermon? What is its general theme? There is another version of it—where? Which version is the older? Which would you call its most famous verse? 8. Ministers must plan the general work of their church at least a year in advance. Make out such a plan. When will you emphasize the culture of devotional life and evangelism? How long should the pastor’s class for young people in preparation for church membership continue? When stress spiritual wel- fare of youth and religious education? What will the church do during the summer season? When will you hold Rally Day? When will you have your Every-Member Canvass for funds? 9. Describe how H. W. Beecher, Phillips Brooks, Peter Cartwright, F. S. Spaulding, Roswell Bates, or some other well-known preacher came to enter the ministry. 10. Make a list of the qualifications needed for the min- istry which you now feel weakest in. What will you do to strengthen yourself in each particular? For REFERENCE L. W. Crawford, Vocations Within the Church, Chapter VI. F. M. Harris and J. C. Robbins, A Challenge to Life Serv- ice, Chapter X. 201 CHAPTER XXIII OTHER PHASES OF THE MINISTRY TIME was when the church’s only ministry was preaching and pastoral work. But in order to meet the needs of modern times Christian denom- inations have enlarged their corps of workers to include men trained for many other vocations. The variety of workers needed is suggested in the chart on the opposite page. The business of the church.—Since the amount of money which the church spends annually for the good of the world runs into nine figures, and almost ten, it is obvious that many men trained in the principles and practices of out-and-out business must be employed to handle the finances. The great programs for expansion at home and abroad planned every year by the denominations call for organizers and executives of first-rate ability. And what need for advertising experts!—to put out posters, charts, cartoons, bulletins, motion- picture films, statistics. Many a national denom- inational secretary has been offered a position in the secular business world with a handsome salary, many times larger than the churches pay, and has refused to accept it because he thought his business ability counted for more in the definitely religious field. Robert E. Speer, president of the Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America, early in his career heard Henry Drummond answer the ques- 202 OTHER PHASES OF THE MINISTRY THE CHURCH The ministry of preaching Bishops and assistants District superintendents Evangelists Pastors and assistants The ministry of business Clerks Executives Publicity agents Secretaries Stenographers Treasurers The ministry of health Dentists and assistants Hospital superintendents Internes Nurses Pharmacists Physicians and surgeons The minisiry of education Board secretaries Church and community directors of religious education College deans College professors Librarians School supervisors Secondary and primary school teachers The ministry of publication Board secretaries Editors Tilustrators Printers Publishers Translators Writers The ministry of social service Athletic and playground directors Board secretaries Case workers Recreational leaders Superintendents of homes for dependents Survey workers Workers among foreign-born The ministry of art and music Architects Choir leaders Organists (After Leonidas W. Crawford and others.) 203 ‘OUT INTO LIFE tion “‘How may a man know the will of God?” with the words: Think. Pray. Talk to wise people, but do not regard their decision as final. Beware of the bias of your own will, but do not be afraid of it. When decision and action are necessary, go ahead, and be assured that He whose spirit led you in this choice will vindicate the choice at the end. Doctor Speer followed the advice to the letter —and is it not food for thought that he did not become a regularly ordained minister, but has devoted his brilliant powers to the executive work of the church? The church and the world’s health.—Since the day when Jesus “‘went about, healing every sick- ness and every disease among the people,” the church has been the foe of ill health. The modern hospital owes its creation to the church, and though in the United States most hospitals now no longer are connected with any ecclesiastical body, yet the Protestant churches still support four hundred of them. Practically all the medical institutions in backward heathen lands are still administered by the Christian communions which established them. Here are opportunities aplenty for men trained in medicine who wish to give their lives implicitly to Christ’s church. The church as educator.—The profession of the director of religious education has already been considered, but the church has a stake in general education as well. Can Christian people rest when seven out of every hundred people in America can neither read nor write? 204 OTHER PHASES OF THE MINISTRY In the United States it is especially imperative that the church should not neglect the public educational system, for, owing to the strict sepa- ration of church and state, there is a constant danger that the teaching of the three R’s and the mass of allied subjects of a purely material nature will crowd out of the curriculum all in- struction in moral ideals. Knowing that culture without morality is a menace to any nation, the church therefore maintains her interest in general education. Everywhere she makes her influence felt in the public schools, and in many places she has her own academies, colleges, and universities. These provide life-careers within the church for educators. No adequate history of American thought could be written without including such names as Edward Everett, Timothy Dwight, and Jonathan Edwards, all of whom were churchmen who became college presidents. And to-day it is likely that the church- men who are acting as presidents, professors, and teachers, since they are in touch with the future leaders, are exerting as great an influence for good upon the country as the preachers. Think it over! The church as a publisher.—The great need for strong men as editors, article-writers, and pub- lishers of religious books and periodicals has already been mentioned. The church as a social worker.—The leading denominations are on the lookout for men who will train themselves as experts in the service of industrial communities, as chaplains and welfare workers in prisons, and as superintendents of charitable institutions of various types. No mod- 205 « OUT INTO LIFE ern school for the education of ministers and lay workers in the church is without its chair of social service. The ministry of art and music.—If you love art or music, the church needs you also. Michelangelo designed Saint Peter’s Cathedral. Bach began composing as organist of the church in Arnstadt. Modern art and music took shape in the bosom of the church. The stern influence of so-called Puritanism has robbed some communions of the ministry of the fine arts, but to-day on every hand there is a notice- able movement to enrich the worship of Protestant- ism with all the inspiration the artist and musician can bring to it. You may be—who knows?—the new Michelangelo or new Bach, the reincarnation of Christopher Wren or Charles Wesley, who will create in the church a revival of the ministry of beauty. Other arms of the church.—The church is re- lieved of no little labor by agencies which both in past history and present sympathy are closely associated with it. They make a long list—the Young Men’s and Young Women’s Christian Asso- ciations, the International Sunday School Associa- tion, the American Bible Society, the American Red Cross, and scores of others—and they all offer vocations of remarkable usefulness. The ministry abroad.—What will it profit us if the American and European nations become Chris- tian, and the rest of the world is left in ignorance, sickness, and hatred? Humanity is one body, no part of which can be healthy if other parts are diseased. 206 OTHER PHASES OF THE MINISTRY In the foreign field the medical, social, and other nonpreaching ministries of the church must be united with preaching. It is there that poverty is the direst, human life shortest, infant mortality most terrible, sanitation most neglected, populations most illiterate, women most degraded, Christian literature most lacking, and general social con- ditions most vicious. The need of bringing Christ to the whole world was never more critically acute than it is to-day. Nations that have been considered backward are beginning to stir. Is China to become a giant bent upon brigandage or benevolence? It is cer- tain that she will take one course or the other, depending upon whether or not she imbibes the spirit of Christianity. Is Japan to become an atheistic, hate-engendering citizen in the world community? Christian missions are the only safe- guard. Will the Mohammedan world, now awaking to its strength, play fair or foul? Only Christ’s gospel of brotherhood, preached to the ends of the earth, can save humanity. Rewards.—The missionary receives a pitiably small wage. Pitiably? Not one of them would allow the use of the word. Read David Livingstone: People talk of the sacrifice I have made in spending so much of my life in Africa. Is that a sacrifice which brings its own blest reward in healthful activity, the consciousness of doing good, peace of mind, and a bright hope of a glorious destiny hereafter? Away with the word in such a view, and with such a thought! It is emphatically no sacrifice. I never made a sacrifice. A joy many missionaries have mentioned is that 207 . OUT INTO LIFE brought by constantly occurring adventure. Said a missionary on furlough to his brother in a pas- torate at home, ‘‘How can you stay here preaching every week to a set of sermon-soaked saints in the pews, who doubtless know more about the Bible and the Christian life than you do, when you might be out on the frontier of Africa, South Amer- ica, or the great East, where whole cities, whole nations, are crying for your services, and where the very demand creates its daily adventures?” Questions like this are difficult to answer. Missionaries acquire a unique cultural education. One cannot live either in the cities like Constan- tinople or Hong Kong, where the races meet and exchange their wares and ideas, or in the interior stations, where one comes into touch with the habits and customs of a people, without becoming something of a cosmopolitan. Charles R. Watson, president of the American University in Cairo, for instance, possesses the wisdom of a great states- man: it is impossible that a man of his ability should have grown into anything else—in Egypt. The qualifications.—The essential quality needed in the young man who is deciding for the foreign field becomes the source of his supremest joy—a complete dedication to the work of God. He must have an unquenchable passion for bringing people into the wonderful fellowship of the gospel. He must have a hardy constitution. Mission- aries need not all be as robust as Bishop Rowe, who guides his own dog team over one or two thou- sand miles of Alaskan snow every winter, but the hours for all of them are likely to be irregular, and food scanty and poor. The missionary needs 208 OTHER PHASES OF THE MINISTRY adaptability to meet new and changing conditions. He needs initiative. Indeed, with his vast oppor- tunity, he cannot be too versatile, too mentally awake, too strong of character. His preparation depends entirely on what his profession is to be—educator, evangelist, social worker, or what else—but it must be complete. None of the mission boards of the great denom- inations will consider candidates not thoroughly trained. Does not C. Silvester Horne’s tribute to the missionaries send your red corpuscles racing in your arteries? No range of mountains has been high enough to stay their progress; no rivers deep and broad enough to daunt them; no forests dark and dense enough to withstand their advance. Wherever they went they trod a pilgrim road, and flung forth their faith, often to a skeptical and scornful generation. But what heeded they? They passed onward from frontier to frontier, “the legion that never was counted,” and, let us add, that never knew defeat. For DIscussiIon 1. Is financial prosperity a result of righteous living? 2. Should hospitals be run by the state or the church? 3. Are not denominational schools likely to be more narrow in their teaching than nonsectarian schools? Would you do away with them? 4. Who wields the greater influence, the editor of a reli- gious weekly with a circulation of five thousand, or the preacher whose weekly congregation num- bers five thousand? 5. “God hath made of one blood all nations of the earth.’’ Then are we all equal in his sight? Has 209 Los ~ OUT INTO LIFE he endowed the Negro race with as high mentality as the northern European? Should races inter- marry? | . Which counts for most, the medical, social, educa- tional, or evangelistic mission? For FurtTHER STUDY . Read John 4. 4-42; Matthew 8. 5-13; and Mark 7. 24-30. What is the common element in these incidents? . Show by examples how religions can be rated in ex- cellence by the place they assign to women. . If you were given $5,000,000 to send to some one mission field, where would you send it? Why? How would you have answered the question of the missionary on furlough beginning “How can you stay here ... 2? Give your answer in detail. For REFERENCE L. W. Crawford, Vocations Within the Church, Chapters Nip GBs OOO 8. 210 CHAPTER XXIV POINTS TO CONSIDER IN JUDGING A VOCATION PROBABLY the time has not yet come when you must definitely choose your life-work; and the longer you can postpone the choice, the wiser you will probably be when you make it. Since you must some day, however, come to a decision, you cannot too soon begin analyzing the various voca- tions for their good points and comparing them with one another. What questions ought a man to ask regarding the life-work he has in prospect? Promotion and expansion.—Should not a leading question be: Would the occupation allow for progress? Is not one mark of a good position the fact that it prepares for a better? The teller in the bank may become cashier; the first mate, master of the ship; the interne, a physician in full standing. While many excellent vocations do not offer promotion, they admit of expansion themselves. For a shrewd business man in a field where the market is large, for the gifted lawyer in a great city, or the president of a going industrial concern, there is no position higher up, but there is every chance of broadening one’s business or practice. “Study the job just above you” is good counsel. Steer clear of the job where it cannot be followed! Errand boys, office boys, cash boys, and even certain counter salesmen should ask themselves 211 ‘ OUT INTO LIFE in all seriousness whether they are getting any experience which will fit them for a more respon- sible position. One is reminded of the song Geoffrey Dearmer wrote for the elevator man: “Fourth floor, going down— Hardware, underwear, and hose. Third floor, going down— Toys, tobacco, children’s clo’es. Second floor, going down— Linen, perfume, sports, and shoes. First floor, going down— | Gramophones, pianos, news. Ground floor, going down— Hats, books, dresses, furs, and frocks. ° Basement floor, bargain store— Fish, fruit, art, hair-cutting, clocks. Ground floor, going up— Hats, books, dresses—read the rime, Upward, downward, Upward, downward, Stop at six— It’s closing time.” Is this man’s mental growth preparing him for promotion? Health and bodily ability—Again, will not a young man wisely ask regarding the occupation he considers taking up how much opportunity it would give him to build up his health and strength? Would the work be indoors or outdoors? Would one sit or stand? Would there be eye strain or nerve strain of any sort? Would meals be irregular or the food poor? Would the air be foul? Would the heart be overtaxed? Would there be special dangers? Professions like the coaching of athletics 212 JUDGING A VOCATION might be reckoned almost one hundred per cent healthy, as against structural steel work, for in- stance, which is attended with great risks. In greater or less degree all good vocations allow a man to train his nerves and muscles for expert work of some sort. The artist cultivates deft fingers, the smith, a powerful right arm. What bodily control, if any, would the vocation you are considering give you? How much in wages would the occupation pro- vide?—Men of small vision make the money income the only test of their future vocation; and though mature men know that the wage is only one of the rewards of work, it is yet a factor to be con- sidered. A man must have a sufficient salary for his own usefulness to his fellows. If it is insufficient, he cannot educate his family—and it is hardly a service to the world to leave one’s children ignorant. Neither can he provide for his own and his wife’s old age—and to become a charge on the town is hardly good citizenship. Neither can he share in the charitable work of the community. Money for oneself alone, without a thought of others, is materialized selfishness, but money put to the service of God’s work on earth is a different matter. - It is essential for a young man to know what a prospective employment pays at the start, on the average, and as a maximum. He must estimate the probable rate of increase for himself, reckoning his wage always in terms of the year, rather than the month or week, to cover the seasons in which work and income are slack. Time off.—How much leisure would be allowed? is another pertinent question. Much of the world’s 213 OUT INTO LIFE necessary work is drudgery, but men are able and willing to endure it if they have sufficient leisure to pursue their real interests. Leisure is indeed. the birthright of every one. All of us should give ourselves time to cultivate the gardens of our minds. All work and no play makes Jack a dull man. Leisure permits him to have a hobby, which not only gives him pleasure, but makes him more of an all-round person. It allows him time for direct service to his church and community. Social recognition.—All of us like to be liked. We ought to be judged rather by what we are than by what we do, but tradition dies hard, and many of our fellow men will still unconsciously rate us in the social scale, as our fathers did in the old countries, according to vocations. There are snobs who are readier to bow to a banker than a mechanic. It is probably worth while to give at least passing consideration to the question, How much social recognition would the vocation offer me? Intellectual, emotional, and moral growth.—The question to which probably the most careful answer must be given is: How much opportunity for intel- lectual, emotional, and moral growth would there be in the vocation? A man has a right to demand that his profession or business strengthen him in mind. It must give him problems to think about, and no problems which can be solved by a boy are fit for a man. A really good occupation constantly challenges one to be more discerning, accurate, open-minded, and inventive. The best vocations help a man cultivate his finer sensibilities. The worst deaden them, as the 214 JUDGING A VOCATION counting-house business did in Scrooge and Marley. A young man may well be shy about going into. any occupation which seems to have the effect of making its workers greedy, smug, or cold-hearted, melancholy, trifling, or timid, or in any way con- tent with low standards. If a vocation is to help a man grow, it must also give him play for his best moral impulses. It has been noticed that a position of responsibility often tends to steady a previously unreliable man. He becomes regardful of his obligations, fair in his dealings, sympathetic, and tactful. Is this the effect of the vocation you are looking toward? Each vocation has two sides.—So far our ques- tions have been concerned only with the benefits a prospective occupation would confer, but for every one of these benefits it offers, it also makes a certain demand. If, for instance, it offers a man a chance to broaden his experience and prepare himself for promotion, it demands a certain grade of prepara- tion and experience on its own part. One must ask how many years of apprenticeship or how much technical schooling it calls for. A young high-school graduate who has been left by his father’s death with a large family depending upon his earnings can hardly regard medicine as a possibility, for between him and his first income in that profession lie eight years or more of expensive preparation. He must enter a business where the pay begins coming in immediately and acquire his education while he is working, either within the business itself or outside. One would needs ask, further, how much of 215 * OUT INTO LIFE physical health the vocation would require. Robert Louis Stevenson was a delightful writer of books, but with his chronic illness he never could have been a builder of lighthouses, as his father in- tended him to be. What trained nerves and muscles would the vocation demand? Some call for strength of hand, some for strength of back and arms. The man who could act as a jockey could not qualify as a feller of trees. Some occupations demand better eyesight than others, some better hearing. Nose and throat, arches of the feet—all these things are to be considered. How much in capital does an occupation demand? is a question complementary to the one regarding wages. Many enterprises have been wrecked be- cause men have not answered it correctly. Where a man works for a salary or wage, little or no capital is needed to start him, but where he engages in business for himself, he must have the wherewithal to tide him over the lean years when he is building up his trade. Two young men who went into the high-grade barber business opened a magnificent shop in which there was everything one could desire—except customers. After a few weeks the customers began to come, but it was then too late: the owners had run so heavily into debt that their creditors would wait no longer. They had to sell out: had they had one thousand dollars more of capital, they could have floated the venture. Is the vocation interrupted by seasons of idle- ness? How much time off does it enforce? The dairyman does not generally receive so high a weekly wage as the coal-miner, but his work is steadier. 216 JUDGING A VOCATION Strange and wrong as it may seem, in the present state of our common life good social standing is required for certain occupations, especially those in which one is brought into contact with persons who consider themselves high in the social scale. A bond salesman, for instance, or a life-insurance agent who can enter into the homes of the self- called elite and talk with them as a social equal has an immense advantage over his competitors who cannot do so. What is the demand of the vocation you are considering? The higher vocations want men who have what is called ‘‘personality.”’ No quality eludes analysis more tantalizingly. It has been defined as “that which makes a person a leader’”—and the definition is good as far as it goes. It is doubtless true that the keener you are in intellect, the more refined in feeling, and, especially, the sturdier you are in moral character, the more of this quality you will possess—but specifically, what is it made up of? Many lists of the characteristics which compose it have been attempted—one of them is given in the last part of the chart in the next chapter—but none of them are found satisfactory by everybody. Such a list of desirable traits may at least serve, however, to show that there are component parts in a man’s intellectual, emotional, and moral make-up, and that they are not all in equal demand in the various vocations. A soldier, for example, has more need for fearlessness than a scholar, a judge more need for level-headedness than a writer of melodrama. How about the work you are contemplating? It is up to you!—The essential need is that you 217 "OUT INTO LIFE should yourself begin to compare the vocations with one another, analyzing them according to your own standards. Others can make lists and write books about the subject for you, but no one else can do your thinking. If you wish to avoid becoming the square peg in the round hole, your best motto for the future is: “‘Think—don’t drift!” For Discussion 1. Which man is more likely to succeed—the man who starts upon his life-work early or late? How early? How late? 2. The Epicurean philosophers said that unhappiness is partly due to man’s desire for promotion or prog- ress, and that therefore to be happy a man should be content with his lot. Were they right? 3. It has been said that men of dark hair and com- plexion make better buyers and men of light hair and complexion better sellers. Is there anything in this? 4. If a man’s main motive is to serve his fellow men, should he ever ask his boss for a raise in wages? 5. Do you think it really is the mark of a snob to be “readier to bow to a banker than a mechanic’’? Ts not this simply ordinary human nature? 6. The United States Declaration of Independence says ‘“‘All men are created equal.’’ Is this true? What does it mean? For FurTHER STUDY 7. On several occasions Jesus sought to get men to change their vocations. What were his reasons in each case? Read Luke 5. 1-11, 5. 27-28, 18. 18-30, Ig. I-10 (read Zacchzus’ words not as a state- ment regarding the past but a promise for the future), and 19. 45-48. 218 JUDGING A VOCATION 8. Call on some successful man you know and write up the interview as a reporter would for a paper. At what age did he choose his vocation? What other occupations did he consider going into? What decided him? Has he ever thought since of changing? What does he call the good points of his vocation? 9g. Look in a World Almanac in a library under ‘‘Princi- pal Occupations, New York State.’”’ Which occu- pation shows the largest number of male workers? Pick out one of the healthiest occupations. One in which promotion is likeliest. One of the best paid. 10. Look at the left-hand side of the chart in the next chapter. In what order of importance would you put the seven pairs of questions? Why? For REFERENCE L. W. Crawford, Vocations Within the Church, Chapter I. 219 CHAPTER XXV POINTS TO CONSIDER IN JUDGING YOURSELF Note.—Refer constantly to the chart opposite while reading this chapter—and to the chapter while reading the chart. WHEN you choose your clothes your first con- sideration is whether they fit or not. A _ short- armed man does not want a long-armed shirt, or a man with a thirty-six-inch chest a thirty-four- inch coat. Getting fitted for a vocation.—Choosing a voca- tion is also a question of being properly fitted. To make a wise choice, after you have taken the measurements of a vocation it is obviously neces- sary to match them up with the measurements of yourself to see how closely the two correspond. Let us, then, assemble the test-questions sug- gested in the last chapter and opposite them place the corresponding queries regarding vourself, as shown in the chart opposite. Study the chart carefully.—‘‘How much ambi- tion have I for promotion in the field offered?” For the answer, let your imagination run: what would you do if you had one million dollars left to you to do with as you chose? Buy land with it? Put it in a bank and watch it? Invest part of it in railroad stock?—or in foreign missions? Judge future interests by present enjoyments. What did you do during your spare time each evening last week? 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La on omen — 2a, HTB IE AE ai SCE +i én ——_ a Td . oar — 70). —~ a Leet Sy ” PF — pow bomene s 4 = Se re .. sierra) ar a 1 cacy” feet elias § 2 geeherwn hn 2 Snare : io - hes atk , WR NTs Vaio - 4 Te a? = Pere SS aeret iar at ba ae : ee et ; “Sridhar ‘ea seonirr v odie Ps | * Ma “ meyT meee * Wee veers basi Hes sS au ‘ > «yy zs Chase 20 >t Repeat end, ars yong vt Se. ‘oc Cc ° +o" ewe Reese ne de Owe sen eeee ihe. = 7 <¥.-t =. ’ ~< q 7 — ? —_ - — ee — ee JUDGING YOURSELF skip a night. Was it a party, a new book at the library, mending an electric lamp socket at home? What? How do you spend your money? On coin or stamp collections, girls, fishing tackle? All three? What else? Whatis your hobby? Your favorite book? Hero? What magazine do you pick up first in the library? What have your favorite studies been? What studies have you most disliked? In what have you won the best marks? The worst? Perhaps you have a hereditary talent. What was your father’s vocation? Your grandfathers’— on both sides? You may learn something about your own interests by studying theirs. The answer to the companion question, How much of the required preparation and experience have I? is relatively simple. Health.—The man of rugged constitution needs not to be as greatly concerned about building up his health as his less fortunate brother. He will be more willing to take an indoor occupation, relying on open-air exercise after hours to rein- vigorate him. Bodily ability.—As a general rule, when one has any particular bodily ability, a good voice, for instance, or a steady hand, he will desire to use his ealenta in his vocation. Money.—The questions about wages and capital speak for themselves. Leisure.—The amount of time off a person needs is usually a question of health. Teaching, for instance, is in many cases a severe mental strain and demands a long holiday. 221 * OUT INTO LIFE The amount of time off a person can afford is usually a question of wages. A foreman who is paid by the week, for instance, can take little pleasure in the announcement that he is to have a vacation without pay during the months of July and August while the plant is closed. Social recognition.—How much social standing a man craves can be best estimated by himself— how much he possesses, by others. Intellectual, emotional, and moral desires and abilities.—Each one of the questions regarding per- sonal traits detailed on the chart will repay con- sideration. Perhaps the most important for a young man who has pledged himself to living and helping live are the ones in capitals, concerning unselfishness and religious influence. There are occupations which the world could well afford to be without. Thieving, the brewing of alcoholic beverages, the manufacture of pure luxuries, and the other employments which meet no basic human need can hardly appeal to a man who is bent upon service. One must also ask of a vocation: Would it be made more useful if I went into it? Does it need more men or is it overcrowded? When twenty- four lawyers are enough in a city, would I be per- forming a service by making the twenty-fifth? No!—unless I had peculiar talents for a type of service none of the rest could render. The companion question, How much usefulness does my vocation demand? is too often overlooked. We waste time complaining about how the world treats us, forgetting that the world gives men suc- cess usually in proportion as they give the world 222 JUDGING YOURSELF service, and that service is spelled with four letters: W-O-R-K. Is it fair to desire from your employer wages which represent more than your real useful- ness to him? Is it fair to expect more recognition from the public than is warranted by your public service? Produce your boss more bushels of wheat, and he will look after your salary increase: give the public real service and the public will patronize you. But when it comes to usefulness, what can com- pare with the direct man-to-man gift of religious faith which a worker may make to his neighbor? Give a person fifty dollars, and you have given him fifty dollars; give him an insight into God’s friend- ship for him and you have given him an inspiration which will make his whole life more effective. Limitations of the chart.—Remember that this chart is only to set you thinking. The good you get out of it will depend wholly upon the honesty of your thought. Measuring either the vocations or yourself is excessively difficult. You will get help by making copies of the chart and asking various friends, your teacher, or your parents, to fill them out according to their own judgment of you and the occupation you are considering; but the diversity of their opinion on certain points will only be an indication of the extreme difficulty of this matter of measurement. The only danger is that you should regard as a final classification of yourself either what others say about you or what you yourself now think. In the first place these are only opinions, and opinions are always subject to change. But what is more—you yourself, the subject of the opinions, 223 OUT INTO LIFE are bound to change. You are not a factory- made product, turned out once for all, but a living, aspiring, growing man, animated by an immortal soul. Set down even your defects in black and white —and be spurred by the sight to outgrow and destroy them, or, if they cannot be overcome, to learn to live well in spite of them! Do you not remember Stevenson laboring for years over the phrase-formation of the masters in order that he might improve his own English style? God rewards us not for our native endowments themselves, but for what, with his help and our own will-power, we make of them. Why not pray about the whole matter? As Herald M. Doxsee says, Somehow, as the wireless of the soul becomes properly adjusted, the wise Father signals in a code that cannot be misunderstood concerning our mission among men. For DIscussIon 1. Who is likely to be the best judge of a young man— his friends? his acquaintances? his teacher? his parents? or himself? 2. Some say that if a man’s father has been happy in a useful occupation, the man himself will be most useful if he follows the same trade. Do you be- lieve this? 3. The manufacture of luxuries keeps thousands of men employed. Must we not, then, consider this a useful vocation? 4. Fill in the chart for rail-splitting as the occupation 1 From Getting Into Your Lifework, by Herald M. Doxsee. The Abingdon Press. Used by permission. 224 Io. JUDGING YOURSELF and Abraham Lincoln as the individual. Are there a number of circles to the left of the crosses? What does this mean? . Fill in the chart for law as the occupation and Tony Marino, the average recent immigrant from Sicily, as the individual. Which side of the crosses are most of the circles? What does this mean? . Should an all-round man be able to put crosses in the “much” column for every question? For FurTHER STUDY . Could the author of Philippians 3. 14 have been con- tent to remain only a tentmaker? Do the best vocations call for crosses in the ‘‘much” column after practically every question? Make the chart out for the vocation of Christian missionary and Saint Paul as the individual. Do the crosses and circles generally tally? In what was he lacking? In what was the vocation lacking? . Have the vocational side of the chart copied and filled out for three vocations you are considering by men who know something about them. . Have the questions on the chart regarding yourself filled out by three people who know you—a parent, a teacher, and your minister, perhaps. Comparing these answers, fill out the whole chart yourself, with thought and prayer, for yourself and one of the three vocations. For REFERENCE G. H. Betts, The Mind and Its Education, Chapter XV, edition of 1923. 225 CHAPTER XXVI GETTING AND KEEPING A JOB WILLIAM M. Dower, of the staff of the Manu- facturers’ Association of Connecticut, writes: There are opportunities in America greater than in any other country, but—and this I cannot emphasize too strongly—the thing the young man of to-day needs to know is that competition is so keen that it takes a great deal of struggle to grasp these opportunities, and having grasped them to hold onto them. How important to get started right! Education.—One warning can hardly be put too emphatically: the young man who cuts his educa- tion short for the sake of getting a job early is a fool. He may be forced to do so of sheer necessity, but that is a different matter. When you find the thoughts drifting through your mind that you “have had enough school,” or that it is time you were “a man,” slay those thoughts on the spot. They have started many a young man on the road which leads to mediocrity instead of great- ness. The arguments for education need hardly to be repeated: specialization counts for more when based upon a liberal education—the knowl- edge which comes from education is power, for it alone teaches the proper way to build a home, rear a family, perform one’s duties as a citizen, and utilize one’s leisure wisely—and the biggest job needs the longest training. 226 GETTING AND KEEPING A JOB What sort of school will you choose for the technical training for your vocation? Best of all is the full-time school, such as the ordinary trade school, or the post-collegiate school for professional training. Here one can devote himself wholly to the business of educating himself. Perhaps the next best type is the cooperative school. Here a student spends every second week or fortnight in the classroom and the rest of his time at actual work at a business or industry in the neighborhood. The system has already been worked out in many centers for engineering, the machine trades, and all business branches—and the number of courses offered is bound to increase every year. Under this plan theory and practice are combined, with a small wage thrown in. The continuation school is one which may be attended by a person who is working part of his day. He himself in this case must make the coordi- nation between his work and his schooling. A number of large business and industrial con- cerns maintain schools for their employees. Some of them require of all their employees, new and old, study and growth along the line of their daily work. In an evening school an adult, provided he is regular in his attendance and persistent in his study, may make additions to his mental equip- ment in almost any department of knowledge. Apprenticeship is to-day being extensively re- vived, both by employers and by the unions. A young man agrees to work for a certain number of years on a certain scale of wages, and in return he is given instruction in all the phases of a trade. 227 OUT INTO LIFE Correspondence schools are useful to the adult who is able to set aside certain nights every week and to study without any stimulus save his own ambition—an exceedingly difficult task. All these types of education are one in this— that your success as a learner depends almost entirely upon yourself. But they are all oppor- tunities, if rightly responded to, for you to win the first essential of vocational success: preparation. And remember above all things that though your full-time education must stop sometime, your education ought to stop—never. The man who grows in prosperity and usefulness is the man who studies to improve himself no matter how old he grows. Selecting a town.—A first question is, In what part of the world will I look for a job? If you have no unbreakable home ties, is there any reason why you should not consider Paris, France, or Cairo, Egypt, as much as Paris or Cairo, Illinois? Most men settle down in their own home towns as a matter of course, and since it is there that their acquaintance is largest, this is usually the most strategic center for them; but there are multitudes of cases where a different location would in the end bring greater gains and wider opportunities for usefulness. If a young man becomes, for in- stance, a life-insurance agent, the chances for his success are many times greater in a Texas city than in Hartford, Connecticut, for Hartford is the citadel of the insurance companies, and the com- petition between agents there is exceedingly keen. How would you select a town to live in? You would first think of it as a market for the wares 228 GETTING AND KEEPING A JOB you had to sell, whether your wares were canned goods or executive ability. This would lead to an inquiry not only into its gross size and present rate of growth but also into the size and growth of the class of people likely to desire what you have to offer. You would need to know the num- ber of men already practicing your vocation there. Connecticut has a physician for every three hundred and sixty people or so: China has one for every four hundred thousand people. On the basis of mere statistics you have a greater call to be a medical missionary in Pekin than to be a prac- titioner in New Haven. One must think of a town also as the place where practically all one’s life outside his business hours is to be lived. Is it healthy?—a good place to bring up children? Are the schools under enlight- ened supervision, or will your children have to suffer from antiquated methods of teaching? Will it give you mental food for growth in your pro- fession as well as in general culture? What of the community’s social and religious life? Is it such that you would like to have young people grow up in it? On the other hand, a man of strong personality can often make a contribution to his community. The very backwardness of his neighbors is a chal- lenge to him; and if, without injuring his own character and impairing his family’s future useful- ness, he can minister to his community simply by living in it, he performs no unworthy service. Getting a job.—The greater number of oppor- tunities a man has, the better his chance of choos- ing the right job. He can learn of opportunities 229 “OUT INTO! LIFE through his friends and business acquaintances. The help wanted ads in general newspapers and trade journals bring suggestions. Often one may read in a paper or magazine of the opening of a new plant or an old one reorganizing; and these mean opportunity. There are regular employment agencies which make a business of fitting a man to a job. You yourself may advertise for a position. Every trade has its own periodicals, and these are widely read. By a study of the advertisements previously published, by reading some of the books on adver- tising, and by using your own good judgment, you will be able to write an attractive paragraph. Employers looking for men often read through such advertisements with great care, forming their judg- ment about a man from the character of his ad. If it is in good size, artistically executed, designed to catch the eye, and containing pertinent facts, it will convince the reader that the writer possesses mental qualifications not to be despised. When you have heard of a job you think you would like to have, you will desire to learn all you can about it. Only the young man who is very foolish or very hard up hawks his services from door to door on a business street and takes the job which turns up first. The chart in the last chapter may guide you in testing a job for its good points. You would especially want information regard- ing the men who would employ you. What are your prospective employers’ general ideals? Are they men who are in business simply for what they personally get out of it, or do they have a desire, like yourself, to live and help live? Would 230 GETTING AND KEEPING A JOB you have to fight to establish this viewpoint? Would your associates be a mental and moral tonic to you or so much dead weight? Would your superiors give you a chance to advance your- self, or are they all of a jealous type, who would fear that any increase of pay or position to you would mean so much less to them? Are they honest men, as good as the word they give you, or would you feel constantly that you were in the midst of a gang of refined thieves and liars? The whole question of employment simmers down to the matter of personality: what kind of men are they who run the concern you are considering and who would be associated with you But it may not be easy to pick and choose. It may be impossible to do so. There is no such thing as an ideal concern. You can find fault with any board of managers. A young man must take the best of the opportunities offered him. Getting a job is essentially a matter of sales- manship, you yourself being both salesman and article to be sold. There are scores of books on how to secure a position. Here are a few pointers culled from some of them, especially from William L. Fletcher’s How to Get the Job You Want. Before you are given a job the employer will desire an interview with you. Such interviews are not always easy to secure. Perhaps a pre- liminary letter will be necessary. If so, express yourself as clearly and attractively as you can. Be courteous. Write from the viewpoint of the man to whom your letter is addressed. Write such a letter as you would like to have come to you. And write it on good stationery. 231 * OUT INTO LIFE When you are granted your interview, be sure to maintain the viewpoint of your prospective employer. Imagine the conversation in advance: know what his natural objections to you will be —insufficient education, lack of experience, and the rest—and be prepared to answer him without false modesty but with all truth: you have worked during the summer—you have already tested yourself by the work in school—you have held class offices— you are active in social and club life—in church organizations and elsewhere you have enjoyed executive work—and so on. The man you interview will be asking himself while you are talking, “Is this a full-grown man whom I am talking to? Has he the stuff in him to do a man’s job?” Here, as everywhere, your religion, though you will not think of it at all, will have its effect. If you talk and act with fitting Christian modesty combined with Christian manli- ness, the man opposite cannot help but become interested in you. If you are technically prepared, he will desire your assistance. How to keep your job.—Hundreds of books and magazine articles have been written on the factors of success, and they all can be reduced to this: be an intelligent Christian. Taking it for granted that you have the mental ability and preparation for your work, the essen- tials of success are simply the old Christian virtues which we have all been taught from infancy. These traits of character toward which our parents and teachers have continually pointed us are not, after all, the mere goody-goody excellences which we have sometimes believed them—they are the 232 GETTING AND KEEPING A JOB cold essentials of common vocational success. They are more at home and useful in the great world than in the Sunday school. For DIScussION 1. Which do you consider the best type of school for business administration—the full-time, or the co- operative school? Why? 2. Do you believe the large city or the small town is the better place for a man to start as lawyer? as dry goods merchant? as harvester manufacturer? as electrical engineer? Upon what factors must you decide? 3. Should a young man borrow money to educate him- self? Under what conditions, if at all? 4. Which cities in the United States are likely to grow most during the next ten years? 5. Which is better for the ordinary man, the small col- lege or the large university? 6. Should a man join a school or college fraternity? Why do educators speak of fraternities as a ‘‘prob- lem”? Should a man get into the extra-curriculum activities in school or college? For FuRTHER STUDY 7. Did Christ give any time to educating himself? Did he start preaching early? Did Paul? In what profession were the best educated men in New Testament times? In what did their education consist ? 8. After looking up ‘‘Wanted—a position” ads in a newspaper, write one yourself as for a man twenty- five years old, who desires to find work in a dry goods business. 9. Talk to some man who has worked or is working his way through college and report in detail how he earned or earns his money. 233 ‘OUT INTO LIFE 10. Talk toa successful man and report on how he makes time to study. What books has he read recently? To what journals does he subscribe? Does he use the public library much? For REFERENCE R. C. Cabot, What Men Live By, Chapter IX. 234 CHAPTER XXVII YOUR COMMUNITY OPPORTUNITY THOUGH your vocation will absorb most of your waking hours, it will not take them all—nor should it, for life is greater even than life-work. How will you put your unemployed time to greatest use? “You cannot, I cannot, but we can.”—Though there are many tasks a man can perform well by himself, in their greater enterprises men have worked together in communities. They have found, for instance, that the best way to educate their children in knowledge and skill is by providing community schools; that the best method of pro- tecting themselves, their homes, and their businesses from lawlessness is by appointing a community police force; that the best way to maintain their own highest aspirations—toward God, destiny, and the great facts of life—is through the churches, which are community institutions. A selfish man will not bother his head about his community, but the young man who has de- cided not only to live but also to help live will look forward eagerly to join his public-spirited neighbors in working for the common good. You are probably not much younger than the Athenian youths when they became of age. Those who were deemed worthy of full citizenship were conducted to the great Temple of Aglaurus, and there with ceremony were presented with certain 239 “OUT INTO LIFE weapons—symbols of their sacred duties to their city. Then solemnly in the hushed assembly each young man took an oath: I will not disgrace these holy arms. I will not desert a comrade. I will stand for whatsoever things are honorable, in private and public, alone and with many. The city of our fathers I will hand on not less but more noble and more excellent than I received it. T will hearken to those set in authority. I will obey the laws already established and those the people shall yet establish. The faith of our fathers I will honor: God is the judge of all things. An oath like that is worthy to be learned by heart by any young man in any community. No wonder Athens became a famous city, with her young men sworn to make her “more noble and more excellent”! And any town—your town— will be prospered if her young men—you—will unite in service. Men serve their community through their occu- pations themselves, provided these really fill an economic or cultural need. The best-known towns in the United States have been made by the business of their citizens. Gloversville is the product of the glove industry; Danbury, of hat manufacture. Many western Pennsylvania towns died when the oil boom failed. When “the beer that made Mil- waukee famous’ was outlawed as a_ beverage, Milwaukee was correspondingly impoverished. For- tunately, beer was not the only product that made Milwaukee famous, and legitimate trades sustain 236 YOUR COMMUNITY OPPORTUNITY the city. Good business and good business men are a boon to any community. Some people seem to think that this indirect service a man gives his town by working at his own business is all the city needs. But cast your eye over our civic and village communities—their chief ornaments are the work of men after business hours! Their churches would decay if it were not for the direct unpaid labor of men and women. Their whole government machinery, including the public school boards, would be ruined if it were not for the volunteer participation in politics on the part of their citizens. All their charitable institutions, large and small, would topple and col- lapse if the freely given support of interested people were withdrawn. Your community has need of you outside of your business. The church.—The oldest agency for community welfare is the church, and through it, still, a man may put forth the richest treasures of his per- sonality in behalf of his neighbors. The church exists first of all for worship. Who can compute how much this one act avails to build up the morale of a community? Dr. Charles E. Jefferson’s words will bear requoting: Worship does a mighty work. It melts the hearts of men together. They forget their differences of rank and culture and fortunes when they repeat the creed or bow their heads in prayer. For the effacing of the lines which separate, and the obliteration of the barriers which estrange, there is an immeasurable potency in common prayer. A congregation devoutly engaged in worship is doing something for the community which cannot be done in any other way. It is a collective confession of 23/ OUT INTO LIFE Christ which outruns in influence the confession of any one individual, no matter how exalted.! A man serves his community in a peculiarly subtle and effective way by worshiping regularly in his church. The church also holds out to men of vision and vigor an opportunity for active service. There is the church school—a chance to pour your highest wisdom into the receptive minds of children and young people. There are the boys’ and girls’ clubs and the adult organizations, each needing only the proper leader to make them bearers of Christ’s own spirit to the community. The whole country mourned when John Joseph Eagan died, but it is his own city, Atlanta, which misses him most. The division of the Christian Church into sects was an abomination to him, as it is to many men; but he did what the many are not willing to do—he gave his time as well as his dreams to bringing the churches together. He became president of the Christian Council of the city and chairman of the Commission on Church Cooperation. A Southerner of the Southerners, yet so great a lover of men that he felt narrowed by the race prejudice which would have confined his good will to a part of mankind, he took the lead in developing a plan of cooperation between the white and Negro churches of his community that eventually furnished the foundation of a nation- wide interracial movement. A Negro bishop spoke of him, and not without emotion: 1 Charles E. Jefferson, The Building of the Church. Courtesy of The Macmillan Company. 238 YOUR COMMUNITY OPPORTUNITY I have often despaired of any real solution of the race problem in America. I shall never do so again after knowing and working with John J. Eagan. I never knew there were in the whole world any white men so fair, so just, so devoted to true democracy. Does not the life of this churchman give you some- thing of a hunger to be like him? The government.—Viscount Bryce, one of the shrewdest observers the United States ever had, called democracy a failure in our cities, and sug- gested that the cause of that failure was the indiffer- ence of the best people toward the politics of their community. And it is true! If there is graft in our town government, does it not, since we are a democracy, reflect upon all of us who are, or ought to be, voters? Some of our fellow townsmen who wail loudest about the management of the govern- ment are the very ones who allow club affairs, petty society events, or sheer laziness to keep them out of the political activities proper to every citizen. It is the standing disgrace of our country that sO many citizens are not loyal enough even to vote at public elections. And to be a force in politics our good citizens must do more than cast their ballots on election day. Our towns and cities are administered through the political parties. Our local governments cannot be more advanced than the parties, nor the parties than their workers. Yet many citizens seem to feel no responsibility for being present at the cau- cuses or voting at the primaries, when the party candidates are selected. The present deplorable 239 OUTLINTO (BIBS state of many of our town governments is due solely to the complete thoughtlessness of the so- called decent people about these matters. The genuinely public-spirited citizen will never, even between elections, remit his interest in the government. If you believe your town needs a new charter, better pavements, stronger enforce- ment of the law, a budget system for its finances, a better-educated school board, more searching food inspection, or any other reform, depend upon it that these things will never be done unless you unite with the other liberal citizens to initiate them. Water, taxes, prisons, public franchises—are these not your care? There was William H. Baldwin, Jr., whose life you may study in the fascinating biography by James Graham Brooks. In preparatory school and college no man was more popular. After grad- uation he took a position with the Union Pacific Railroad, and with his brilliant intellect, high standards, and wonderful human sympathy, he made his way rapidly. At thirty-three he became president of the Long Island Railroad, part of the Pennsylvania System. Though harnessed now to a great corporation, he yet indomitably held to his ideals, nobly living and helping nobly to live. He gave his services lavishly to New York, his home city. He was elected chairman of a committee of fifteen appointed to combat commercialized prosti- tution. He made his power felt immediately. The corrupt political bosses of the city, who had their own fingers in the filthy business, swore to hound him out of town. They attempted to undermine his good name, to break up his business organiza- 240 YOUR COMMUNITY OPPORTUNITY tion. Finally they forced him to the point where he either had to give up his hostility to the organ- ized vice, or resign his position with the railroad. He chose to resign! But Mr. Cassett, president of the Pennsylvania System, to his own honor be it recorded, refused to accept the resignation. Now, why did this man go so far as even to jeopard- ize his life-work? ‘The answer is simple: he recog- nized that his community was, as it were, a large family to which as a member he owed his best. The philanthropies—The interest of the majority of the people in civic betterment always lags be- hind that of the enlightened minority. ‘The great libraries in New York City were founded by James Lenox, John Jacob Astor, and other private citizens who had a love for their city and a knowledge of the value of reading. If the people of New York had had to wait for their political leaders to come out of Tammany Hall to build the libraries, they would probably be waiting yet. Philanthropic projects of this sort—libraries, clubs for keeping boys out of vicious surroundings, the charities in general—being too advanced for the government to care for, need, like the church, with which they are closely connected, our direct voluntary service. Neighborliness.—Finally, there is simple neigh- borliness. The best gift you can make the people of your neighborhood may be your friendship. It is not only to the poor and ignorant and manifestly needy that you may minister, though these may not be neglected: you may bring, by your friendly life, a spirit of cooperation to your whole com- munity. Let others share your good things. Give 241 OUT INTO LIFE them your culture. Your home may become a center of hospitality. For many years in Edinburgh Dr. John Kelman and his wife made it their custom to invite young men to their home after church on Sunday evenings. There they would read aloud or talk about life, often far into the morning. Surely, there are few delights more magical than this, to be among friends at the hearth of a gracious host and hostess, where conversation becomes as free and frank as one’s own thoughts, and where each person casts the gems and precious things of his mind into the common store until the whole room is brilliant! If the roll were called to-day of the men who owe their insight into Christian life to those evenings in that home in Edinburgh, hundreds of them would rise and gratefully do honor to that host and hostess. Your home could be made to count that way! Your greatest service to Christ may be to be an apostle of friendship. For DIScussION 1. Is it better for the town government or a private company to operate street railways? 2. Is it a service to your community to patronize home industries? Even when the prices of their pro- ducts are higher than elsewhere? 3. Should prominent men be excused from jury duty? 4. What is the next improvement which ought to be made in your school? 5. What is the chief cause of juvenile delinquency in your town? Movies? dance-halls? pool rooms? What? 242 YOUR COMMUNITY OPPORTUNITY 6. Should women be eligible to every office in church and government? For FuRTHER STUDY 7. Leviticus 19. 11-18 and 30-37 contains some of the old Hebrew neighborhood laws. Write them out in modern English, bringing them up to date in every respect so that they might be used as or- dinances for your own community. 8. When and how was your town founded? Why lo- cated where it is? What factors have contributed to its growth? Has it in any way declined? Why? Who are your famous men and women? What did they do? 9. What are the three most prevalent diseases in your town’ Is the death-rate of infants under one year rising or falling? Have you curable crippled children not being cured? Is there a thorough physical examination of school children? How does your town arrange for its water supply? sewage disposal? food protection? ro. Name and describe three improvements you believe your community ought to make. For REFERENCE H. F. Ward and R. H. Edwards, Christianizing Commu- nity Life, every chapter. 243 CHAPTER XXVIII THE WORLD CITIZEN A MAN may be useful in his community and yet be unchristian in one fundamental character- istic: he may be narrow! His world may be bounded by the limits of his neighborhood. Sometimes one’s very activity in his home town makes him the more parochial: he is too busy to think about hap- penings in the great world outside. But Christ would have none of that narrowness: he kept return- ing again and again to the idea that it is all God’s world and the human race is all one family. The great world is our concern.—Human inven- tions have caused the earth to shrivel. It has long been possible for a Chicago business man to pick up his paper at noon and read the quotations of the Paris bourse of that very morning. It will soon be possible for him to do business personally in Paris on Monday morning and be at-home in Chicago on Tuesday night. We are indebted to the rest of the world for the ordinary utilities of life. Many of our com- monest foods and beverages—our tea, cocoa, coffee, and rice—are brought to us from the ends of the earth. When the mills and factories of Nuremberg and Sheffield are shut down, prices of toys and steel goods go up in Tampa and Seattle. When people are poor in Europe, the citizens of Con- necticut grow poorer, because a market for their manufactures is cut off. World commerce is a 244 THE WORLD CITIZEN single stream carrying prosperity upon it, which, if interrupted at any point, must be retarded at every other point. If the world has become a neighborhood, we can escape neither its responsi- bilities nor its dangers. Economic relations involve moral relations. How can Basil Mathews be refuted?— If many of the cotton factories of Japan are run—as they are—on cheap female labor which lives under such atrocious conditions that every bale of cotton that comes from those factories to us is—morally speaking—satu- rated with the blood of Japanese womanhood, we are involved in blood-guiltiness. If cocoa or rubber or gold are procured for us anywhere under conditions where men die like flies, and as they die are replaced from supposedly inexhaustible reservoirs of cheap labor, the brand of Cain is ultimately upon us all. If we were not benefited by the work of the peoples of the other countries, we might not feel respon- sible for the conditions under which they live, but when we wittingly use a product which in its making has helped debase human life, are we not partners to the crime? Some Americans do not follow this argument and do not believe in troubling themselves about the rest of the world. They live and move and have their being entirely upon the Main Street of their town, whether the town is New York or Jones’s Crossing. They are like those who in 1914 scouted the idea that the murder of an Austrian crown prince in Sarajevo might somehow involve the American people. Those persons had opportunity to 245 -OUT INTO LIFE reflect, when their own sons were suffering the tortures of the trenches in France, that no people can safely live unto themselves alone. The shrink- ing of the world has brought the dangers of the great world nearer to us. The great world to-day is restless and menacing. —Those dangers are being heightened every day. Race contacts grow more numerous and compli- cated. It is Anglo-Saxon versus Latin, Caucasian versus Mongol. The world is becoming crowded. There is not enough elbow room for the nations. Germany jostles France; Japan, America. There is a league for peace which now comprises all the nations of the world except the United States, Germany, Mexico, and a few others, but the con- tinued arming of each nation is an eloquent and terrible portrayal of how little mutual trust really exists. There is to-day for all our centuries of Christianity apparently as much sly intriguing, as much bullying of the weak by the strong, as much flaunted might against obvious right, as there was in the Dark Ages. The world’s chief need is as patent as daylight: men with a world viewpoint!—in every nation and every community, men whose first concern is for humanity at large. The world needs what any neighborhood needs, men who consult the interests of the whole people before they consider their own. There is no inherent reason why the close ap- proach of the nations to each other should be dangerous. The racial contacts, if made in a Chris- tian spirit, would result not in more of violence but in more of understanding. The hands stretched out between the nations may as easily be opened 246 THE WORLD CITIZEN in mutual welcome as clenched for battle. There may be any number of reasons why the races should not intermarry and otherwise disregard the differences which distinguish them, but this does not mean that they should cultivate between each other suspicion, hatred, and war, any more than the privacy which surrounds each family in a neighborhood necessitates backyard quarrels and other forms of unneighborliness. The world needs world-citizens—not in high places only, but everywhere, for no nation is better than its average community, and no community than its average citizen. The great world and the church.—If you and I really desire to play the part of world citizens, in what better way can we do so than by interesting ourselves in the larger work of the church?—for the church, more than any other institution, pos- sesses the world-view. She has the most compre- hensive world program ever spread before men. She is definitely attempting to build up an attitude of brotherliness between the people of the world, regardless of their nationality, language, class, or creed. If the world to-day would take the words of Christ seriously, and attempt to live in the same spirit of forbearance which pervades any happy family, all wars and rumors of wars would cease to-morrow. It is to this ideal that the church is committed, and for the next ten thousand years, if necessary, and if the human race persists, she will still be laboring to make the ideal a reality. The great world and the nation.—As world cit- izens we must have an interest in our nation and its relation to the other nations of the world. Think 247 * OUT INTO LIFE of the men about you, young and old—-how many of them are really concerned with the foreign policy of the present administration? How many realize that the peace of the world largely depends —because we hold the moneybags—upon the atti- tude of the United States government to other nations? How many know that certain massacres of Armenians may be traced to the unwillingness of the United States Senate to take any responsibility for that unfortunate country? How many are there whose opinion on the League of Nations is dictated by their own good brains rather than by their party’s policy? How many, in short, are really citizens of the world, rather than simply narrow-minded creatures, completely given to the picayune affairs of their own mud-puddle? The average citizen nowhere welcomed the coming of the Great War, but he had done nothing to avert it—he had been in ignorance of the world situation. Perhaps the chief service we can pay our country to-day is to study her relation, present and past, to the other nations, in order that we may create an enlightened public opinion concerning ‘the dan- gers she is threatened with and the possibilities opened to her. Books as broadeners.—How, then, shall we cul- tivate this world interest? The easiest way is through the books and other kinds of literature which come to us. Immanuel Kant never went more than thirty miles out of his little town of Konigsberg, yet he wrote one of the most fore- sighted essays upon world peace ever penned. Many men subscribe to a magazine like The Living Age, which specializes in articles by citizens of 248 THE WORLD CITIZEN foreign nations. Some of them subscribe to mag- azines in French and German and Italian, in order to know the foreign mind at first hand. But in our own American newspapers and magazines we may find ample information regarding the world at large if we will look for it. Travel.—A month or so spent by a Northerner in one of the Southern States will give him more than many books could impart of the true spirit of the South. He will know how the Southerner feels about the Negro, about the North, about the cotton market. So also the Southerner gains his best information about the North by visiting there. The voyage to France which was forced upon many of the young men of the United States during the Great War was one of the best bits of education they had ever had. It opened their eyes to the bigness of the earth. It showed to many of them that the people of France are very much like our- selves, with the same hopes and fears, the same ideals and vices, and yet different. France was added to their mental world. Men like Immanuel Kant, who never traveled and yet had a world viewpoint, are outstanding exceptions. Almost all the broad-visioned men of the world have traveled. George Washington was a great leader for the colonies partly because he knew them all from personal observation. Abraham Lincoln became a leader to the Middle West, partly because he had seen the Middle West, from Chicago to New Orleans. Many believe that traveling is the privilege only of the wealthy. But when there is a will, even in poverty, there is always found a way. Lincoln 249 * OUT INTO LIFE was not burdened with a huge income when he went down the Mississippi. Oliver Goldsmith had to support himself on his journey through Europe. Every summer sees its quota of young college men crossing the Atlantic on cattle boats or in the steerage. When you have a certain amount of education, the mission boards or the great indus- trial concerns, like the Standard Oil Company, will send you to foreign parts for short terms. Travel is a pleasure for all, and for the open-minded man, an unsurpassable opportunity for profit. Travel is profitable even for short distances. A man who knows his state is a man with a larger mind than he who knows only his village. Friendship of broad-minded people.—Perhaps the best way of expanding the limits of one’s mental horizon is neither by books nor by travel but through friendships. Association with men who are in- formed about the world gives one a share in their viewpoint. It is doubtful if John, Thomas, and the rest of the disciples would have given much thought to the world outside of Palestine if it had not been for their friendship with Jesus. It was his world-embracing love which finally caused Peter to see that all men, whether they were clean or unclean according to the Jewish law, were his brothers. What Jesus did for those Galilean fishermen and narrow-minded Jews he will do for you. Think with him by reading his words. Walk with him by reading his life. It is as impossible for a person in whom Jesus has planted his gospel not to grow broad-minded and sympathetic toward the world at large as it is for a rich acre upon which God 250 THE WORLD CITIZEN sends his seed and sunshine and showers not to bear fruit and blossom. Io. For Discussion What is your candid opinion about the lessening of the size of the earth through our improved means of transportation and communication—do you think we are more likely to be engulfed in war than we were one hundred years ago or not? . Is there anything good to be said for war? . Do you believe in the League of Nations? Why? . Which do you regard as the most broadening— books, travel, or the friendship of the broad- minded? . What do you regard as the chief cause of interna- tional friction? How will we avoid it? . How do one’s obligations to the people of his own nation compare with his obligations to the people of other nations? For FuRTHER STUDY . In what chapter in Acts does the story of Peter and the clean and unclean foods occur? Write a brief imaginative sketch of a modern American Peter having a similar dream regarding his fellow citi- zens. . What percentage of the world’s population is Chris- tian? What percentage is under Christian gov- ernments? What are the three world religions besides Christianity? Why is Christianity better? . What are the names of the United States senators who represent you? Of your congressman? What attitude does each have toward the League of Na- tions? Japanese immigration? Mexico? Name the three books which have had the most 251 " OUT INTO LIFE broadening effect upon you and tell why they have. For REFERENCE H. E. Luccock, The Haunted House, Chapter VIII. G. W. Fiske, Jesus’ Ideals of Living, Chapter XX. F. M. Harris and J. C. Robbins, A Challenge to Life Service, Chapter V. 252 CHAPTER XXIX HOME AND MARRIAGE A MAN’s life is divided between his vocation, his community, and, not least, his home. Whether he marries or not, he will sooner or later, if he lives a normal life, have a room, rooms, or a house fur- nished with his own belongings and decorated according to his own taste, which he may call his home. The features of a good home.—The ideal home doubtless possesses material comforts. It is well heated, well furnished. But essential comforts are surprisingly few. Enough nutritious food to permit the family to live in good health, and not, as most of us do, overeat; enough clothes to keep them warmly and neatly dressed, and not overdressed; enough room inside and land outside to obviate crowding; enough books for mental growth; enough decorative art to make the house beautiful; enough of everything which makes for strength and nobility —these would all be necessary, but none of them require excessive wealth. In fact, some marvelously happy homes have not been far from poverty. The number will never be counted of those mothers and fathers who have gladly stinted themselves for long years to provide for the education of their children. Many wise men and women have consciously cultivated the severest simplicity. Hawthorne and Longfellow were “content with small means.”’ 253 OUT INTO LIFE There is nothing to be said for poverty when it reaches the point where life becomes not more simple, but more complex. What sort of home life can be enjoyed in a slum tenement, for in- stance, where a dozen people, representing three or four families, all live and sleep in one room? What mental life does the ideal home exhibit? I can picture a father with his family gathered around him in the evening reading aloud from one of the masters of literature. I can see the walls of the home paneled with library shelves whence every one, from the children beginning school to the white-haired grandfather, can draw books of interest and inspiration. The conversation at table is not given over entirely to the petty topics of the daily round: the news of the world, the discoveries of science, the ideals of art and literature, the prin- ciples beneath current politics—all the deeds and hopes of man have their place. The ministry of music brings happiness to the hearth. What is holier and more satisfying after the day’s work is done than for the family to gather and sing or, each with his instrument, to play?—for music is “love seeking a word.” But a home is much more than a combination of material and mental resources. There have been real homes without either. The chief ingredient of a home is, of course, something spiritual. It is the atmosphere of unselfish love. The members of a Christlike family live and help each other live. Though each one of them is a self-commanded indi- vidual, they are yet concerned for one another. Children growing up in such a home are bound to catch this spirit from their elders—the spirit of 254 HOME AND MARRIAGE individuality combined with self-sacrifice. Theodore Roosevelt cannot be fully understood without understanding also the spirit of his early home, especially the spirit of his father. He wrote: I was fortunate enough in having a father whom I have always been able to regard as an ideal man. He really did combine the strength and courage and will and energy of the strongest man with the tenderness, cleanness, and purity of a woman. I was a sickly and timid boy. He not only took great and untiring care of me—some of my earliest remembrances are of nights when he would walk up and down with me for an hour at a time in his arms when I was a wretched mite suffer- ing acutely with asthma—but he also most wisely re- fused to coddle me, and made me feel that I must force myself to hold my own with other boys and prepare to do the rough work of the world. I cannot say that he ever put it into words, but he certainly gave me the feeling that I was always to be both decent and manly, and that if I were manly, nobody would laugh at my being decent.! All homes, alas! do not contain that spirit of manliness and gentleness which young Roosevelt found. It does not come by mere chance. The secret of its source is glimpsed in another quotation from Roosevelt: Morning prayers were with my father We used to stand at the foot of the stairs, and when my father came down we called out, “I speak for you and the cubby- hole too!’ There were three of us young children, and we used to sit with father on the sofa while he conducted morning prayers. The place between father and the 1 J. B. Bishop, Theodore Roosevelt and His Time. Courtesy of Charles Scribner’s Sons, publishers. 255 OUTS EN EGY Lie arm of the sofa we called the “cubby-hole.” The child who got that place we regarded as especially favored both in comfort and somehow or other in rank and title.” The Roosevelt home was built around the family altar. The hearth for all ages has been a sacred spot. Religion is in true human love as the bones are in the hand. The difference between the mil- lions of ordinary homes in America and the com- paratively few triumphantly, brilliantly happy homes is simply—Christ. On getting married.—The kind of home you are to have will depend much upon yourself. It will also depend upon the wife you choose. And the spirit of the whole family, if you have children, will depend primarily upon the spirit of the rela- tion between yourself and your wife. How convenient it would be if the eugenic experts would give us a code from which each of us, on the basis of our own characteristics, could discover just the type of girl we ought to marry! And if, then, they would only show us the girl! But life is more romantic, and much less cut and dried, than that. We choose our own wives and use our own standards of judgment. This is not such a bad system, only provided our standards of judgment are good enough. Ought not every young man to do some thinking about these standards? If in a confidence I should ask you what you would demand in the girl you would think of marrying, what would you say? First, you would surely lay it down as a rule without exception that you should love her and 2 Autobiography. Courtesy of Charles Scribner’s Sons, publishers. 256 HOME AND MARRIAGE she should love you. There should be love in all its fullness, as youth loves youth. Marriage is not a dry-as-dust business proposition: there is real emotion in it. Natural love of this sort is one good standard— but to how many it is the only standard! People have made the proverb that love is blind. The love which is pure passion and nothing else is, of course, blind. But the love of intelligent men is no more blind than it is deaf and dumb. The proverb would better read: “The fool’s love is blind.” For consider: the psychologists tell us that, if we will, any one of us can “fall in love” with practically any one of the other sex! Bodily passion is merely a functioning of the nervous mechanism with which we are all equipped. And consider further: some day that mechanism is going to wear out and be discarded—long before the end of our lives, long before our home breaks up. When your emo- tional life is on the ebb, after the middle of your career, what will bind you to your wife and keep the home-spirit alive and unspent? And, again: during your married life you are almost sure to meet some of the more bitter experiences of life— disappointments, disillusionments, losses, perhaps disease and poverty. Mere passion never stands these tests. It has no defense against “stark, drear drudgery.” A man and a woman need more than physical love to live on. There must be common interests. Anne C. E. Allinson wrote to a friend contemplating divorce: Fountains of living water—this is the greatest figure 257 * OUT INTO LIFE by which to describe the amazing vitality of some men and women. But they are not those who force their total energy into one passional stream. They pour it broadcast into work and play, into art and beauty, into comradeship and into leadership. While passion exists it tempts to isolation. But really vital natures cannot be held within its grip alone. The joy of other creative things takes its turn in possessing them. They insist upon expressing themselves in a thousand ways dis- connected with sex. If in these ways they are at one with the man or woman they love, they are fortunate.* Fortunate indeed! Happy the man who can share his thoughts with his wife!—who can talk over his business with her, with her enjoy the education of their children, and with her study and love nature, art, science, history, and the acts and aspirations of contemporary humanity! Together!—it is a marvelous word: it is a test word too: unless you and your wife can find your major interests and “do things” ¢ogether, you will hardly have a real home. Most of all, a home’s happiness depends upon the mutual loyalty of the man and wife. What is it that keeps a strong man loyal? Is it his physical love for her? Is it common interests? Both of them may change and fade. It is his own promise. When a true man says, “I take thee to be my wedded wife, from this day forward, for better, for worse. . .,”’ he means what he says. It is an oath registered in heaven. The woman may become an invalid, even a mental invalid, but so long as she remains his wife he will be her true husband. She need waste no thought about his constancy, for he has * From The Atlantic Monthly. Used by permission. 258 HOME AND MARRIAGE made a vow to himself. This is real marriage. Only when you have met the woman for whose sake you are ready to take such an oath upon yourself are you ready for marriage. Girls.—The best if not the only way to find the person for whom you would take that oath of marriage is, paradoxically, not to look for her at all. The young man who does his work, attends to his own business, and does not busy his mind with appraising young women as to their desir- ability, will some time, if there is someone for him to marry, meet her—and know it. Remember that your present is the past of your future. The way you live your life to-day will be a happy or a horrid memory in after years. If to-day you treat every girl as you would like to have men treat your sister, you will have no to- morrow of regret when you meet her who you know is worthy of an allegiance unsullied. Life takes on a new exaltation to a man who, when at last he meets the woman who is made for him, can say: “For your sake I have kept myself the man I knew you would have me be!” For Discussion 1. If getting married means incomplete preparation for life-work, what should a man do? How much capital should a man have before he marries? 2. Do you consider that there is anything wrong in dancing? 3. Anything wrong in “petting”? How about it in the light of the last paragraph of the text? 4. Do you think a man ought to have a number of girls on his calling list, or one at a time? 5. Since women to-day have all the rights and priv- 259 AO UCE EN TOME ECR ileges of men, should men still continue to give up their seats to them in street cars? 6. Can any man make good in life who has not first fought his way through to complete control of his passions? For FurtHEer STupy . What was Jesus’ attitude toward women? Read John 4. 4-42; Luke 7. 36-50; 10. 38-42; John 19. 25-27. 8. Give instances of a wife’s being of assistance to her husband in his life-work. 9g. What relation have a clean mind and body to physi- cal efficiency? Get your answer from a physician. co. You will find one man’s idea of a good wife in Provy- erbs 31. 10-29. Do you agree? What do you consider the qualities of an ideal girl? ~I For REFERENCE G W. Fiske, Jesus’ Ideals of Living, Chapters XVI, XXXI. R. C. Cabot, What Men Live By, Chapter XXIX. G. A. Coe, Education in Religion and Morals, Chapter XVI. R. E. Speer, A Young Man’s Questions, Chapter XIII. 260 CHAPTER XXX SAVING TIME Tuoucn still in the prime of his life, Edward Bok has already published six books and innumer- able magazine articles. For thirty years of his business life he assisted in publishing The Ladies’ Home Journal. Every month he read manuscripts and supervised the business end of the enterprise. He built up the circulation of the magazine to two million copies—a record never before achieved by any magazine in the history of the world. The last issue which he published as editor presented another record unattained by any single number of any periodical: it carried between its covers the amazing total of over one million dollars in adver- tisements. Besides building up the immense organ- ization which made this possible, he was constantly in touch with his community and yet never neg- lected his family. He founded, with others, the Child Federation of Philadelphia and the Merion Civic Association. He was vice-president of the Philadelphia Belgian Relief Commission, member of the Y. M. C. A. War-Work Council and State chairman for Pennsylvania; he was a member of the executive committee of the Philadelphia War Chest and State chairman for Pennsylvania of the United War Work Campaign. His life has been a series of accomplishments. Week by week has seen work completed. Systematizing your time.—What is the secret of 261 OUT INTO LIFE the enormous productivity of this life and others like it? There are doubtless many such secrets, but one of them certainly lies in the fact that Mr. Bok early discovered how to organize his time. There are only twenty-four hours in every day. They are given to all of us to employ in whatso- ever way we will: we may fill them with matters trivial or matters important. Most of us live, as a child does, without looking ahead very far. A child will pass from playing with his blocks to asking his father questions about electricity, and on to puzzling out a word in the newspaper, and thence to looking for a pair of scis- sors to cut out paper dolls, and so on ad infinitum. He selects a task, not because it is the most im- portant but because it is the nearest to hand and uppermost in his mind. It is inevitable that a man who lives without blocking out his work ahead should fall into the same way of living: he will not accomplish first the work which is first in importance, but will spend himself on trivialities. To get things done one must take time to estimate the relative importance of his various possible activities, allot them the time commensurate with their importance, and then stick to the schedule of his allotments. A schedule of work also allows for greater con- centration upon each task as its turn comes. When you have definitely set apart an hour for a given piece of work you are less likely to be haunted by the bugaboos of other tasks waiting to be done. A ticket agent who has an unorganized crowd clamoring for tickets at his window is far more likely to grow distracted than the agent whose 262 SAVING TIME patrons line up and pass him one by one. Get your tasks lined up! What, then, are the more important parts of a man’s life which he ought to plan for? There are his duties in his regular vocation. There are his duties to his community. There are his duties in his home. These are primary to all others, and these he will arrange so that each will have its due share of his time. There are two other matters which cannot readily be included as business, community, or family duties but which in the long run will benefit all three—recreation and avocation. Recreation.— Doubtless a further secret of Edward Bok’s success is that he has never allowed his duties to crush the play spirit out of his mind. He has realized the value of periodic diversion from regular work. Claude Richards quotes Professor George John Romanes, a British biologist and shrewd observer of life, as saying: In all the places of the civilized world, and in all classes of the civilized community, the struggle for existence is now more keen than ever it has been during the history of our race. Everywhere (people) are living at a pressure positively frightful to contemplate. Over all the length and breadth of this teeming land men and women and children, in no metaphor, but in cruel truth, are strug- gling for life. Even our smiling landscapes support as the sons of their soil a new generation, to whom the free- dom of gladness is a tradition of the past, and on whose brows is stamped, not only the print of honest work, but a new and saddening mark—the brand of sickening care. Or if we look to our universities and schools, to our pro- 263 ’ OUT INTO LIFE fessional men, and men of business, we see the same fierce battle rage—ruined health and shattered hopes, tearful lives and early deaths being everywhere the bitter lot of millions who toil, strive, and love, and bleed their young heart’s blood in sorrow. What is needed is evident. It is picturesquely put in the counsel of Ptah Hotep, an ancient Egyp- tian, to his son: The archer hitteth the target partly by pulling, partly by letting go; the boatman reacheth the landing partly by pulling, partly by letting go. It is hard for us in busy America to learn to let go. But for mental health’s sake we must. The mind grows stale which is not at times diverted, turned aside, from its routine responsibilities. The best kind of diversion for any man is, there- fore, in general, that which is farthest removed from his regular work. It may be sheer play— baseball, golf, tennis, canoeing, tramping, or other outdoor sports—or any of the inside games—billiards, pool, checkers. For a man who does his daily work inside the outdoor exercises are plainly much the better kind. Some forms of play are good and some are bad; and each of us, if we are to maintain our efficiency at the top notch, must learn to distinguish between the two varieties. Plays which tend to deaden, rather than quicken our minds, are not good for us. Gum-chewing is play for a minute, and so is rocking to and fro in a chair, and so is listening to most jazz music, but to keep these up a whole afternoon or evening— 204 SAVING TIME why not take a bit of opium and ‘descend the first step toward stupidity in a simpler way? All forms of play, if too long drawn out, have the same effect. Many men waste evening after evening at cards. The main objection to many motion pictures and popular plays is not so much that the stuffy theater in which they are shown slows up the bodily processes as that the trite, unoriginal plots blunt one’s intel- lectual zest. Richard C. Cabot, M.D., defines good play: Good play is subject to rules; it has a clear-cut form and organization. It may use rhythm and repetition, but subordinates them to improvisation and adventure. It gives intense and varied delight, but in such dynamic form that pleasure is ever quickly lost and found again. It is full of give-and-take, dramatically loses its life to find it, and ever seeks, asks, knocks at the door of the unexplored. Does your form of recreation meet this standard? Avocations.—Sometimes a man’s play becomes so regular and absorbing to him as to resemble a minor occupation. It becomes an avocation. One usually comes upon his avocation naturally, following the line of his interests. Some men carry it with them from boyhood, as Edmund Clarence Spencer the banker his writing of poetry. Others pick it up later, as the late J. Pierpont Morgan, having amassed his fortune, set about collecting gems of art for his own and the public museums. There is no reason why an avocation should not earn one a bit of extra money. Many men engaged 1 What Men Live By. Houghton Mifflin Company. Used by per- mission. 265 * OUT INTO LIFE in clerical work enjoy keeping chickens or growing vegetables—and incidentally save grocer’s and butcher’s bills. Some hobbies, on the other hand, are expensive. Only the wealthy can collect clocks or old manuscripts. An avocation may grow so large as to be in conflict with one’s regular vocation. There is a real danger of one’s becoming so interested in the sideshow that he forgets the big ring. Many young men, for instance, who have taken up orchestra work for their amusement have found that owing to the late hours they have had to keep, their vitality has been impoverished and their efficiency in their daily task impaired. An avoca- tion should remain an avocation. A man need not limit himself to a single avoca- tion, nor to the same avocation for life. It is all a matter of balance. The educated man should know everything about something and something about everything. In his main profession he has a chance to learn everything about something. In his spare time he may learn something about every- thing. There is the public library and cne’s own books. Practically all of your general culture after your graduation from school will come from read- ing. Or if your profession keeps you immersed in books, there is music, or agriculture, or wood-work- ing—anything for the sake of balance. Use your avocation to fill out your vocation. By way of practical test, review your life as you are at present living it. Do your recreations bal- ance off your regular work? After spending a day at mathematics and science and German in the classroom, do you while away the evening at mah 266 SAVING TIME jong? Would not an hour or so of physical exercise before supper make a fitter man of you? Or if you have been playing all day, what can give more pleasure than a good book in the evening, under the living-room light? Are you well balanced? The main necessity is that one should budget his time. Busy men are never far from their date- books, where are entered both their standing appoint- ments and the other innumerable special engage- ments. If one is determined to do first things first, the longer in advance he gets them into his schedule, the likelier he is to get them done. Every efficient minister, for instance, marks down at the beginning of the year the hours for his regular services, committee meetings, calling, and even times for personal study and devotion, and then fills in the rest of his schedule as the year advances. Here is a page from such a calendar—the standing dates are italicized: Thursday, March 28 g-1 Study—Sunday morning sermon. 2 Meet A. E. at parish house. 2:30 Letter to R. M. | 3:00 Address Parent-Teachers’ Association — E. Fairfield. 4:30 Hill funeral. 5:00 Gym. 7:00 Study—prayer meeting. 7:30 Prayer Meeting. 8:30 S. 5S. Committee. If you are not already doing so, why not secure an engagement book and at least make the attempt to schedule your time? It will help! | 267 bo IO. * OUT INTO LIFE For DIscussIon 1. You have heard it said: “If you want a job done, take it to the busiest man you know.” Is this a good rule? Applying Doctor Cabot’s definition of good play, how do you estimate baseball? golf? tennis? canoeing? tramping? billiards? chess? dancing? card parties? movies? . Should every man have an avocation? . Which is the better time to get your studying done— day or evening? . In budgeting your time for a week, how many hours should you assign to church and other community work? . In the case of most men, do the leaks in personal efficiency occur because of their lack of energy or lack of system? For FurRTHER STUDY . Plan and give a talk as to an intermediate Sunday- school class on the subject of this chapter, using as your point of departure Ephesians 5. 15-106. . What devices for doing first things first were used by Benjamin Franklin, Alfred Lord Tennyson, William Ewart Gladstone, or other men who have a record of great weekly accomplishment? . Make out a schedule of your time as you actually spent it last week (or this week). On the basis of this, make out a budget of your time for next week. Can you stick to it? For REFERENCE R. C. Cabot, What Men Live By, Chapter IX. R. E. Speer, A Young Man’s Questions, Chapter XII. Irving Fisher and E. L. Fisk, How to Live, Chapter IV. 268 CHAPTER XXXI SAVING MONEY, AND OTHER GOOD HABITS You may remember the famous formula which Charles Dickens put into the mouth of Mr. Micawber. In an American form it would read: DL ORLALY. INCOME on cers ete eaten $100. Monthly expense............. $ 99.99 CECI Sees nueva cae ny Ee eer r tere an Happiness NEONLOI VS INCOME y o.-- seateia vee ei eae $100. Monthly expense... ..2....... $100.01 PROSOLG ee Pied claire ties Gare RCN Misery You may remember also the words of the railroad genius James J. Hill: If you want to know whether you are going to be a financial success or a failure in life, you can easily find out. The test is simple and infallible. Are you able to save money? If not, drop out. You will lose. You may not think it, but you will lose as sure as you live. The seed of success is not in you. It is the same ability required to save single dollars at twenty that is needed to save hundreds of them at forty. The necessity of money saving.—It comes as a shock to many to discover that there are thousands of commercial failures in the United States every year, involving hundreds of millions of dollars. Most of these failures would have been avoided if the men concerned had understood money-saving. 269 OUT INTO LIFE On the other hand it sometimes gives one a shock of surprise to learn what the regular saving of small sums will do. Study the following table, for instance: MONEY AT FOUR PER CENT INTEREST COMPOUNDED SEMI-ANNUALLY WILL AMOUNT TO: et 1 Year |2 Years|/3 Years|4 Years|5 Years|6 Years|7 Year Years/|9 Year| Yrs. .{$ 52.92/$107.97|$165.25| $225.85] $287.85} $352.35| $419.50] $489.38) $563.08) $638.72 496.17| 678.15| 864.39| 1058.16] 1259.79| 1469.57| 1690.85|1917.97 """| 964.78] 540.25} 826.87| 1130.13] 1440.49] 1763.41| 2099.42| 2449.02 2817.80|3196.30 In one short year your two dollars a week will amount to over a hundred, and in ten years to well over a thousand! Men like Russell Sage who have become very rich have attributed their success to two factors: careful accounting and budgeting. They have known how every cent they have earned has been spent, and they have planned ahead just how much they would spend in the week or month to come. The man who follows these two practices, keeping account of his expenses and budgeting ahead, will certainly save money; the man who does not will almost certainly be unable to save. Perhaps you already keep a notebook for your income and spendings, every night before retiring putting down your record for the day, as, for example: Income Expenses May 6 Wages $25 Deposited in Savings Bank $2.50 Carfare 25 Laundry 50 Lunch -40 —Ete. By totaling up at the end of the month and com- paring items you can find out where you have 270 SAVING MONEY, AND OTHER GOOD HABITS spent too much, and where you might profitably have spent more. Then you are ready to make your budget for the month to come. One man, looking over his expenses for the pre- vious month, noticed that besides his insurance he had saved only one dollar. The next month he proposed to save, all told, ten dollars, or one tenth of his income. To do this he had to rearrange certain other expenses. His budget looked like the one following—and the proportions of this budget, by the way, may serve as a model for an income of this size: Income Actual income last month Probable income next month Wragesi soo: Se Whee aata hs cunt amee $99. $99. PC etest OUISA VINO Get esis diee ook 1, PUM Ie tat Cee aN ee ats $99. $100. Expenses Actual expenses last month Proposed expenses next month Ue ne cy Ree ee pa $6. $6. Deposited in savings bank........ | 4. Se ae ie ee re 28. 30. DIR ee a ale wee 20. 20: PERCE Nise a sass oie ae 6.75 6. Furniture and equipment......... 2.25 2, RIS EP PAE ei yn s cleceene «acne 2.50 2.50 ) ied Crs es C6] Oa a 1.50 1.50 TS 6 A ea ree 9.75 8.75 CN Se cle ga Re A 1.50 Te Pee, Gap TIONETY 6. es .50 .50 Recreation, vacation............. Ke 3.50 Education, books, papers......... 1.50 1.50 Pep ACCOR TILEY .b 0). cc Gielen es ae 8.25 8.25 OUTS ay al oely Pe ee ee y 1.50 BEETLES Ss bg kk ons om 8 5.50 : PVE Ete Cs eee SMe Ar $99. $100. Once the budget is made you are ready to enter upon the next month with a clear-cut purpose. 271 OUT INTO LIFE Live within the items, and you are on the road to usefulness and’ happiness. You doubtless learned all this long ago in school. But have you applied it to your own life? What achievements for Christ are the Russell Sage Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation for the advancement of human knowledge! They were both made possible by the saving of pennies. The business you take up may not be one in which you can possibly make millions; but you will be more successful and so much more serviceable to your fellow men if you save your money systemat- ically. If you can now live on your whole income without difficulty, by stinting yourself a little you can certainly live on nine tenths of it—and put the saved tenth in the bank. If you are really in earnest about doing your best. for the kingdom of Christ, save money! Some day you may do great good with it. Habit the helper.—To cultivate money-saving, and, indeed, all the other practices an intelligent man should have, you have a marvelously useful ally in your habit-forming equipment.. Another secret, and this probably the fundamental one, which Mr. Bok and other men of great output have learned is that of putting their habits to work for them. You cannot escape forming habits of some sort! Your nervous system is physical and must obey the laws of the physical world. One of these laws is a tendency to repetition. William James quotes Léon Dumont to illustrate it: Everyone knows how a garment, after having been 272 SAVING MONEY, AND OTHER GOOD HABITS worn a certain time, clings to the shape of the body better than when it was new; there has been a change in the tissue, and this change is a new habit of cohesion. A lock works better after being used some time; at the outset more force was required to overcome certain roughness in the mechanism. It costs less trouble to fold a paper when it has been folded already. The sounds of a violin improve by use in the hands of an able artist, because the fibers of wood at last contract habits of vibration conformed to harmonic relations. This is what gives such inestimable value to instruments that have belonged to great masters. Water, in flowing, hollows out for itself a channel, which grows broader and deeper; and, after having ceased to flow, it resumes, when it flows again, the path traced by itself before. Just so, habits form in our own lives. It is easier for us to do anything the second time than the first time, the third time than the second time, and so on. | Some mature men are able to attend two or three meetings of boards of directors every day, care for a large correspondence, lead a useful polit- ical life, do generous public work of all sorts, and be present unfailingly at the services of the church on Sunday, while others who seem to have equally good minds, and ideals as high, accomplish but little. The reason is solemnly evident. The latter failed in their youth, the habit-forming time, to cultivate the habits of achievement. They learned to dream: they did not learn to do. Get started right in your personal habits! Learn how to cultivate good habits.—But how to get the right start—that is the question. For- tunately, the psychologists have been studying this 273 OUT INTO LIFE question for many years and are able to answer it with definiteness. Here are the rules for habit- forming as stated by Dr. George Herbert Betts: 1. Motivate the formation of the new habit and the drop- ping of the old. Suppose, for instance, that you are trying to learn to study. To do so you will need incidentally to unlearn all your habits which stand in the way of study—superficialness, for instance. The first necessity is to make yourself want to acquire the new habit and lose the old. Think of how much the new habit will help you in your life-work, how much more of a man you will be, how much greater your influence! Desire it strongly. 2. Reward the new habit and penalize the old. When you are trying to acquire the new habit, keep your friends posted on your success or failure, and pray about the matter, too, that the appro- bation or disapproval of others may be a reward or punishment to spur you on. 3. Make sure that the desired act 1s clearly defined in the mind. Many people fail at this point. You desire to improve your study-habits—definitely, what are they? Analyze study: it is a thorough mastering of the meaning of every detail—it is a mental arranging of these details in order of their im- portance—and it is a memorizing of a certain work- ing minimum of the important points. Specifically, in which of these processes do you need strength- ening? 274 SAVING MONEY, AND OTHER GOOD HABITS 4. Launch the new habit with initiative and determination. Your old habits are at present the easiest course for you to pursue. To break away from them calls for all the firmness you can muster. Say not: “I'll try to study better’—say: ‘‘Any man who cannot study is mentally a child, and I am going to tighten up on myself right now!” ss. In launching a new habit, permit no return to the old, but act as often as possible in the direction of the new. If you are trying to improve your study, do not, after following your new rules on Monday and Tuesday, drop back into the old slipshod method on Wednesday, when you have not so much time. Better cover a little ground, well, on Wednesday, than do a large amount in the old way. 6. Organize habits so that they will reenforce each other. If you are attempting to improve in the study of Latin, do not continue under the superficial method in chemistry or English or any of your other subjects. The will!—These rules will help you to establish good habits all along the line. But they are only rules. They have all—and no more than—the value in teaching you to form good habits that a treatise on swimming would have in teaching you to swim. In the last analysis the building of your character lies in your own hands. Making good depends not upon your brains, but upon the You that makes your brains work—not upon your feelings but upon the You which lies beneath your feelings —upon the will which is Yourself. 275 OUP CUNT Gs Tes Review your life, study out what habits you ought to form, and then begin without waiting—taking courage from the thought in Doctor Betts’ words: Every bit of heroic self-sacrifice, every battle fought and won, every good deed performed, is being irradicably credited to you in your nervous system, and will finally add its mite toward achieving the success of your ambi- tions.} For DIscussIon r=) . Do you think it is necessary for every man if he wants to live at the height of efficiency to keep a cash account? 2. Or to budget? 3. Does any man ever descend so low that he lacks the will power to form new habits? 4. Is it possible to be really thrifty and yet not some- thing of a tightwad? 5. Is it a Christian practice for a man to lend money to his friends? 6. Are bad habits easier to form than good ones? For FurRTHER STUDY 7. Name twelve habits Jesus developed in his boyhood and youth. 8. Turn back to the chapter on “Men and Money” and write out for yourself six to ten financial com- mandments, on the subjects of earning, spending, giving, and investing. 9. Make a cash budget for next week. 10. Study seriously the habit you need most to overcome, and the habit you wish to establish in its place. ‘From The Mind and Its Education. Courtesy of D. Appleton and Company. 276 SAVING MONEY, AND OTHER GOOD HABITS Then apply Doctor Betts’ rules. Which rule do you break most easily? For REFERENCE G. W. Fiske, Jesus’ Ideals of Living, Chapter XVIII. Margaret Slattery, Talks With the Training Class, Chap- ters VIII, [X. G. H. Betts, The Mind and Its Education, Chapter V. 277 CHAPTER XXXII THE ROOT OF THE WHOLE MATTER You have now made your study of the oppor- tunities life lavishly offers you, in vocation, in home, and in neighborhood, and have put to your- self the question: What must I do to qualify? A good deal of advice has been given you, based upon the experiences of men who have lived lives which can be described as victorious. But if you forget all the rest, remember—have you not already verified it in your own experience?—that the drive of a man’s life is his religion. Some men seem to have the impulse to make their lives count for good who are apparently lack- ing in religious experience. They doubtless have within them more of the gospel than we think, for religion is as subtle and inscrutable as the human soul itself, and is sometimes hard to recognize. If religion were worn on the outside, like clothes, we could always tell who possessed it, but being a little spring at the bottom of a man’s nature, it is difficult to penetrate to. It is doubtful if there is any good man wholly without a religious sense. But the men who become centers of strength, who radiate life, who are “‘springs of living water” to their fellow men—there is no doubt about their religion! They do not bury it. It bursts the bounds of their personality. A cloud of witnesses.—These men of power have a fresh and immediate touch with Him who is 278 THE ROOT OF THE WHOLE MATTER Power. From all walks of life one gets the same testimony: Speaks Thomas Alva Edison, the world’s great- est inventor: There is a great directing head of things and people— a Supreme Being who looks after the destinies of the world. I still believe in the religion of our Lord and Master. Said Michael Faraday, the physicist, at the end of his epoch-making volume Researches in Chemistry and Physics: “I believe that the invisible things of God are clearly seen.” Said Pasteur, the father of modern pathology: “On all sides I find the inevitable expression of the idea of the infinite. The supernatural lies at the bottom of every heart.” The great popular writers of the day are pro- foundly religious. H. G. Wells was for a time a materialist, George Bernard Shaw an atheist, Maeterlinck almost an agnostic, but to-day in their maturity their lives are made strong by a belief in God. Said the musician Haydn: When I was employed on the Creation I felt myself so penetrated with religious feeling that before I sat down to the instrument I prayed to God with earnestness that he would enable me to praise him worthily. Mr. William L. Fletcher, who has worked with several hundred employers in hiring men for very responsible positions, in writing to young men about what are usually called the purely secular 279 - OUT INTO LIFE professions, says as his final word in How to Get the Job You Want: I have had a great deal to say about mental and phy- sical development. In this last chapter I should like to ask you to consider your spiritual development. I am not a crank on religion, but I don’t think that the man who neglects his spiritual development can ever be counted successful. You certainly can’t win big business success without faith, and faith is a spiritual quality.! In the same vein speaks another business man, Roger W. Babson: The need of the hour is not more houses or freight- cars, not more factories or ships, not more legislation, education, or banking facilities, but more religion. The need of the hour is religion. And here are the compelling words, born from his own experience, of a successful promoter and manager of public utility corporations, and banker, Philip Cabot: Using the language of the trade, if we call God the Power House, or Generating Station, and man the trans- mitting wire to the factory or to the job, we get what to me is an illuminating analogy. In that case, there is no power in the wire: the wire simply passes the power on. It is true that appearances are otherwise, for if you carelessly take hold of a live wire it may kill you. Many of us have seen a broken trolley wire squirming and blazing on the street. Some of us have been in the high- tension room of a power house during a thunder storm, when the lightning broke across the horn-gaps of the transformers with the sound of machine-gun fire, or at 1 Used by permission. 280 THE ROOT OF THE WHOLE MATTER the main switchboard when dead grounding of the trans- mission line blew out a main breaker with a roar like a riven oak. It is hard to imagine that there is no power in the wire, but it is true, all the same. Disconnect it for a second from the power house and it is dead. The wire has no power. It merely passes it on. And so it is, I think, with God and man. We may pray for power to do something for ourselves, but we shall not get it. If we ask for power to do the will of God, he will pass the power through us and his purpose will be carried out.” The religious attitude is evidently one which has produced men of force and vigor. Even though physically weak, they have been strong. Think of John Calvin, one of the most versatile of men, as expert a politician as a theologian, producing no less than forty volumes, and yet a lean con- sumptive, fighting for life all his days. Think of the poet Milton, though totally blind, producing the great epics of the English language—that he might thereby glorify God! You may ask the question, How then can I cultivate religion? The answer is: You cannot. A man will not compass God: God will compass him. God has already taken the initiative and stands ready to be your guide and inspiration. It is all a question of making the right contacts. To revert to Mr. Cabot’s figure, in order to have an electric current pass through a wire it is necessary that there should be a complete circuit. An electric car has power only when its wheels are on the ground and its trolley is on the wire. These two 2 Courtesy of The Atlantic Monthly. 281 VOUTAINTO LIFE contacts are absolutely essential, for only when they are made can the power from the generating station flow in circuit through the electrical mechan- ism of the car. There may be hundreds of volts of power in the ground, as it were, but unless the connection is made with the wire the car will not feel that power. Our contact with God is already made: the Creator has not cut himself off from his children. We are grounded. But unless we make another contact, we cannot know his power. ‘The contact necessary is an unselfish sense of responsibility for the welfare of his world. When we have truly assumed that responsibility, and only then, the awareness of spiritual power begins to ripple through the soul. A selfish person, who makes no contact of service with the needy world, is like an electric engine standing helpless with its trolley down. It is all beautifully told in George Macdonald’s ballad: “T said, ‘Let me walk in the fields.’ He said, ‘No, walk in the town.’ I said, ‘There are no flowers there.’ He said, ‘No flowers, but a crown.’ “T said, ‘But the skies are black; There is nothing but noise and din.’ And he wept as He sent me back: ‘There is more,’ He said, ‘there is sin.’ “T said, ‘But the air is thick And fogs are veiling the sun.’ He answered, ‘Yet souls are sick And souls in the dark undone.’ 282 THE ROOT OF THE WHOLE MATTER “T said, ‘I shall miss the light, And friends will miss me, they say.’ He answered, ‘Choose to-night If I am to miss you or they.’ “T pleaded for time to be given. He said, ‘Is it hard to decide? It will not seem so hard in heaven To have followed the steps of your Guide.’ “T cast one look at the fields, Then set my face to the town; He said, ‘My child, do you yield? Will you leave the flowers for the crown?’ “Then into His hand went mine And into my heart came He; And I walk in a light divine The path I had feared to see.” God cannot empower the soul whose motives are petty and mean, but when the great decision to live and help live is made, then—into the heart comes he. Confidence !—Therefore, take new courage. You cannot now know your future, but as sure as your life-purposes are lofty, so surely will God guide you. Cry with confidence, like Browning’s Paracelsus, as you face your life: “T go to prove my soul! I see my way as birds their trackless way. I shall arrive! what time, what circuit first, I ask not: but unless God send his hail Or blinding fireballs, sleet, or stifling snow, In some time, his good time, I shall arrive: He guides me and the bird. In his good time! 283 OUT INTO LIFE “Are there not Two points in the adventure of the diver, One—when, a beggar, he prepares to plunge, Two—when, a prince, he rises with his pearl? I plunge!” For DIscussIon . Why does not God force the world to be better? . What is the greatest thing in the world? 3. Is the popular distinction between ‘“‘sacred’’ and H. “secular” justified? . Can a person be sure, when he makes his life-work decision, that God is directing him? How? . Must a man be dissatisfied with the world as it is in order to desire to make it better? . Is Christianity completely defined as the practice of friendship? For FurTHER STUDY . Read the story of the crucifixion in Mark. What is the effect of Jesus’ heroism upon those who love him? upon those who are in spiritual need? in sin? upon yourself? If you lead a self-sacrificing life, will it have, in small measure at least, the same kind of effect upon people as Christ’s life had? . Who, besides Christ, is your hero? Describe him. . In the first chapter is the sentence: “A healthy youth . . . accepts life as a challenge to do his best, and submerges every fear of failure in— what?” Now give a thorough answer. . Do not answer this without thought and prayer: what is your greatest ambition? For REFERENCE E. Luccock, The Haunted House, Chapter IX. R. C. Cabot, What Men Live By, Chapter XXXIII. 284 q ih, a HY Hs he! ae i ae | { aa y a : f ’ cy ¢ oh 4 s “ ‘ } ’ k i : 4 ty q' to nh h ‘ ¢ | ae i ‘ i i ‘ ; He ia Ni i 3 ‘ } 4 i j “y i ) My # 7 P a] ay ? s ' ed i ' i j ; { i r ‘ - \ , +, : A, Ul ' ‘ he A i i ‘ 4 4 / ; i ) Me cant na 1 i : ye? a aa 7 j i rs : = , yy : \ ct ' ! t 5 5 ‘ 7 : Q Ye : : “i \ F ) } ti £ " ; f 7 k , 2 ' oe | P| : 7 ‘ - } ‘ J si < at “ d ne A ; a4 a - té i ' j S it yh wi 7 i pi : f ‘ iz ts Mt i 4 i. oe ee ; ° id " ‘ ' : i : rs r : ie ‘ q hia : +4 Phi te ., a oh mae ao mis : ' ‘ + A a AL aay y Ate OAs WY) Aa ¢q : ‘ a a ~~ A ‘ F h MH tk hae . , Sas, i AN ee é os P. . ¥ : Po) LOS OA blac A Wat eon Da Ose Peek. 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