thousand details; to tie its very shoestrings, so to speak; and, above all, to do these things oneself and not leave them to the less interested-to do the work that others would do only a little less well-all this is the way to make the baby of a business thrive and come to a flourishing maturity. The details of a small business are many; of a great business they are multitudinous. By the number of the details of his work that a man can personally master, one may usually judge of his capacity for success. There are men with a singular grasp of this or that of a certain limited branch in the great organism of a business, but, outside that special branch, they lack interest and even common intelligence. This may seem to say that the mind capable of large interests and great issues is rare: but I do not intend to say that. The rarity consists. rather in the mind of large interests that is able to concentrate itself upon small details and be the master of a hundred branches of a trade, working in all with one object, but having in each, perhaps, a different method of procedure and a separate spirit. ALL-ROUND ALERTNESS Far less facile, for instance, is the mind required in the management of an estate. The manager of a business must have a mind that travels-even as his goods do. Often I have proved to myself the truth of Daniel Defoe's words: "An estate is a pond, but trade is a spring." In my case, the spring soon became a brook, the brook a rivulet, the rivulet a river rich and with innumerable tributaries, and navigable for great ships. It is perhaps not too fanciful to say that the master trader's consciousness must follow those tributaries to their own sources. Tea planting in Ceylon, for instance, involves some knowledge of native labor, therefore of native life. Through agriculture the producer touches geology, botany, chemistry, as well as the history of races. It would be unfair to be ignorant of the conditions and circumstances of one's laborers. Under all skies they are sensible of a fellowfeeling. One of the first students of public economy in France in the nineteenth century said, that all the difference between a liberal and successful enterprise and one that was tyrannical and unpromising lay between the two phrases in the mouth of the master: "Go to work" and "Come to work." He said that in farming, at any rate, "Go to work" meant ultimate failure, and "Come to work," with ordinary luck led securely to fortune. Even amongst people accustomed not only to be commanded but driven, the industry of the overseer, who is present, has its sure effect, and the attention of the master who is seen at intervals has its undeniable influence. How much more is this the case in the European workshop and in the complex work of distribution! Here also there is a ready response to the beginnings of profit sharing. In the agricultural system of one of the best tilled districts of Europe-central Italy-the cultivator shares the gross profits with the landlord. This is very far from the English system of wages, but I find that a little interest may be pleasantly combined with the routine of the employee. My packers are at work, so many to a table, and I give a bonus to be divided amongst the workers at the table that shows the greatest number of finished packages. A zealous workman thus not only earns his own gratuity, but helps to earn his comrades', and is in favor with them. Thus emulation is combined with good-fellowship and money-making with a little fun. How much value I place on industry, and how I believe in devoted hard work at the thing once for all accepted as a man's "calling" in life, may be seen from the fact that even at this stage of my career I generally work from nine in the morning to ten at night. It has been said by many who have a right to speak, that labor is never anything but painful, however willingly undertaken and courageously done. But I think this was the conclusion of men who had one of two kinds of labor to do -the entirely physical and the entirely mental. It is painful to stoop under a burden all day, and "the man with the hoe" is not one of the favorites of fortune. Nor is the philosopher grappling with infinities anything else than a voluntary martyr. But a mingling of the kinds of work, a variety of interests and of fortunes, the labor of the directing head and that of the obedient hand, the change that traveling brings, even when it is traveling for a purpose-all these make of business anything but a painful vocation. What more can I say in answer to your queries? I hardly know. Work, work, always work, is the only talisman. The goods of life are not unfairly apportioned, as some suppose. The man of leisure and of "pleasure" can hardly complain if he is not also a man of wealth and of health. Success in one career is the reward of sacrifices made for its sake. I do not say that hard work has not its own liberty, its own enlargement, its own relaxation. It has all these. It has also its own romance-a romance that does not exist for the mere dilettante. The trifler trifles even with happiness. I think that a man who makes a great business must put himself into it; but I do not mean by that that he must necessarily become a machine. Against that notion I would put a long list of names, beginning with Peabody and not ending with Carnegie. COUNSELS OF SUCCESSFUL MEN On Success in Business PRACTICAL TALKS FROM VARIOUS SOURCES T is a good thing to have friends, but a bad thing to depend on friendship for business. People in this era will not pay more in one place for goods than they can be bought for in another, even for friendship. It is well to bear this in mind in calculating upon friendship as a factor in business. A man may join all the societies in existence, and may be popular in all classes of society, but he must depend upon the merits of his goods and his credit to sell at a reasonable price to retain the custom that friendship brings. Friendship is often more of a curse than a blessing in business. that "stick" him. Many of our readers will agree with these assertions that they have lost more money through friends than they ever made out of them. Usually it is a man's friends It was never intended that man should be a selfish, narrowminded being, thinking that the world was made for one individual, and for him alone, says the "Canadian Druggist." We see too frequently the spirit of bitterness and envy displayed where nothing but harmonious feelings should exist. The small-souled, envious person, who cannot bear to see any evidence of prosperity in his neighbor, is to be pitied. How much better it is for all, and now we refer specially to those engaged in one line of business, to work together harmoniously. Better results can be obtained, life made more worth living, and animosities set aside by mutual repression of the worst in our natures and the development of that which is manly and right. |