Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 16, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 January 1875 — Room at the Top. [ARTICLE]

Room at the Top.

To the young men annually making their entrance upon aative Hfe, with great ambitions, conscious capacities and high hopes, the prospect isjn ninetynine cases in a hundred most perplexing. They see every avenue to prosperity thronged with their superiors in experience, in social advantages and in the possession of all the elements and conditions of success. Every post is occupied, every office filled, every path crowded. Where shall they find room? It is related of Mr. Webster that when a young lawyer suggested to him that the profession to which he had devoted himself was over-crowded,the great man replied: ' ‘ Young ina n. t iic re is always room enough at the top.” Never was a wiser or more suggestive word said. There undoubtedly is always room enough where excellence lives. Mr. Webster was not troubled for lack of room. Mr. Clay and Mr. Calhoun were never crowded. Mr. Evarts, Mr. Cushing and Mr. O’Conor have plenty of space around them. Mr— Beecher, Dr. Storrs, Dr. Hall, Mr. Phillips Brooks would never know in their personal experience that it was hard to obtain a desirable ministerial charge. The profession is not crowded where they arc. Dr. Brown-Sequard, Dr. Willard Parker, Dr. Hammond, are not troubled for space for their elbows. When Nelaton died in Paris he died like Moses—on a mountain. When You Graefe died in Berlin he had no neighbor at his altitude. 3?lt is well, first, that all young men remember that nothing w ill do them so much injury as quick and easy success, and that nothing will do them so much good as a struggle which teaches them exactly what there is in them, educates them gradually to its use, instructs them in personal economy, drills them into a patient and persistent habit of work, and keeps them at the foot of the ladder until they become strong enough to hold every step they are enabled to gain. The first years of Cvery man’s business or professional life are years of education. They are intended to be, in the order of nature and Providence. Doors do not open to a man until he is prepared to enter them. The man without a wedding garment may get in surreptitiously, but he immediately goes out with a ilea in his ear. We think it is the experience of most successful men who have watched the course of their lives in retrospect that whenever they have arrived at a point where they w’ere thoroughly prepared to go up higher, the door to a higher place has swung back of itself, and they have heard the call to enter. The old die, or voluntarily retire for rest. The best men who stand ready to take their places will succeed to their position and its honors and emoluments. . The young men will say that only a few can reach the top. That is true, but it is also true that the further from the bottom one goes, the more scattering the neighborhood. One can fancy, for illustration, that every profession' and every calling is pyramidal in its living constituency, and that while only one man is at the top, there are several tiers of men below him who have plenty of elbow room, and that it is only at the base that men are so thick that they pick the meat out of one another’s teeth to keep them from starving. If a man has no power to get out of the rabble at the bottom, then he is self convicted of having chosen a calling Or profession to whose duties he has no adaptation. The grand mistake that young men make during the first ten years of their business and professional life is in idly waiting for their chance. They seem to forget, or they do not know, that during those ten years they enjoy the only leisure they will ever have." After ten years, in the natural course of things, the'v wili be absorbingly busy. There will then be no time for reading, culture and study. It they do not become thoroughly grounded in the principles and practical details of their profession during those years; if they do not store their minds with useful knowledge; if they do not pursue habits ot reading and observation and social intercourse result in culture, the question whether they will ever rise to occupy a place where'there is room enough for them will be decided in the negative. The young physicians and young lawyers who sit "idly’ih their offices and smoke and lounge away the time “waiting for something to turn up are by that course fastening themselves for life to the lower stratum, where their struggle for a bare livelihood is to be perpetual. The first ten years are golden years, that should be filled with systematic reading.,and observation. Everything that tends to professional and personal excellence should be an object of daily pursuit. To such men the doors of success open of themselves at last. Work seeks the best hands as naturally as water runs down hill; audit never seeks the hands of a trifleror of one whose only recommendation for work is that he needs it. Young men do not know very much any way, and the time always comes ,tQ those who become worthy, when they look back with wonder upon their early good opinion of their acquirements and'themselves. There is another point that ought not to be overlooked in the treatment of this subject. Young men look about them and see a great measure of worldly success awarded to men without* principle, They see the trickster crowned with public honors,-they swindler rolling in wealth the sWpe manythe overreaching man, the unprincipled man. the liar, the demagogue, the time-server, the trimmer, the scoundrel who cunningly manages, though con-' stantly disobeying moral law and trampling upon social courtesy, to keep himself out of the clutches of the legal po lice, carrying off the prizes of wealth and place. All this is a demoralizing puzzle and a fearful temptation; and multitudes of young men are not strong enough to stand before it. They ought

to understand that in this wicked world there is a great deal of room 4fiere there Is integrity. Great trusts may be sought by scoundrels, but great trusts never seek them; and perfect integrity is at a premium even among scoundrels. There are some trusts that they will never confer on each other. There are occasions when they need the services of true men, and they do not find them in shoals and in the mud, but alone and in pure water. In the realm of eminent acquirements and eminent integrity there is always room enough. Let no young man of industry and perfect honesty despair because his profession or calling is crowded. Let him always remember that there is room enough at the top, and that the question whether he is ever to reach the top, or rise above the crowd at the base oi the pyramid, will be decided by the way in which he improves the first tfen years of his active life in securing to himself a thorough knowledge of his profession and a sound moral and intellectual culture. — Dr. J. G. Holland, in Scribner for January.