place is, and
be worthy of this new baptism of manhood you have again received in
the sanctuary of the old home.

These are all simple things, commonplace things, things easy to do.
They have nothing extraordinary about them. And yet, if you will do
them, the world will back you as a winner against men who are a great
deal smarter than you are, but who with all their smartness are not
smart enough to do these plain and kindly things.

III

THE COLLEGE?

_1. The Young Man who Goes_

Collis P. Huntington was a notable practical success. He was wise with
the hard wisdom of the world, and he had the genius of the great
captain for choosing men. No business general ever selected his
lieutenants with more accurate judgment. His opinion on men and
affairs was always worth while. And he thought young men who meant to
do anything except in the learned professions wasted time by going to
college.

So when, searching for my final answer to the question this moment
being asked by so many young Americans, "Shall I go to college," I
answer in the affirmative, I do so admitting that a negative answer
has been given by men whose opinions are entitled to the greatest
possible respect.

I admit, too, that nearly every city--yes, almost every town--contains
conspicuous illustrations of men who learned how to "get there" by
attending the school of hard knocks. Certainly some of the most
distinguished business careers in New York have been made by young men
who never saw a college.

You find the same thing in every town. I have a man in mind whose
performances in business have been as solid as they are astonishing.
Twenty years ago he was a street-car conductor; to-day he controls
large properties in which he is himself a heavy owner; and a dozen
graduates of the high-class universities of Europe and America beg the
crums that fall from the table of his affairs.

In his Phi Beta Kappa Address Wendell Phillips cleverly argues that
the reformers of the world, and most of those whose memories are the
beloved and cherished treasures of the race, were men whose vitality
had not been reduced by college training, and whose kinship with the
people and oneness with the soil had not been divorced by the
artificial refinement of a college life. But Phillips was bitter--even
fanatical--on this subject; and was, in himself, a living denial of
his own doctrine.

Remember, then, you who for any reason have not had those years of
me