e
knows that there are thousands of young men, both in the city and in
the country, of superior ability, who seem to be compelled by
circumstances to remain in very ordinary positions for small pay, when
others about them are raised by money or family influence into
desirable places. In other words, we all know that the best men do not
always get the best places: circumstances do have a great deal to do
with our position, our salaries, and our station in life.

Many young men who are nature's noblemen, who are natural leaders, are
working under superintendents, foremen, and managers infinitely their
inferiors, but whom circumstances have placed above them and will keep
there, unless some emergency makes merit indispensable. No, the race
is not always to the swift.

Every one knows that there is not always a way where there is a will,
that labor does not always conquer all things; that there are things
impossible even to him that wills, however strongly; that one cannot
always make anything of himself he chooses; that there are limitations
in our very natures which no amount of will-power or industry can
overcome; that no amount of sun-staring can ever make an eagle out of a
crow.

The simple truth is that a will strong enough to keep a man continually
striving for things not wholly beyond his powers will carry him in time
very far toward his chosen goal.

The greatest thing a man can do in this world is to make the most
possible out of the stuff that has been given to him. This is success,
and there is no other.

While it is true that our circumstances or environments do affect us,
in most things they do not prevent our growth. The corn that is now
ripe, whence comes it, and what is it? Is it not large or small,
stunted wild maize or well-developed ears, according to the conditions
under which it has grown? Yet its environments cannot make wheat of
it. Nor can our circumstances alter our nature. It is part of our
nature, and wholly within our power, greatly to change and to take
advantage of our circumstances, so that, unlike the corn, we can rise
much superior to our natural surroundings simply because we can thus
vary and improve the surroundings. In other words, man can usually
build the very road on which he is to run his race.

It is not a question of what some one else can do or become, which
every youth should ask himself, but what can I do? How can I develop
myself into the grandest possible ma