ure
fitted for that work?

When a young man is always thinking of the salary he is receiving, or
the salary he "ought to get," he gives pretty good proof that he is not
of a very superior make. The right sort of a young fellow doesn't
ever-lastingly concern himself about salary. Ability commands income.
But a young man must start with ability, not with salary. That takes
care of itself.

* * * * *

Now, a substantial business success means several things. It calls, in
the first place, for concentration. There is no truth more potent than
that which tells us we cannot serve God and Mammon. Nor can any young
man successfully serve two business interests, no matter how closely
allied; in fact, the more closely the interests the more dangerous are
they. The human mind is capable of just so much clear thought, and
generally it does not extend beyond the requirements of one position in
these days of keen competition. If there exists a secret of success, it
lies, perhaps, in concentration more than in any other single element.
During business hours a man should be in business. His thoughts should
be on nothing else. Diversions of thought are killing to the best
endeavors. The successful mastery of business questions calls for a
personal interest, a forgetfulness of self, that can only come from the
closest application and the most absolute concentration. I go so far in
my belief of concentration to business interests in business hours as
to argue that a young man's personal letters should not be sent to his
office address, nor should he receive his social friends at his desk.
Business hours are none too long in the great majority of our offices,
and, with a rest of one hour for luncheon, no one has a right to lop
off fifteen minutes here to read an irrelevant personal letter, or
fifteen minutes there to talk with a friend whose conversation
distracts the mind from the problems before it. A young man cannot draw
the line between his business life and his social life too closely. It
is all too true of thousands of young men that they are better
conversant during the base-ball season with the batting average of some
star player, or the number of men "put out at second" by some other
player, than they are with the details of their business.

Digression is just as dangerous as stagnation in the career of a young
man in business. There is absolutely no position worth the having in
business life to