uct it in this
large way, needs a fine education, an education built, first of all, on
a practical basis, such as the education of our common schools. Then
should follow a course in the ideals of the race, the classic studies in
language, literature, history, science, and philosophy. Then should come
a technical course, graduate or undergraduate, such as the courses
offered by the Universities of Pennsylvania, Chicago, Wisconsin, which
include, in general, lectures and special studies in Public Law and
Politics, Business Law and Practice, Political Economy, Statistics,
Banking, Finance, and Sociology. In addition to this, there should be a
thorough knowledge of the Bible and of Christian Ethics, with a deep
heart-experience of religion.
Endowed with natural business talent, the young man who goes out into
the world with such preparation as this knows a great deal more than
just how to make money; he knows how to make it honorably and how to
spend it, in his business, family, and social life, for the public good;
he has in him the making of a statesman and a philanthropist, as well as
a man of wealth.
Two things take one into the inner circle of the ideal-makers of the
race--imagination and sympathy. Ideals cannot be bought with gold. The
ideal is always founded on integrity, progress, and common-sense. It is
preeminently practical, as well: the thing that inevitably must be, now
or hereafter, however men laugh it to scorn to-day.
Imagination is the faculty of perceiving the higher and final relations
of life, the relation of one's work to the progress of the world, and of
one's conduct: to spiritual history. What the ideal-maker tries to do is
to set holy standards that shall not pass away: to do abiding work, in
thought, deed, word; work philosophically planned, and perseveringly
carried out; work which he shall do regardless of the outer
circumstances of his life--poverty or wealth, of threats,
misunderstanding, or hoots of scorn. He is unmoved, both by the rage of
the populace and by its most tumultuous applause. He lives for truth,
not for personal advance; for progress, not for wealth or honor. What
he lays down as a precept, that he tries to live up to, in the way that
shall win the approval of the eternal years.
Sordidness in commercial life is not necessary: greed is
not foreordained. Christianity establishes a new system of
trading-philosophy, and a new basis of commercial ethics. There is a
god-like w
|