T NOT loaf in this room."
True, gentlemen never loaf, but labor. Fire-flies shine only in motion.
It is only the active who will be singled out to hold responsible
positions. The fact that their ability is manifest is no sign that they
are lucky.

Thiers, of France, was once complimented thus: "It is marvelous, Mr.
President, how you deliver long improvised speeches about which you have
not had time to reflect." His reply was: "You are not paying me a
compliment; it is criminal in a statesman to improvise speeches on
public affairs. Those speeches I have been fifty years preparing."
Daniel Webster's notable reply to Hayne was the result of years of study
on the problem of State Rights. Professor Mowry once told the following
story: "A few years ago a young man went into a cotton factory and spent
a year in the card room. He then devoted another year to learning how to
spin; still another how to weave. He boarded with a weaver, and was
often asking questions. Of course he picked up all kinds of knowledge.
He was educating himself in a good school, and was destined to graduate
high in his class. He became superintendent of a small mill at $1,500 a
year. One of the large mills in Fall River was running behind hand.
Instead of making money the corporation was losing. They needed a
first-class man to manage the mill, and applied to a gentleman in Boston
well acquainted with the leading men engaged in the manufacture of
cotton. He told them he knew of a young man who would suit them, but
they would have to pay him a large salary.

"What salary will he require?" "I cannot tell, but I think you will have
to pay him $6,000 a year." "That is a large sum; we have never paid so
much." "No, probably not, and you have never had a competent man. The
condition of your mill and the story you have told me to-day show the
result. I do not think he would go for less, but I will advise him to
accept if you offer him that salary." The salary was offered, the man
accepted, and he saved nearly forty per cent. of the cost of making the
goods the first year. Soon he had a call from one of the largest
corporations in New England, at a salary of $10,000 per year. He had
been with this company but one year when he was offered another place at
$15,000 per year. Now some will say: "Well, he was lucky, this gentleman
was a friend who helped him to a fat place."

My dear reader, with such we have little patience. It is evident that
this young man wa