Chapter I: L. Purcell, Attorney and Counselor at Law, Pensacola, Fla (4)

James B. Corrothers, the poet and prose writer, is another illustration of the power of applied intellect. Corrothers will be always known for the high order as well as humor of his writings, in the United States and in England where his “Jim Crow” idea of Negro fun is still supreme. Of his “The Black Cat Club,” a prominent literary and critical magazine, says: “The Black Cat Club should be commemorated by cultivated people of color as a second Emancipation Day.”

Charles W. Chesnutt, lawyer, writer, editor, historian and novelist, easily stands as a standard to be looked up to by the members of his race.

Miss Inez C. Parker, whose flights of fancy evolved from the higher realms of thought, betray the poetic gift of her race to a singular degree of beauty. As a poetess and writer, her destiny in aiding the uplift of humanity and helping it toward the universal goal, is manifest in every outpouring of her genius.

These are only a few of many, the most prominent now before the world. There are many others coming on and they will soon appear to the astonished eyes and ears of the people who have no thought of the great future and destiny of the Colored Americans.

_THE OVERGROUND RAILROAD_
_A Mighty Way to Progress—The Underground Railroad a Thing of the Past_

The old folks revel in stories about the “Underground Railroad.” They traveled over it, and we may admit that it took them to liberty. We may even go farther than that, and say that it lifted from the shoulders of a great race, a weight that was crushing them down, and brought them into the land of “Opportunity.”

But all that is ancient history. What happened even yesterday is old, and we are too busy today working to take advantage of the things offered us today, and that will happen tomorrow, to dream about the past.

We are all working to make things turn out to our advantage, and the less we dwell about the past the closer we get to the golden fruit.

We are living in a practical age, and the man who does things prospers, while the dreamer starves or gropes about at the bottom of the ladder.

All men need things; want something done for them. It is good business policy to supply the wants and to do the things everybody wants done.

We mentioned the “Underground Railroad” as something that benefited the race; but we have its successor in the way of transportation that is reaping profit from that benefit.

That successor is the “Overground Railroad.” It is a system of transportation such as the world has never seen or used.

You ask: “What is an ‘Overground Railroad?’” Everybody can answer, or thinks he can, so he says: “Why, it is a railroad that runs over the land and transports passengers and freight.” But the answer does not hit the mark, for this particular Overground exercises a mightier power; possesses a wider influence than the mere haulage of passengers and freight.

It carries opportunity, activity, benefit, incentive, intelligence, knowledge, and progress to every corner of this great land and into every town, village, city, hamlet, even the cross-roads are reached.

It reaches every one of ten millions of a great race that less than two decades ago were forbidden opportunity, and compelled to travel over the “Underground Railroad.” Now, everything belonging to the great mass of mankind, or to which they are entitled or may aspire, is parceled out with lavish hand to all who wish to take. The effort is yours, the prize awarded you.

In round numbers there are about two hundred thousand miles of railroads in the United States, spreading out in every direction from ocean to ocean, and from Lake Superior to the Gulf of Mexico. Many of them reach over into Mexico and Canada.

On the trains operated by these railroads, there are thousands of Pullman cars, drawing-room and chair-cars. All of these cars are in the charge of Colored Americans, the sum total of their number running up into tens of thousands. These men are the posterity, the descendants of the passengers of the old “Underground Railroad.”

It is true philosophy that makes for education and wisdom, gives polish, affords incentives to ambition and a leaning toward high ideals, as well as offering opportunities—always bear in mind “Opportunity” for that is what counts. Now imagine the bright men and women that travel on these two hundred thousand miles of railroad. Imagine also, our ten thousand men circulating among them; mixing with them; in daily and hourly contact with them! Something must come of this association, and something does come, which something is of incalculable benefit.

The passengers on the Overground Railroad are men and women from every part of the world. They are the successful people; the experienced people, and the leaders of thought. They have taken opportunity by the forelock and ridden it to the finish. Otherwise they would not be able to travel.

They are soldiers, statesmen, politicians, lawyers, clergymen, physicians, scientists, and everything that is the highest and noblest in the world.

Their number according to statistics, runs up into the hundreds of millions of passengers annually. Our ten thousand in the performance of their duties, listen to their interchange of opinions; note everything that is worth knowing; glean opportunities, and absorb information and wisdom.

If you have noticed any of these ten thousand off duty and on his way home, you can not have failed to see gentlemen.

These men are really the operators of our “Overground Railroad” in the highest sense of management. They are not mechanical, they are observing and possess the power of mental acquisitiveness, due to their surroundings and their contact with the passengers. They are the opposites of the patrons and passengers, and managers of the old “Underground Railroad,” which is switched off into the sidetrack of forgetfulness.

The Pullman man from New York City meets his brother Pullman employee from San Francisco, let us say, at St. Louis. Their regular stunt is about two thousand miles each, with the care of numbers of the passengers coming from tens of thousands of miles apart, from all over the globe, in fact.

What is the result of this meeting? To an outsider it is something like this:

“How are you, Sam?”

“How are you, Bill?”

“Have a New York stogie.”

“Have a San Francisco cheroot.”

That is all the outsider sees or learns. But when these men get away and apart, they exchange notes of everything that they have learned on the trip or has transpired on their routes. They are message bearers of everything they have learned new from their passengers.

Multiply this one instance with thousands of similar instances. We have every city in the world linked with every other city; every nationality brought in contact with every other nationality; every class and character of individual tied up with every other class of individuals, and these men are the great deposit reservoirs of everything.

They become laden with unlimited cosmopolitan and universal knowledge and information, charged with it as a bee is charged with honey in its flights from bush to bush and from flower to flower.

This is not an exaggeration, on the contrary, it is of such common knowledge that we think nothing about it. It is every-day fact that any one can see for himself by going to any railroad depot in the country.

We said these men are the great deposit reservoirs of everything, but unlike the most of our deposit reservoirs, they are also the sources of distribution through innumerable channels. Their business is like the training at a State Normal School with actual experience added in unlimited quantities. They go out from these training schools, or rather from this educational system belonging to every Overground Railroad and scatter knowledge, information, and opportunity. A word, even a hint, of what “a man told me on the run from New Orleans to Chicago,” and one or perhaps many, find themselves boosted into opportunities they never would have found without the operators on the Overground Railroad.

These Pullman employees are evangelists, news gatherers, and experienced men acquainted with the ways and doings of the world. They have homes, abiding places, wives, sweethearts, brothers, sisters, friends. They have their clubs and meeting places, and they unload their information and knowledge, mixed with opportunity, to ears greedy for advancement, and opportunities for betterment.

They scatter broadcast high aspirations and incentives to progress among the ten millions of the posterity of the patrons of the old Underground Railroad.

Through this means the most astounding results have been accomplished—results that have never happened any other race since the world began.

The Israelites dwelt in Egypt for four hundred and thirty years, and waited for a Moses to come and lead them out of their unpleasant environments. There were about six hundred thousand of them, and most of their posterity are still dreaming of the past.

The four millions that started the Underground Railroad, have increased to ten millions in a generation and a half, and they led themselves out to the promised land.

Imagine ten millions of any other race in the United States with perfect freedom of action! We might well shudder at what would happen us—happen the country. We do not feel that way about the posterity of the operators and passengers of the old Underground Railroad. They are peaceable, earnest students of the ways of civilization, and they are working upward—they are ambitious to learn and constantly devise methods of improving their condition in the same way all true American citizens are following. They have their homes, their children, and their attachments in our midst, in fact, they belong to our soil, and have no desire to depart elsewhere to spend their money. They are always ready to shed their blood for the Stars and Stripes, and are always willing to leap to the nation’s rescue, or to aid in promoting its welfare.

Where does the Colored race learn all these things? Not in the schools for they are limited, and live too much in the musty past, but the cap-sheaf of the education of the race, its maintenance as a factor in the civilization of the earth, is in their contact with the world, their absorption of the wisdom and experience of the world’s people, due in a great measure to the operators of the Overground Railroad.

Through this source the great race is learning that there is no vocation to which it may not aspire in time to come and the opportunities for intellectual development and its benefits are multiplying rapidly.

Already there is a great sprinkling of dark skins in every avenue of life, commerce, trade, science, and in everything that the white skin aspires to. Look down for a moment, and compare your state with that of the scavenger, the sewer digger, the section hand, and the grades of labor so attractive to foreign elements that come here to scrape up enough to return to their wallow in their various native lands. You are far above these and you belong here and you are rising with the best.

The Story of a Rising Race Told in Pictures

_PHOTOGRAPHED FROM LIFE_

│MANUAL TRAINING
Special Collection C │HOME SCIENCE
│HOSPITAL PRACTICE
│DENTAL SURGERY

PROFESSION OF DENTAL SURGERY

Students practicing in the Dental Infirmary, prior to taking their
degree. Howard University, Washington, D. C.
]

ACCURACY OF MIND AND HAND

Drafting Class of young men receiving a course in mechanical drawing,
qualifying them for making working plans of machinery, vehicles,
buildings, etc. Hampton Institute.
]

INDUSTRIAL TRAINING FOR WOMEN

Developing talent and taste in the art of millinery, an industry for
women. A class at Spellman’s Seminary, Atlanta, Ga.
]

UNIVERSITY GIRLS

A class of ornamental workers at Wiley University, Texas.
]

LEARNING TO BE HOME MAKERS

A cooking class, canning fruit at Hampton Institute. The girls are
learning the art of becoming good housewives.
]

AN ARTISTIC AND USEFUL VOCATION

A class receiving instructions in the art of dressmaking in the
training school at Hampton Institute.
]

LEARNING INDUSTRY AND THRIFT

Dressmaking in the Spellman Seminary, Atlanta, Georgia. The young
women are fast becoming experts in their work.
]

FUTURE HOME MAKERS

The science of poultry dressing as taught at Hampton Institute.
]

A MODERN SANITARY DAIRY

Agricultural students receiving their training in milking at the dairy
farm of Hampton Institute.
]

MODERN SURGERY

Dr. W. A. Warfield, Negro surgeon, operating. Freedmen’s Hospital,
Washington, D. C.
]

OPERATING ROOM—LATEST EQUIPMENT

Douglass Hospital Philadelphia, Pa.
]

NURSING THE LITTLE ONES BACK TO HEALTH

Children’s Ward L., Frederick Douglass Memorial Hospital and Training
School, Philadelphia. “Suffer Little Children to Come Unto Me, for
Such is the Kingdom of Heaven.”
]

MINISTERING TO THE SICK

Private ward with trained nurse in attendance. Frederick Douglass
Memorial Hospital and Training School, Philadelphia, Pa.
]

STUDENTS IN THE ART OF HEALING

A class of trained nurses preparing for their life’s work. Tuskegee
Institute.
]

NURSES’ TRAINING SCHOOL

A class of nurses at study. Frederick Douglass Hospital, Philadelphia,
Pa.
]

You are put upon the initiative, and find out new ways of doing old things which is what makes civilization progress, and you have the door of opportunity invitingly open to you always. You have only to open your eyes to see opportunity within your grasp. You are associated with the management of the Overground Railroad.

SUCCESS THROUGH SELF HELP

The opportunities afforded by the Overground Railroad, in the way of obtaining information, can not be overestimated. It is, practically, a school of instruction that may be attended by any one, and who may follow the bent of his desires afterward.

There are two classes of people who may avail themselves of the educational process undertaken by the dissemination of information through the medium of the Overground Railroad: The man who is aided in his life work, and the man who must help himself. It is of the man who must help himself, of the “self-help” man, that there is more to be said of than the other. He represents the bone, sinew and brains of the nation.

When a man or woman succeeds in reaching a high position through his or her own efforts, or in attaining a point from which the work of a lifetime begins, and in the direction of success, the pride of attainment is justifiable.

There are many who have the strength of purpose and the will power to utilize the forces of mind and body within them, and develop themselves with the aid of that power.

Their examples are an illustration of a higher education that really educates.

The man or woman who sits with folded hands waiting for someone to help him, or for something to turn up or come his way, so that he can seize upon it without trouble or labor, is too far gone in uselessness in the present age to be worth trying to lift up.

We are all interdependent in this world of business, but must not imagine that because we must live with and do business with others, that we can depend solely upon those others. Every man must stand upon his own ability and exertions.

The men who do this succeed through self-help, self-reliance, self-knowledge, and self-sufficiency. The greatest men in history are those who worked themselves up from humble surroundings and against tremendous odds. It is always the brain that conceives the thought, and the strong arm that executes the mandates of the thought. Where the physical arm is not strong enough, the brain quickly conceives a method of supplying the difficulty.

It was the boast of the philosopher Archimedes that he could move the world if he could find a fulcrum for his lever. The modern man is so far advanced that he finds a fulcrum for his lever, and if he does not move the earth, he moves a large part of it.

If we take the pains to look about us, we shall find every avenue of human endeavor occupied by self-made men. These men originated in the most humble surroundings, but lifted themselves up through the sheer force of their own energy of character and vital force backed by persistence.

The history of the world has pages about the men who sprang up from humble sources and amid the greatest difficulties. They overcame them somehow, some say by the aid of Providence, but we know that it was through innate courage, brains, energy and persistence.

Every man may raise himself up by his own efforts, indeed, the man who uses another as his ladder will soon find himself leaning on a broken reed, and amount to very little in this world of struggle and competition.

Who knows better what a man can do than the man himself? There are always hidden sources of strength in every man, and he alone is able to bring them into use. Remember one point in this age of competition: Learn how to do things, and then set about doing them of your own accord. The man who waits to be pushed ahead seldom finds any pushers. This is the wisdom of experience, and will =not= bear argument, so true it is.

TRAIN YOURSELF FOR YOUR LIFE’S WORK
Physical Development—Exercise for Pleasure and Profit—Uniformity in the
Use of the Muscles—General and Special Muscle Training—Systematic
Hardening of the Body—Various Kinds of Exercises—Key to Good Health and
Mental Activity
A Strong Healthy Man Is Always Selected for the Best Positions

In all ages of the world physical development has been regarded as a preparation for health and the successful beginning of a life work.

The ancients had a maxim to the effect that there should be a healthy mind in a healthy body, and that there could not be a healthy mind in an unhealthy body.

In these days when good health and a companion physical development are so much in demand, you must train yourself for your life work in such a way as to merit a selection for the best positions.

Here is the reason why a man is often turned aside from a position where he might be mentally qualified. One look at him explains the reason for his failure to be given the opportunity. He is not physically developed.

The times and the business undertaken by every man is strenuous. He must be prepared for hardships, and will never attain any good position if he carries that in his body or face which indicates inability to stand the strain or liability to succumb under it.

Nobody wants a man who will work along for a shorter or longer time and then break down and be obliged to quit altogether or for time enough to recuperate.

This physical training is now called “Athletics,” and it must be practiced advisedly and not at random. It is for the promotion of health and manly vigor, just as much as bathing is for the promotion of cleanliness and health.

ETHIOPIANS NEARLY PERFECT

Among the Colored race, there are many splendid types of athletes. In the old days, the Ethiopian was considered a masterpiece of physical architecture. He entered any list where muscular power was to be exhibited and carried off the victory. In great trials of strength and wrestling he had no superior.

As the Ethiopian was in the past, his descendants in our Colored Americans are today. In football, baseball, rowing and in wrestling, the Colored American has no superior in skill or prowess.

Particularly is this the case in the college-trained athlete. His prowess has brought him fame, his skill and courage have gained for him the respect and admiration of thousands. Not only that, but it is easily established from ocular evidence that nearly every college athlete of prominence has worn his honors with modesty.

There is a native muscular development in the Colored American of healthy and good habits, which, if directed in the right channels of athletic activities would lower many a record.

Physical training including athletics is becoming a well outlined course in every school for colored youth. When in the hands of experienced teachers, and developed under the direction of a department of physical education, it will lift our Colored Americans up a few notches higher in the scale of manhood.

There can be no question about its value as a developer of manhood and a health producer. But never as a prize-fighting school. This of itself is debasing in the extreme. We are growing away from the mercenary brutality of former years, and all classes are vying with one another to engage in a contest of development that will make for manhood.

Our schools and colleges are aware of the difference between athletics for health and manhood and the debasing school of the prizefighter. They are introducing it in many instances, and the course offers an opportunity not to be ignored or lost. Young man, your physical nature is part and parcel of your intellectual condition.

Physical exercise is as essential to the growth of the human body as drink and food is for nourishment.

The human body is developed by muscular exertion, and its good health and perfect growth depend upon the regular practice of some form of motion that will bring into use all the various parts of the system.

When we say “regular practice” we mean that if it is desired to maintain the body in a good condition for the uses and occupations of life, exercises must be practiced every day—not once in a while, or at random.

The man or woman whose muscles are trained in line with the occupation pursued for a livelihood, is better fitted to become perfect in that occupation than one who does not take exercise, or not enough to keep his usable muscles well trained. Nobody can play the piano perfectly unless the muscles of the fingers, hand, and wrist have undergone a severe training. It is the same with driving a nail, digging a garden, singing a song, or anything requiring muscular exertion, the muscles put into use must be trained, or there is no perfection in the work.

The first and most important muscle training, in fact the very essence of physical development, is in breathing. The lungs must have oxygen to supply the blood, and the oxygen being in the air we breathe, the more we can put into the lungs, the better for development.

In breathing, the muscles of the chest are expanded in proportion to the length of the breath taken. The lungs should be filled to their full capacity, and this can only be done by taking long, deep breaths, slowly and evenly, swelling out the chest to its widest extent.

The inspiration of the breath should be commenced slowly and continued evenly until no more air can be inhaled. Then the respiration, or breathing out should be slow and continuous until you feel the necessity of taking another breath.

To breathe properly, there must not be anything to restrict the swelling of the muscles of the chest. Any posture that will give these muscles free action is proper. Standing, lying, arms extended, held over the head, head thrown back or forward, are all suitable positions for deep breathing.

One point to be always borne in mind, is to breathe deep and full whatever work you are engaged in. In running, the breath is apt to come in short, snappy volumes, or panting. In hard muscular work with the arms it is customary to measure the breaths by the exertion employed in the work. All this is not conducive to deep breathing, and it may be overcome by a little practice. Try running and at the same time breathe slowly and deeply and you will run faster and tire out less quickly.

Always breathe through the nostrils and never through the mouth. If you have to open your mouth to breathe, it is either habit or because the nostrils are clogged. In the latter case they should be cleared out to permit drawing in a deep inhalation of air through the channel nature intended.

The exercises for breathing should be preliminary to any other exercise of the muscles. The reason for this: Every exercise or movement of the body either when at work or at play, consumes or burns up a certain amount of the tissues of the body and these used up tissues must be replaced, or nature will very soon call a halt and refuse to permit you to do any work or play—the body becomes used up. The waste of the body is replaced by the oxygen taken into the lungs through breathing, and a person may eat all sorts of nourishing foods, and take all kinds of remedies to restore his weariness and bring him up to his work, but none of them will be of any avail without the air drawn into the lungs by the breath. There is where the stomach, the blood, the liver, the heart, etc., obtain the essential element of oxygen to stimulate them into activity.

With our breathing regulated, the next step is to begin developing the other muscles of the body. There is at this point a good rule to follow which is: Train every muscle of the body uniformly to acquire a general development along every organ and muscle. This general muscular training should be begun with the child at an early age, and be conditioned upon his strength for their quantity of exercise. So a weak person can not stand as much or as strong exercise as a stronger person. Every one must be his own judge in this matter. Many noted men have brought on a fatal illness from over exertion or over exercise at a late age when their system was not prepared to withstand violent methods. It is said that James G. Blaine began a course of gymnastic exercises in the belief that he would gain strength, but it killed him. The younger a beginning is made at gymnastics, the better it will be in after life.

One point to be remembered is: Never overstrain or attempt to harden the body. Every shock is dangerous, and the delicate mechanism of the human body must be handled gently until it can bear greater strains. To plunge into violent exercises without previous training is as bad as using a delicate and costly watch as a base ball and expect it to keep good time.

To train all the muscles of the body uniformly as a beginning of muscular or physical development, prepares a foundation for any special muscle training that may be desired, and guarantees success where failure would most undoubtedly result from the special training first. All the muscles of the body are interdependent. One of them cannot be trained alone without affecting another one, or drawing upon it for material to supply the waste already spoken of. But when all are trained, then it is easy to pass to the training of any special muscle.

To begin a general training or muscular development of the body, it should be borne in mind that it is the muscles that hold the body up and not the bones. Both are essential to the human construction, but the muscles play a more important part in the bodily movements than the bones. Few people consider that to stand or sit properly the muscles of the body must be trained. The poise of the head, the erect position of the shoulders, the proper holding of the arms and hands, depend upon the training and development of the arms and shoulders. Most persons are negligent in this respect and allow the upper part of their bodies to hang by their bones. This is noticeable in those who are “stoop shouldered,” a habit which becomes fixed. The first thing a soldier is trained to do is to stand erect and hold himself up by his muscles. No person who can not control his upper muscles will acquire any grace or beauty of movement. The use of Indian clubs, even an ordinary chair, would be something to grasp and swing about to train the upper muscles, all the time breathing slowly and as deep as possible. Grasp something tight with the hands and swing it about the head or up in the air, or round and round and keep it up a certain length of time every day. Throwing a ball is good for the muscles of the arm, shoulders and back particularly. Let the muscles have free play is the rule to follow in every variety of exercise.

The muscles of the lower limbs come next in the order of development systematically, although they should be exercised at the same time as the muscles of the upper portion of the body. The object of this is to prevent over-development of any series of muscles by training all simultaneously.

The muscles of the lower limbs include those of the hips down to the extremity of the toes. Persons in sedentary occupations MUST exercise these muscles under penalty of having them become feeble, flabby and unreliable. With such persons, as age creeps on, the steps become uncertain and “wobbly,” presenting the appearance of extreme age even before middle age has been reached.

Those who walk much should take systematic exercise for the benefit of the lower muscles, because the occupation requiring the use of the lower muscles fixes them in a groove or habit not conducive to control. That is, the muscles become set in a certain direction, whereas, it is essential to enable them to move freely and easily in any direction.

The best exercises for standing, sitting, and walking are those directed by the will power or energy acting directly upon all the muscles and maintaining an equilibrium so that gradual development of the entire body will be reached.

This is accomplished by what is known as “flexible action,” in the lines of changing curves which distinguishes the beauty and grace of motion from mere strength.

There are three phases in this natural development: Angular, circular and spiral. The human form poised squarely on both feet is the spiral, the head a convexed curve, the body a concave curve, and the legs a convexed curve, like a wave line. To preserve this spiral line of changing curves, the weight is always thrown against the strong side so as to develop the weak side and maintain an equilibrium. Standing should be principally upon the balls of the feet, and the exercise should be to incline the body to and from the opposite curves. There should be no slouching at the hips. In walking, stand erect, feet together, abdomen in, chest up, and shoulders firm. Then advance the thigh and let the leg hang free from the knee down. Straighten the leg and plant the ball of the foot in advance with the toes straight in front, and so on alternately with each foot, carrying the head erect with the chin drawn well in.

To sit down let the muscles come into play and not the bones, as it is through the muscles only that gracefulness can be acquired. To rise from a sitting to a standing position, all the muscles should work in unison and the body arise at once to a standing position. To kneel the same play of the general muscles should be applied. A cow or a camel is not very graceful when performing the act of kneeling preparatory to lying down, but that is because they are animals and not human. The mere act of touching the hat in salutation is graceful or awkward as the muscles are trained. A graceful sweeping curve of the arm, a gentle bend of the muscles of the neck, inclining to a curved bow, and the salutation is graceful. Otherwise the motion is raw and provocative of an idea of ill breeding.

While exercising the muscles of the body simultaneously, we are not only acquiring grace and suppleness, but we are strengthening the various muscles and enabling them to develop along the lines of their natural curves. By a systematic training, the surface of the body becomes filled or rounded out, all angularity disappears, and the various muscles work or slide smoothly over one another and each one fits into the proper place without a jar or wrinkle. Even the face may be trained to the avoidance of wrinkles and seams by a trifle of exercise applied to the muscles. The main point being to prevent any muscular habit which means a wrinkle or a seam. Massage alone may do some good in this respect, but the muscles of the face should be worked through the will power.

In line with exterior physical development, the interior muscles should not be forgotten. The proper play of the interior muscles, those belonging to the heart, the lungs, the intestines, stomach, etc., are all more or less affected by exterior exercises tending toward physical development. Flabbiness of exterior begets flabbiness of the interior muscles, and this means an imperfect action which ends in inability to resist disease, or the encroachments of age and hardening of the walls of the arteries.

Movement is the law of nature and whatever does not or can not move is considered dead to the scientists, or on the way to death. Every atom of the human body is in motion toward the maintenance of life in the muscles of every kind. The blood circulates rapidly, so rapidly that any perfumed substance injected into the blood at a finger point, is immediately tasted by the mouth. So with the lymph channels which convey nourishment to the blood for distribution to all the muscles to keep them up to their work. The billions of atoms that constitute the flesh of the muscles and of the nerves, are in constant motion, without which, the body would lose all energy and become inert. By exercising the muscles constantly and uniformly, we are giving the atoms of the human system free and full play, and enabling them to perform their functions. We may indeed say, that exercise and physical development mean LIFE.

THE TEACHER, DOCTOR, LAWYER, CLERGYMAN—WHICH ARE YOU FITTED FOR?

There are four professions, callings or vocations, which are justly styled “learned professions,” because they carry with them the highest degree of intelligence, tact, and wisdom.

They are so common, however, in these modern times, that many of their followers do not command the respect to which their calling is entitled, and hence, the professions themselves have greatly fallen into disrepute; particularly so when it comes to select one of them for a life work.

Viewing the teacher, the doctor, the lawyer, and the clergyman from the common standpoint, there is no money in the professions.

Here is where the trouble lies. To be a teacher, a doctor, a lawyer, or a clergyman for the sake of what can be made out of either, is to insult the noblest professions in the world. They are what have kept the world together since the beginning, and we should take our hats off to them out of respect.

The lawyer’s duty is to protect his client’s civil rights and keep society within the law.

The doctor preserves the health of his patients while they are about their business, and the clergyman points out the way to a hereafter that may mean our eternal weal or woe.

In the chapter on “Opportunities,” we show that these professions are within the reach of any one who possesses an aptitude and has the brains to acquire proficiency.

As to brains, let it be understood that everybody possesses sufficient brains for any avocation in life, but they must be properly fed or trained to be of use. Most men’s brains are of the same weight and measurement. But some very learned men have possessed very small brains, while men of the most magnificent proportions, but as ignorant as men can be and feed themselves, have been known to possess brains of double the weight of the learned.

We give the manner of training brain in another place, but assume here that the young man who desires to enter either one of the three professions we are treating of, must have the aptitude and the brains.

The same general remarks may be applied to the lawyer and the clergyman.

The aptitude is the trend of the mind in the direction of the profession chosen. It must be a “first and only love,” so to speak, for the brain is an exacting master or mistress and easily changes if not cuddled and humored.

Back of and aiding aptitude, is the humanity demanded of every man of either of these professions. When life hangs in the balance the doctor is called upon to display the tenderest humanity. If a man is to be sent to poverty through loss of his liberty or property the lawyer must exhibit all the refinements of skill and humanity without regard to his fees. The human soul striving to reach the eternal goal of rest, peace, and happiness, appeals to the highest heart throbs of the clergyman. If you can not enter into this spirit, then do not choose either of these learned professions for you will prove a failure.

The learning required to master either of these professions can be acquired only after the most painstaking and arduous study. To learn the essence of things, the meaning of life and death, the movements that produce life and death, and the symptoms that proclaim disease, come within the purview of the doctor. How can he tell what will be the effect of his medicine unless he knows what the disease is and what effect upon the human body will be his medicines? He must know intimately the thousand and one essential parts of the human body, how they operate and their effects. If in aiming at one part he affect another, death may ensue.

Have you a steady hand, controllable nerves, and a cool brain? You need them all to perfection to be a surgeon and apply the knife in order to cure suffering humanity. The surgeon must stand in the presence of a mortal enemy with his finger pressed to the trigger of his weapon and watch for the exact instant when he shall press it to save life.

The lawyer must possess not only an intimate acquaintance with the laws of the land, but must have delved deep into the underlying principles that form the foundation of all law and government. Logic, tact, patience, and verbal skill with ready wit on all occasions, are to him what the electric spark is to a motor. It was said by a learned judge that many cases were lost where justice should have prevailed to win, because of a failure to properly present the matter to the court.

It is not a loud voice, a browbeating disposition, or a pompous bearing that bring success, it is the careful close reasoner, the quiet mole that undermines the solid earth foundation of his opponent, and topples it down.

The clergyman is a man of sacrifices. His own opinions go for naught because he is not the maker of justice and right, but their exponent. He sees beyond the faint traces of what we humans call “love,” a powerful love that rules the world—the love of God—and he puts the two together so that the lesser will be absorbed in the greater.

The great trouble may seem to be the variety of different sects and the difficulty to select the right one. Man, they are all aiming in the right direction. They point toward the sky, and bring a man’s manhood in line with the soul, his spiritual part, and the imperishable part. There is no room for bigotry, no room for anything but charity, and loving kindness.

THE ROAD TO SUCCESS
OR
EASY LESSONS FOR EVERY DAY LIFE

The way to success in anything is always an upward climb, the down grade is always a flat failure.

In considering this matter, it will be well to remember and bear constantly in mind, that it is easier to slide down hill than it is to climb up.

We may say, therefore, that success is purely a question of exertion.

The road to and up the slope of the hill of life is roomy enough and to spare for everybody, and there need not be any crowding. But the way is strewn with wrecks, many submerged before beginning their journey, others lodged in some cranny half way up, and others start up so bravely and so rashly that they can not stop at the summit where the prize is situated, but their momentum carries them over and down to the bottom on the other side.

The steady, earnest worker plods along, sees that his footing is firmly fixed before he takes a next step. He grabs at some retaining point and never lets go of it until he has hold of another support.

When he reaches the top, he can stop and breathe, likewise flatter himself that he has succeeded by hard work and steady perseverance.

The fact is, that unless a man is born with a silver spoon in his mouth, that is, well provided by his ancestors with a goodly supply of this world’s goods, there is no royal road to anything. No man can roll about like a smooth pebble and hope to land into a mossy hollow.

When a man starts off on a voyage he generally has some definite destination in view, some object to be attained when he reaches it. Nobody can spend his life traveling about for the mere purpose of keeping in motion. There is no advantage in this except to the transportation companies.

Here is the keynote to success—character. We do not know what character is, we know only that it accomplishes results.

Why do some men succeed and others fail, assuming that they all start out on the same plane equally well equipped? The reason why can not be told, it lies in the man himself, it is his character.

We are living in an age when new things are utilized; new ways of doing business are demanded. We run to specialties more than we did in the past. Even ten years make a difference in business methods.

If you have aspirations, are they up to the times?

Not so very long ago, one man made everything about a machine. If he had a watch to make, he made the case, the wheels, the springs and all the parts, and also put them together into a perfect instrument. Now, a dozen or more men make, not the watch, but each of the several parts. The cases are machine made by one man; another rolls the springs, another turns the screws, another the wheels, and so on. Every thing is done piecemeal, so to speak, and none of the workers is able to make a perfect watch. So it is with clothing, with furniture, tin and iron ware.

The doctor is a specialist. Something ails your eyes—you must go to an eye specialist, the throat specialist knows nothing about the eyes. Have you a fever? You go to a bacteriologist to find out what germ is infecting you. Formerly you took a dose of salts and senna, or other nauseating drug.

You have a case of collection, but your regular lawyer makes a specialty of criminal cases and can not help you. Perhaps you have been injured in an automobile accident and want damages from the owner, but your regular lawyer does not know anything about damage cases, he is a corporation lawyer, or a divorce lawyer, or a patent attorney, or takes admiralty cases only.

A bookkeeper applies for employment. Do you know anything about cards? This is the question. You know about playing cards, but the employer keeps his accounts on loose cards, not in heavy books.

There is division of labor in every pursuit, and no man can become learned in all of one thing. He may acquire a smattering, but there are no more universal geniuses, the world of industry has become complicated, unlimited, and special.

We see then, the futility of trying all of one thing or aspiring to reach all of one thing. You can not succeed because you have a mere smattering of many details, and not a perfect knowledge of any single detail.

This however, makes the road to success much easier than in the old days. You can become perfect in some one thing, and life is not too short to learn it; it can be mastered.

It goes without saying, that in our intercourse with men we must put them on an equality with us and place ourselves on an equality with them. Are you an inferior man? Then go elsewhere for employment. “I want skilled workmen,” says the employer. “I want a physician that will cure me, not one to experiment upon me,” says the sick man. It is always man to man now-a-days. No cringing, remember, and on the other hand, no bluffing.

THE MAN OF HOPE; THE MAN OF DESPAIR; AND THE MAN OF “DON’T CARE”
Optimism, Pessimism, Indifference

The people of the earth are made up generally of three classes: optimists, pessimists, indifferents.

The radical optimist floats in a balmy spring air on a rosy cloud, stringing his banjo and singing lullabies to the gorgeously feathered songsters that surround him.

The pessimist is like a fly with its wings stuck on fly paper, and bemoans his fate as that of every other fly.

The indifferent is a devil-may-care sort of a person who does not care whether the sun shines, or whether it rains.

The extreme optimist is too happy to be of any use on earth; the pessimist sends us all to perdition and is afraid to walk under a ladder lest it fall on him, while the indifferent is of no use because he does not take any interest in the things around him. He is usually a tramp, or a free lunch fiend. He will offer to shovel the snow from your walks in July, and gladly offer his services as a harvest hand in January.

Apart from indifference, which is the offspring of the other two, optimism and pessimism, though extremes, meet among men, but possess different working machinery. One is really the aid of the other.

The earth was created in an optimistic spirit. Of that there can be no doubt in the mind of any man who believes in creation at all. But by the extraordinary conduct of our first parents in the Garden of Eden, this creation by the supreme Optimist, was changed into the most radical of pessimistic ventures—judged from the human standpoint, of course. We hear it from the most pious divines and it is probably correct.

A large gulf was dug in the original optimism and filled with the darkness of pessimism, where, floundering in it, man looks back to the joys lost to him forever by another’s folly, and then forward to the forbidding cliffs that bar his entrance to the joys to come, unless he engage in a mighty struggle and a hand-to-hand conflict with his animal nature. He may and must scale the cliffs.

It is quite certain that the evils said to be afflicting the people of the earth can never be cured by optimistic fancies, no more than can the racking pains and galling sores of the bedridden be healed by their concealment, or by covering them with a blanket of joy.

Financially, the man pressed by dire want, fancies the earth is ready to come to an end, whereas, the man with substantial wealth treads in a garden of flowers. The pangs of hunger find a lodging place in the stomach of a pessimist, while a royal good dinner is the joy of an optimist. The man in jail looks through a darkened glass, but his jailer sees all things bright and clear.

Optimism is a comparative virtue; pessimism a relative vice. Love is the destroyer of pessimism, while bankruptcy withers optimism at a touch. The contest between the two is like a perpetual game of tenpins, in which the pins are constantly overthrown to be as constantly re-set, and the score of the game is always a tie.

Our modern extreme optimists bewilder us with vain ideals. They flatter themselves with high sounding words and vague and dreamy utterances that entangle many, but which mitigate no evils, redress no wrongs, soothe no pain, cure no wounds.

“I am so sorry,” said a gentle optimist over a man who had just been run over by an automobile and both legs broken, and she wrung her hands in pity.

“I am sorry five dollars worth,” said a rough old heathen pessimist in the crowd as he passed his hat for money to relieve the poor man’s family.

Whenever a human wrong has been righted, an enslaved nation freed, a sinner brought to salvation, there has always been a pessimist at the beginning of the work, while the optimist came in later and realized the profits from the work.

There is a philosophy practiced by the optimist to be found in the lines of a great poet:

“One truth is clear, whatever is, is right.”

A philosophy that plunges men down into a gulf of despair, without hope of relief, without power to defend himself and his against oppression and injustice. It is a philosophy which, carried to its ultimate optimistic length, leads to the depths in which are sunk all those who bear upon their banner the legend:

“Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die.”

There is less hope for those who climb to dizzy heights of optimistic congratulation, than for those plunged in the dark gulf of pessimistic woe, for to the latter there shall come a new heaven and a new earth, and former things shall pass away. But the former have forestalled their future abiding place by a creation out of their own presumption.

Here we have it—“presumption.” This is a worse condition than the despair of the pessimist, for the latter is constantly striving to get out of the slough of Despond, whereas the former is so puffed up with pride at his own achievements, that he is hidebound in the thralls of his own goodness and perfection.

The great fear of the extremes of optimism and pessimism is the danger of falling into indifference. When a man refuses to take advantage of the opportunities presented him, and says: “What’s the use?” his life is ended so far as any activity is concerned, and he is a useless member of society.

Be neither extreme, and remember that while there is life there is hope. The quality of optimism must be strained through the sieve of common sense.

_THE PLEASURES OF THE FLESH, and the PLEASURES OF THE MIND_

When a hungry man is seated before an appetizing meal, his mouth waters in anticipation and he experiences the joys of anticipated satisfaction.

Every mouthful lingers on his palate with a delicious sensation and when his hunger is satisfied, a feeling of intense comfort steals over him. He is at peace with the world, and forgives his enemies. Any favor you ask, if within his power to grant, will not be refused.

It is the same with a thirsty man. A delicious invigorating drink—and there is none preferable to water—gurgles down his parched throat and he smacks his lips with enjoyment.

All these matters together with other pleasurable sensations are purely physical and passing. They must be renewed to be experienced, and when the physical nature is out of order or does not respond, we are in a very bad condition if we have nothing else to fall back upon.

Physical enjoyments are all sensual. The nerves thrill with excitement and the world looks good to us and mighty pleasant. A few flies to pester us are mere details and not to be considered.

But we have another being separate and apart from the physical body; something much finer and more elevated. A being that is of a higher order of appreciation and more enduring.

Every man knows without being told, that is, he knows from his own feelings and sensations, that he has a spiritual nature, a mental body, a mind.

Now, this mental body, this mind, is far above the physical, and its pleasures and sensations, and its delights are as far above the physical sensations as the spirit or mind is above the flesh.

Let us follow up this idea:

We said that a hungry man enjoys eating. This is true, but all hungry men do not eat alike. Some men bolt their food to appease hunger, and swill their drink to quench thirst. But others enjoy their food and while satisfying hunger and thirst, gratify their taste and enjoy certain foods more than others. These others have what is called “educated” appetites, which is a mental acquisition above the purely animal sensation of satisfying hunger or thirst. It is an art to be cultivated.

This is the point sought to be reached—education and learning.

If the pleasures of the flesh are so enjoyable, then the pleasures of the mind are still more enjoyable, because the mind is more appreciative besides more enduring.