steamships and sailing vessels. The sailing vessels, as you know, set
their broad white sails like wings to catch the favouring winds, and
then they go scudding across the seas like birds to their distant
harbours. But when there is no wind these vessels must sometimes lie
becalmed, and do not move for days or sometimes weeks. The steamships,
on the other hand, do not depend upon the wind to drive them ahead.
Their power comes from great engines away down in the heart of the
vessel. Even if the wind blows right in the face of the ship, it only
makes the boiler-fires burn faster and brighter, and she plunges ahead
in spite of wind or tide.

Boys and girls also can be divided into two classes, like ships. Some
depend upon other boys and girls to make them go; others have the "go"
in themselves. These people with the "go" in themselves we call
"go-ahead" sort of people. They are the boys and girls who become
leaders. The others are followers.

What the world most needs is these "go-ahead" people. There are plenty
of people who go like a sailing vessel when there is something from the
outside to send them along. I heard a man say the other day that another
man was like "a chip in a pan of milk;" that is, he went only where he
was pushed.

If you want to have "go" in yourselves, try to think things out for
yourselves. Don't do things just because somebody else does them. Don't
wear things just because somebody else wears them. Don't say things just
because somebody else says them. Paul says that people who are blown
about by every wind do not amount to much. I am sure of this, at least,
that I should rather be a steamship than a sailing vessel, that only
goes when a wind blows.