The battles of the market-place are real duels, on which realities of
life and death and fortune or poverty and even of fame depend. Here men
fight with a precipice behind them, not a pension of £2,000 a year. The
young men who go down into that press must win their spurs by no man's
favour. But youth can triumph; it has the resolution when the mind is
still plastic to gain that judgment which experience gives.

My advice to the young men of to-day is simply this: Money is nothing
but the fruit of resolution and intellect applied to the affairs of the
world. To an unshakable resolution fortune will oppose no bar.



VI


EDUCATION


A great number of letters have reached me from young men who seem to
think that the road to success is barred to them owing to defects in
their education. To them I would send this message:

Never believe that success cannot come your way because you have
not been educated in the orthodox and regular fashion.

The nineteenth century made a god of education, and its eminent men
placed learning as the foremost influence in life.

I am bold enough to dissent, if by education is meant a course of study