coincides with that of Mr. Astor, who said, "it was more difficult for
him to accumulate his first thousand dollars, than all the succeeding
millions that made up his colossal fortune." Money is good for nothing
unless you know the value of it by experience. Give a boy twenty
thousand dollars and put him in business, and the chances are that he
will lose every dollar of it before he is a year older. Like buying a
ticket in the lottery; and drawing a prize, it is "easy come, easy go."
He does not know the value of it; nothing is worth anything, unless it
costs effort. Without self-denial and economy; patience and
perseverance, and commencing with capital which you have not earned, you
are not sure to succeed in accumulating. Young men, instead of "waiting
for dead men's shoes," should be up and doing, for there is no class of
persons who are so unaccommodating in regard to dying as these rich old
people, and it is fortunate for the expectant heirs that it is so. Nine
out of ten of the rich men of our country to-day, started out in life as
poor boys, with determined wills, industry, perseverance, economy and
good habits. They went on gradually, made their own money and saved it;
and this is the best way to acquire a fortune. Stephen Girard started
life as a poor cabin boy, and died worth nine million dollars. A.T.
Stewart was a poor Irish boy; and he paid taxes on a million and a half
dollars of income, per year. John Jacob Astor was a poor farmer boy, and
died worth twenty millions. Cornelius Vanderbilt began life rowing a
boat from Staten Island to New York; he presented our government with a
steamship worth a million of dollars, and died worth fifty million.
"There is no royal road to learning," says the proverb, and I may say it
is equally true, "there is no royal road to wealth." But I think there
is a royal road to both. The road to learning is a royal one; the road
that enables the student to expand his intellect and add every day to
his stock of knowledge, until, in the pleasant process of intellectual
growth, he is able to solve the most profound problems, to count the