---
title: Improvement Era
description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930.
authors:
  - Associations, Young Men’s Mutual Improvement
collections:
  - periodicals
tags:
  - magazine
  - improvement-era
periodical: Improvement Era
volume: 13
number: 1
published: 1909-11
publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations
publisher_place: Salt Lake City
language: en
type: magazine
reference: 'Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations, "The Thing That Counts in a Boy’s Life," *Improvement Era* 13, no. 1 (November 1909): 87.'
source:
  url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1301unse
  transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers.
  identifier: improvementera1301unse
start_page: 87
end_page: 87
rights:
  status: public-domain
  basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1909-11)
  source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1301unse
  publication_year: 1909
  note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1909, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright.
---

# The Thing That Counts in a Boy’s Life

<!-- page:87 -->

—

                             EDITOR'S TABLE.                                     87

that they wear, and acknowledge the hand of God in                    all   things.
This is our duty, and    we do not do it, the Lord will he dis-
                              if

pleased, for he has said so. He is only pleased with those who
acknowledge his hand in all things."
     President Smith expressed some very important thoughts on the
subject of home industry and manufacture, which will find place in
these columns later.




             The Thing that Counts in a Boy's Life.
     The other day, when President Taft was here, a boy eight
years old wanted to         know of his father how any one started to be
president of the United States.                That was a deep question, and
ran far into the heart of things.              How to start to be president
that is the thing we want our boys to know.
     You     can't     do    this,     though, by telling     him    in   the    ab-
stract what you think           is   necessary for him to do in order to be
president.    Men have tried this from the beginning of time and             —
failed.    You may tell him what success is.    You may point the
way never so clearly. But either he does not understand you, or
he is not moved by what you say.     The thing is too theoretical,
and boys do not take much to theorizing.   But set before him an
account of how Taft started to be president, and immediately you
touch his interest.         That is concrete.      That is a thing he can see.
That is something he can catch hold of and              ollow to the end.
     Now in this volume of the Improvement Era we have a se-
ries of articles     telling,      not how to start to be president merely,
                                           7




but how to start to be anything that succeeds.                The series is en-
titled Some   Men Who Have Done Things.                There will be twelve of
them. Each     is    to be an account of how one successful man started
to be what he is, and went on to be what he is.                And in order to
have a variety, each is representative of his class.                There will be
the man of general efficiency, the farmer,              the   stock-raiser, the

teacher, the fruit-grower, the man of letters, the musician, ami so
on.   But each must have his struggle.      That is an indispensable
condition.    Each must be unquestionably successful in his partieu-