--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Adams, Alva collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 13 number: 6 published: 1910-04 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'Adams, Alva, "A Talk to Young Men," *Improvement Era* 13, no. 6 (April 1910): 522–525.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1306unse 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: improvementera1306unse start_page: 522 end_page: 525 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1910-04) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1306unse publication_year: 1910 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 1910, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # A Talk to Young Men — A Talk to Young Men. BY EX-GOVERNOR ALVA ADAMS, OF COLORADO. [Last June, at the 20th annual commencement of the Colorado state Agricultural College, former Governor Alva Adams, of Pueblo, delivered the annual address to the thirty graduating young men. It was pub- lished at the time in the daily papers, and through a friend, a copy has fallen into the hands of the editors of the Era. It contains so many gems of thought that it is worthy of study and preservation. Editors.] It is with diffidence that I come before this splendid class of graduates to give the final words of their public school career. For many years you have been guided by cultured and trained men and women. I can add nothing to your culture or training, but per- chance I may draw, from thirty years of practical life, some les- son that may turn you from paths that others have followed with bleeding feet, with no result but waste and disappointment. Advice is often a mere matter of rhetoric, and though given without cost, is held dear at the price. Some of my words may go in the same inventory, but for most of my theories of life I have seen the testimony of pierced hands. The diplomas you receive are the proof of faithful and dili- gent study; they represent an honorable degree; they are the best decorations that can be given by a republic founded on universal intelligence; but they are the Lexingtons, and not the Yorktowns, of life's warfare. Whatever native ability you have will be improved by educa- tion, but it is beyond the power of the school to make a Beecher, a Hillis or an Aylesworth, out of a Corbett or a Sullivan. If you are born with one talent, education will give it the force of two; if with five, culture makes them equal ten. It adds to the stature A TALK TO YOUNG MEN. 523 of the short, and enables the tall to reach the stars. It is the trained that are to direct the destinies of the twentieth century. Mr. Carnegie and Mr. Schwab to the contrary, higher education does not interfere with business or commercial success. True education makes men more practical — more efficient. If it made only dreamers, then Carnegie and Schwab might be right, as the age demands men of action. With only idealists and poets, the race would starve. It is true, American achievement bears the names of many uncultured men; they were strong, self-reliant; they were born into a new field, rich with the spoils of nature's centuries. Fate placed in their hands a golden They succeeded without apple. schooling, yes, but with education their success would have been greater, while under today's conditions many of them would have failed. Some are fortunate in the age in which they are born. In the future the one-eyed man will be king only in the country of the blind. Baseball had its birth as the great American game when I was a school boy. Many amateur clubs won trophy after trophy, until national renown was gained. Soon the professional club was developed, and for twenty-five years no amateur club has been heard of outside its local campus. In life, as in athletics, it will be the best trained who win. The new century is aglow with opportunity, but her golden nuggets will not be uncovered by the chance prospector, but by the trained and skilled miner. Pro- ficiency and common sense are the two principal ingredients in the elixir of success. Many a failure has come by insisting upon the highest or nothing. There are many places between nothing and the White House. In all our millions there have been but twenty- five presidents. Look high, keep the stars in view, but keep your feet on the earth — aerial navigation is not yet perfected or safe. We differ in attainment and ability, but there is a place for every honest, earnest worker. No defect, no frown of nature, need bar us from life's dividends. In every soul there is a chord that responds to some divine note. Blind Milton saw paradise; deaf Beethoven heard the glad songs of angelic choirs. To achieve, you must have an aim — that aim need not be the noblest, but it must be nobly followed. It is not the trade, but the way it is carried "on that marks the man. No profession nor calling of itself ever degraded or ennobled a man. Hands are made for toil; tools are 524 IMPROVEMENT ERA. emblems of credit as much as the brief, sermon or poem. Christ toiled, the great of all ages have toiled. There is honor in toil. Life is too short to travel every path of human effort, or to experiment with every vocation. Study your talents, inclination and environment, select that line in life which your judgment and sense determines to be best for you, and then ''whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might." When hunting ducks you will sometimes make a good shot by aiming at a flock, but generally a hunter who aims at a single bird, brings home the most game. There are no half-rates, no free passes on the road leading to suc- cess — all must pay full fare. As to your own ability — you know the goods, and it is your place to fix the price, and you are alone to blame if you under- value them. I would not commend impudence and offensive nerve, yet would say, be not over-modest — the world forgets easily. Keep yourself to the front. We have often seen assurance and ordinary ability take the head of the hall where modest, retiring genius remained a wall-flower. Self-respect and self-appreciation are closely allied. Self-assertion is sometimes unpleasant, but men often concede to it. Vacillation is weakness. The soldier who prepares a smooth road of retreat will be apt to use it. Burn your bridges — think only of victory and victory will come. To consider the possibility of defeat is to invite defeat. When Cortez sank his ships, Montezuma was conquered. That act made his five hundred and eight soldiers masters of Mexico. It is courage and enthusiasm that moves the world. Caution is good, but too much caution is brother to cowardice. "The brave fail sometimes— the coward always." God never calls neu- trals, but radicals, when he has work to do and crowns to give. Work is not a curse, but a benediction. Those who avoid labor as the penalty for disobedience in Eden, are refusing the best gift of heaven. There is no place in the economy of God for the man who will not work — the loafer must reform or die. There is but one more character which more useless and dangerous is than the ignorant idler, and that is the educated idler. Knowledge is power for either good or evil. Do not study astrology, thinking to find your star. I tell you, in this work-a-day world there is no magician but labor. In — A TALK TO YOUNG MEN. 525 letters of living fire it is graven over every one of the hundred gates that lead to happiness and success. Fate— predestination is but the apology of bankruptcy. Napoleon pretended to believe in his star, but his faith was not so strong but that he worked twenty hours out of twenty -four, and ravished the world for spoil with which to raise and equip his armies. Luck is the fool god- dess, and those who bow at her altar will wear the cap of folly and drink dregs their life long. In all schemes and plans of life, honesty and truth are funda- mentals. When time began, God and the angels proclaimed truth and manhood, and there has been no change in the laws or admin- istration of heaven since the globe was launched. Truth is truth To the end of reckoning. These primary qualities must be coupled with force, will^ industry; without them they are like a telegraph instrument that has no battery. You face life at a sublime hour— there are dan- gers, yes. No heights are scaled without risk. Danger and vic- tory often sleep in the same cradle. The most serious tendency is the almost universal worship of mammon. The golden calf has been reared high above most other altars, and it is gorged with sacrificial offerings of health, honor, reputation and lives. Lux- ury and extravagance are in the atmosphere of the age. I have no stones to throw at wealth — it can be a benediction, a good angel, it can be a messenger of love and joy and help, as noble as ever carried a benefaction or lifted a burden. ,1 have no patience with the idea that poverty and virtue are twins. There is nothing more depressing, more hopeless, than abject poverty. Honest poverty is no disgrace, but it is a desire not to escape its deadening grasp as soon as possible. It should be the first duty of life to become prosperous — that is, become independent; but independence does not mean the ability to keep step with the wave of reckless extravagance which is sweeping over the land, plant- ing unrest, envy and discontent in millions of honest hearts. When you find that you take no interest in anything save the almighty dollar, go and read and re-read Dickens.' Christmas Carol. A serious danger of the age is the drift away from sacred