138 ANNUAL, REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



Another sterling quality wliich young men should cultivate, is 

 originality. The men who are making the greatest success of their 

 work are the ones who think for themselves; they are the men who 

 are ever getting better methods of doing things and taking the 

 short cuts. If we copy from others in everything, we cannot ex- 

 pect to prosper. "The echo is never as loud as the original, neither 

 is the copyist as strong as the one from whom he copies." If we 

 see some one else doing things in an improved way, we should make 

 use of the other's knowledge and experience, but let it be re-cast so 

 that, although it was borrowed, let it become our own. The Greeks 

 were noted for their power of learning from others, and yet they 

 transformed this knowledge in such a manner that when coming 

 forth from them it was distinctly Grecian. Nothing is more certain 

 than that when a business pays very large profits, its race is nearly 

 run, as the copyists all take it up. 



Closely associated with originality, is self-reliance. A person 

 may get along very nicely as long as he has some friends to help him, 

 but when thrown upon his own resources he finds himself to be de- 

 fective and fails because he has not trained himself to do the best 

 he can and leave the rest undone. He is the one that is hoping 

 that some rich friend will die and leave him a large inheritance; he 

 wants the government to make laws to help him and fails to realize 

 that ''no law which the wit of man can devise can make the idle 

 industrious, the thriftless provident, or the drunken sober." The 

 men who are best able to judge tell us that it is not helps but ob- 

 stacles, not facilities but difficulties which make men. Yet parents 

 will toil night and day in order to gain something more than a live- 

 lihood in order to be able to give their children a start in the world; 

 they succeed thus far, but the start is about as often in a downward 

 as an upward direction. The knowledge that we shall some day 

 inherit unearned property is almost certain to dull our energy. 



We sometimes meet people who imagine that they are so weak 

 and inferior to other people that nothing good can be done. To 

 those, 1 would beg to hold forth one whose thoughts have had, are 

 having, and will have a world-wide influence and yet it was said 

 of him, "his bodily presence is weak, and his speech contemptible." 

 I refer to Paul. If a person relies on his own resources, he soon 

 finds out that every moment must be put to good account and 

 learns therefrom the great lesson of industry. He finds that his 

 great talents are improved and his moderate ones have their de- 

 ficriencies supplied, "industry supplies the want of parts, patience 

 and diligence, like faith, remove mountains." Men complain of not 

 being able to secure a position, but "it always has been and always 

 will be more difficult to find talents for the places than places for 

 the talents." There are many men who possess first class ambition 



