BLAZING THE TRAIL OF SUCCESS.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3101, 9 January 1922, Page 8

BLAZING THE TRAIL OF SUCCESS.

Lord Beaverbrook’s book “Success”’ is shrewd l and pungent in its criticism of life. It sounds so stirring a trumpet call to the ambitious spirit that lies m every man that the principles embodied therein should be shouted from the housetops for the benefit of the young for whom it was written.

“I address myself,” lie says, “to the young men of the new age.” There are too many books on “How to Make Good” by “One Who Has Failed to Do So.” It is a treat, for a change, to read about success from the point of view of one who has been and is a great success, and, furthermore, knows what the word means.

The three requisite ingredients to attain success arc: .Judgment, industry, and health.. Lord Beavcrbrook urges ns to exercise moderation in all things. “The future lies with the people who will take exercise and not too much exercise.” By far the greater number of failures in life owe their lack of success to the fact that they have concentrated on games to such an extent that they Have had no time to develop their brains, or else have so concentrated on their work that they have mined their health, and with it their, chances of success.

But success is of little avail unless it brings happiness, and to be happy is as essential to the ambitions as to be successful. Here, again, there are three ingredients: “To do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly.” With a commendable naivete Lord Beaverbrook confesses that the last is by far the most difficult to attain. “I cannot pretend to be humble myself; all I can confess is the knowledge that in so far as 1 could acquire humility I should be happier.” Most heartily will all those who have the welfare of youth at heart endorse the author’s straight, hard blows at that refuge of the feckless, luck. “If hope turns to a belief in.’luck,” he says in unforgetable phrase, “it becomes a poison to the mind.” There are few spurs to the ambitious quite so stimulating as the examples of other lives. (Lord Beaverbrook drives home In’s lessons with lightning biographies of* some of our leaders 1 . He urges moderation in alcohol. It adds point to his advice when he quote,s Mr Lloyd George’s abstinence. He preaches asceticism. The example of Mr Bonar Law driiil dug nothing, living on the plainest food, helps his argument. He shows us Mr McKenna securing a rowing blue and overcoming a stutter by sheer determination, and Mr Gordon Solfridge at lus office every morning at nine, extravagant only hi his love of air.

Jt is not, he urges again and again, lack of/stereotyped education that bars a man’s way to success. “Education is the fruit of temperament; not sue-, cess, the fruit of education.”

“No young man on the verge of life ought to he in the least discouraged by the tact that lie is not stamped with the hall-mark of Oxford or Cambridge.” 1 should rather think not, with Lord lieaverbrook’s own schooling in his mind. “It was the seasons which decided my compulsory education. In the winter I attended school because it was warm inside, and in the sumemr I spent my time in the woods because it was warm outside.” i

Then comes again a sentence which contains the kernel of the whole matter.

“Leading, indeed, is the real source both of education and of style. Lead what you like. . . . read anything and read everything. . . .” As an educational practitioner of twelve years’ standing I should like to endorse that opinion with all mj

power. Yes. Languages? Yes. “The market-place of the street?” Yes. All these are formulative, but it is this desire and ability, to read that marks out the boy who is “the only master of his fortune” from the boy who will never be master of anything.

Lord, Beavcrbrook has many wise things to say about thei qualities that accompany the pursuers of success. To cure arrogance he recommends a setback; to cultivate the right sort of courage youth “must bo responsive to the world, and yet sensible of its own responsibility.” Failure should only act as an incentive to goad ns on'. Lord Heading failed utterly on the Stock Exchange, but had the boldness to break away and start again. “Nothing is, so bad as consistency.” Prejudice is “perhaps the most serious of vices.” The book abounds with sentences like, these, pregnant with wisdom, but f like best the splendid sanity of his concluding essay on “Calm,” where he adjures the young to succeed and then, to retire. “The final crown in the career of success is to know when to retire. . . . Success in the financial world is the prerogative of young men.” Then can a man devote himself to llie service of his count V- He has been in touch with reality, J|od he is thereby the best fitted to lead. Cramful of practical advice, every atom of which is in the compass of a. normal young man to follow, it is hard lo think of a hook more free from, the “woolliness” that usually characterises attempts to give the young a proper perspective in their view of life.