BUSINESS LITERATURE.

Timaru Herald, Volume XIIIC, Issue 14152, 11 March 1910, Page 7

BUSINESS LITERATURE.

ON WRONG LINES. One of the queer things about the businos magazines to-day is the narrow meaning which tho writers inflict on. the word "business man." A business man, if we may judge from the articles that have been written by the score, is one who wears good clothes all day and sits in a swivel chair bohind a big desk. His business is something that has to do with advertising, follow-up systems, salesmen, and other things like that. It is funny, isn't it, that business magazines ignore the man who has to work with Ins hands, and while doing so finds it inconvenient to wear white starched collars and shirts. Wo are talking about those fellows who work in the shops, in the mills, in tho factories —or those who are in business for themselves. There are thousands of young men who are readers of business magazines. Their ambitions are aroused. They want to do, to dare, to become leaders. But they don't see that it is just as great to be a leader in doing some physical work in a masterly manner. They are led to assume that those who work with their hands and who do not wear Society Brand clothes are of a lesser breed. Every young man should learn a trade. He should learn to do something with Ins hands. It teaches him that a man need not necessarily wear a silk hat in order to become a gentleman. It gives him the knowledge uecessavy to make a good employer of him. The college graduate who' steps into an executive position which calls for dealings with workmen, certainly cannot understand his problem without practical experience. And then no man knows when it will become necessary to peel off his coat and get practical experience in the art of earning bread by the sweat of his brow. Right here is where the young man must be told that it requires just as high grade of brains to design a table, piano, a bridge, a piece of machinery, as it does to arrange a contract, a mortgage, or sipn cheques. The boy or girl who is wise will forget the fine clothes feature and will develop themselvees so that they can become master in doing the work which gives to them the greatest pleasure and renders to the world- the greatest service.