Burdette's Lectures to Young Men.

Waikato Times, Volume XXII, Issue 1863, 14 June 1884, Page 2 (Supplement)

Burdette's Lectures to Young Men.

Eokeht J. Burdette, the facetious editor of the Burlington Hawkeye, has been lecturing to large audiences in different parts of the country, and in his amusing style he imparts to the rising generation some wholesome advice. The following is from one of his lectures : — "Be somebody on your own account, my son, and don't try to get along on the reputation of your ancestors. Nobody knows and nobody cares who Adam's grandfather was, and there is not a man living who can tell the name of Brigham Young's mother-in-law." The leciurer urged upon his hearers the necessity of keeping up with the every-day procession, and not pulling back in the harness. Hard work never was known to kill men ; it was the fun that men had in the intervals that killed them. The fact was, most peoplo had yet to learn what fun really was. A man might go to Europe and spend a million dollars, and then recall the fact that he had a great deal more fun at a picnio twenty years ago that cost him just 65 cents. The theory that the world owed every man a living was false. The world owed a man nothing. There was a living in the world for every man, however, providing the man was willing to work for it. If he did not work for it, somebody else would earn it and the lazy man " wofcld get left." There were greater opportunities for workers out West than in the Eastern cities, but men who went out West to grow up with the country must do their own growing. There was no browsing allowed in the vigorous Weßt. An energetic man might go out into the far West, and in two or three years possess himself of a bigger house, a bigger yard, a bigger barn, and a bigger mortgage than he could obtain by ten years' work in the East. All young men ought to marry, and no young men should envy old men or rich men. In conclusion, Mr. Burdette said that a man should do well whatever he was given to do, and not despise drudgery. The world wants_ good shovelers, teamaters, and laborers, but it doe 3 not want poor lawyers, poor preaohers, or poor editors.