The Path to Success.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLI, Issue 7, 12 August 1908, Page 67

The Path to Success.

PARAMOUNT IMPORTANCE OF CHARACTER AND EFFORT. Character is an enormous reinforcement of intellect. To genius built upon character nothing is impossible. Without character genius may be frittered away upon unworthj - , perhaps upon wrongful, pursuits.. Nothing worthy in this life is to be had without ardent effort. Were it otherwise, were success easily gained, then success would not be worth winning. The above quotations may be said to be the text round rthieh Mr. Ernest A. Bryant has written his book, “A New Self Help,” in which, “to encourage the others,” he tells the life-story of all kinds of successful men. Character, Mr. Bryant shows, brings fame, and “dogged does it.” Here is the striking biography of the Empire’s new Premier: — He left his Yorkshire home to become a pupil at the City of London School. During school hours he concentrated all his energies on the task before him. Lessons over, he would wander off into the London streets, gaining first-hand knowledge of the life and manners of the great city in which he was later to become so considerable a figure. His incessant application at school enabled him to win a scholarship, which carried him to Oxford. Having taken his degree and become a Fellow of his college, he returned to his old school as an assistant-master. That, however, was only the jumpingoff point for his real career. He read with diligence for the Bar, was “called,” worked up a practice, was briefed as junior to Russell in the Parnell Commission, entered- Parliament, and the rest is known. SMALL BEGINNINGS. Success comes, perhaps, more often to the man who starts without money or influence than to the man for whom things are made easy. Sir Thomas Lipton’s is a typical career. These are its beginnings:— His mother and father had a tiny grocery business in Glasgow, but were so poor that, when nine years of age, he, in order that he might help them, offered himself at a shop where he saw tho notice, “Boy wanted,” and began his business career as errand boy at half a crown a week. For six years the bravo fettle fellow toiled away, with slow but

steady advancement. Then, hearing of the gold which awaited all comers in America, he took passage in the steerage of a crazy old sailing vessel and landed in the New World with nothing but health and courage by way of assets. He did not find the streets paved with gold. He worked hard in America, as he had worked in Scotland, but he gained invaluable experience, and managed to save sufficient to enable him to carry back a clear hundred pounds. With that for capital he opened a modest little shop in Glasgow as a provision merchant. He offered the best of goods at tho lowest possible prices. . . . He worked with a will, early and late, often sleeping on a shakedown beneath the counter so that, after having stayed late to display his stock, he might be ready to open the shop the first thing in the morning. Such a man was bound to get on; and he did, with phenomenal rapidity. The artist and the writer have had to fight for success as strenuously as the business man, and often to suffer for it. Of no living man is this more true than of the famous Russian writer, Maxim Gorky: — Let his own grjn summary tell his story: “In 1878 I was apprenticed to a shoemaker; in 1879 I was apprenticed to a designer; 1880, scullion on board a packet-boat; 1883, I worked for a baker; 1884, I became a porter; 1885, baker; 1886, chorister in a troupe of strolling opera players; 1887. I sold apples in the streets; 1888, I attempted to commit suicide; 1890, copyist in a lawyer's office; 1891, I crossed Russia on foot; 1892, I was a labourer in the workshops of a railway. In the same year I published my first story.” Mr. Bryant, unlike some writers on such topics, does not regard “a comfortable competence” as being the one goal of endeavour, and If: is always insistent on the paramount value of character. With character associated with talent, we need not fear that there will prevail that madness which we are told is near allied to genius. Without character, genius may be a curse rather than a blessing. Character made Constable one of the glories of British art; the absence of character made George Morland little better than an inspired brute. Character comprehends the noblest qualities of the mind and heart; it guides and controls genius as a skilful driver guides and controls swift-coursing, highmettled steeds. It ennobles the humblest, it gives enduring nobility of the truest type to those highest born. Genius is not acquirable, but character can be developed, and with it usefulness and the most enduring form of happiness. Sheer force of character carried him to his high position; character, energy, undeviating allegiance to the ideal with which he began his career as a schoolhoy. The lesson of doing everything one finds to do with all one’s might is illustrated by the career of Mr." Chamberlain. His father and grandfather had been engaged upon an unpretentious scale as boot manufacturers in London, and Joseph, after having received an education befitting him for a business career, went into the same trade and mastered its practical details while employed side by side with his father’s workmen. He was as earnest at his work as he became in politics, and showed such aptitude for management that when he was eighteen he was selected by his father for a signal responsibility. Joseph Nettlefold, his cousin, was in business in Birmingham as a manufacturer of screws, and, requiring capital to develop a patent of which he had just acquired the English rights, he applied to Chamberlain senior for help. The help desired was forthcoming, and the eigh-teen-year-old son of the man who supplied the capital was sent down to Birmingham to become a partner in the business. So began Mr. Chamberlain’s association with Birmingham. Success was not soon gained, but the partners worked hard themselves, and by fail - and kind treatment got their workmen to do the like. Competition, however, was very severe, and it was not until the firm of Nettleford and Chamberlain succeeded in absorbing some of its most powerful rivals that a commanding position could be gained. For the first ten years the firm was content to lay the foundations of its business; in the next ten years they made their fortunes, and Mr. Chamberlain was in a position to retire and devote the rest of his career to the services of his country.