Analyzing Character Part 5

INDUSTRY

The fourth element is disposition to industry. Some wag once said: "All men are lazy, but some are lazier than others." It might sound better to say that all men are industrious, but some men are more industrious than others. There is such a quality of body and mind as the quality of predisposition to action and industry. Industry is very largely dependent upon energy. Energy depends upon oxygen. If one sits in a room that is stuffy and not well ventilated, one soon becomes stupid, sleepy, and not particularly acute mentally. In other words, he is partly starved for oxygen. Now, let him go out into the open air and breathe plenty of oxygen into his lungs. In a little while he raises his chest and brings up the crown of his head and takes the positive physical att.i.tude. He is more energetic. He is eager for activity--for work. Some people are naturally deficient in depth, activity, and quality of lung power. They do not breathe in or use much oxygen, so they are lacking in energy. Such people are not predisposed to industry. Love of work--love of the game that causes a man to be interested in every phase of his work--is not, however, wholly dependent upon energy. It is something in the very heart and fiber of the man. Willingness to work, perseverance in work, and decision come under disposition to industry.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Photo by F. Gutekunst, Phila_.

FIG. 1. Jacob A. Riis, Journalist, Author and Philanthropist. A man of unusual intellectual power, observation, reason, memory, logic, and a.n.a.lysis, with high ideals, great love for humanity, especially the weak and helpless; good powers of expression, sense of humor, courage, and determination. Note large development of upper part of head; fairly well developed brows; high dome over temples; height and width of forehead, especially across center; full lips; well developed nose; strong chin; and alert, poised, kindly expression.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Copyright by Underwood & Underwood. New York_.

FIG. 2. Dr. Booker T. Was.h.i.+ngton. Very ambitious, practical, energetic, self-reliant, persistent, determined, capable of rule. Note high head; high, sloping forehead, prominent at the brows; large nose, high in the bridge; and long, straight upper lip.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 3. James H. Collins, Author. A splendid example of intellectual type with good bone and muscle. Has excellent balance of mechanical and commercial understanding, keen judgment of men, practical sense, and fine determination, with sentiment, sympathy, friendliness, and faith. Note high, medium-wide head, especially high in center above temples and wide and full through center of forehead; prominence of brows; width between eyes; full, cleanly modeled lips; strong nose and chin; and keen, pleasant, friendly, spirited expression.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 4. H.G. Wells, Novelist and Economist. A man of physically frail type, with natural mechanical leanings. Inventive, creative, industrious, humanitarian. Because of his mechanical ability, he uses his creativeness for constructing novels dealing with mechanical invention. Because of his humanitarian instincts, he writes of social and economic world problems. Note large upper portion of head, especially from center of forehead to sides of head; also prominence of brows; large nose, and long head.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Copyright American Press a.s.sociation_.

FIG. 5. Mr. Henry Ford, Automobile Manufacturer and Philanthropist. Mr.

Ford is of the physically frail type, with a goodly admixture of the bony and muscular element. His natural mechanical bent, therefore, took the intellectual form of invention and organization. His sentiment, responsiveness, sympathy, and idealism are shown by high, rather narrow head, fine texture, height of head just above temples, and gentle, kindly, genial expression.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 6. Hugo de Vries, Botanist. An example of physically frail type. Very careful, accurate, painstaking, and patient in mental work. Also very thoughtful, mild in disposition, but determined and persistent. Note large development of upper part of head; long, narrow face; long nose; narrowness of head just above ears; slight squareness of chin, and serious, thoughtful expression.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Copyright by B.F. McMann_ FIG. 7. Dr. Henry Van d.y.k.e, United States Minister to Holland, Author, Scholar, and Poet. A good example of physically frail type, with slight tendency to bone and muscle. Refined, intellectual, sensitive, responsive, optimistic, but well-balanced, poised, and keenly discriminating. Dr. Van d.y.k.e shows his tendency to physical activity in his love for the out-of-doors. Note large development of upper portion of head; slight squareness of jaw; height of head above temples, especially in center; fine texture; excellent balance of features, and calm, poised, thoughtful, but kindly expression.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Photo by American Press a.s.sociation_.

FIG. 8. Dr. Beverly T. Galloway, a.s.sistant Secretary of Agriculture.

Physically frail, but mentally very active. Said to be one of the greatest living authorities on plant culture. Slight squareness of build indicates tendency to interest in out-of-door matters, which, on account of large development of mental qualities, he expresses in an intellectual way.]

NATURAL APt.i.tUDE

The fifth criterion is natural apt.i.tude. Everyone has observed that some people are naturally commercial. We have seen a boy take a penny to school, buy a slate pencil or a lead pencil with that penny, and trade that for an old pocket knife, the knife for something else, and keep on swapping until he had a gun, a set of chess, a bag of marbles, and several other important boys' acquisitions, all from that one penny. Another boy takes penny after penny to school and he never has anything to show for it You know such boys--and grown people, too. Every individual has some such apt.i.tudes--either latent or developed, either mediocre or marked--and his apt.i.tudes fit him better for some one vocation than for any other.

EXPERIENCE

The sixth point to be considered is experience. One might be fitted for a vocation with all of the five points that we have enumerated, and yet not have either the education or the training for it. What shall he do?

Theoretically and ideally, every individual should be carefully and thoroughly trained, from his earliest childhood, for the vocation for which he is physically, mentally, and morally fitted. But this seldom happens--and can happen but seldom so long as parents and teachers remain ignorant of human nature and of work. A hard problem, then, confronts the young man or young woman past school days and not trained for the right calling. He or she must decide whether to compromise upon work as nearly right as possible or to make the necessary sacrifices to obtain education, training, and experience. There is much evidence in favor of choosing either horn of the dilemma. A most successful manufacturer called upon us recently. We told him that, with proper training, he would have been even more successful and far better satisfied in the legal profession. "I know you are right," he said. "I have always regretted that circ.u.mstances prevented my taking a law course as a young man. However, I have an extensive law library, do practically all the legal work for my firm, and am often consulted on obscure legal points relative to the manufacturing business by lawyers of some renown."

Abraham Lincoln, the farmhand and flatboatman, began the study of grammar at twenty-two and of law still later. Elihu Burritt, "The Learned Blacksmith," who lectured in both England and America, taught himself languages and sciences while working eleven hours a day at the forge.

We enjoy the acquaintance of a woman physician of considerable prominence who did not enter medical college until she was more than fifty years of age. Henry George was a printer who studied economics after he was twenty-seven years old. Frederick Dougla.s.s was a slave until he was twenty-one, yet secured a liberal education, so that he became a noted speaker and writer. The following from "Up from Slavery,"[3] by the late Booker T. Was.h.i.+ngton, shows what can be done by even a poor black boy, without money or influence, to win an education:

[Footnote 3: Doubleday, Page & Company, Garden City, New York.]

BOOKER T. WAs.h.i.+NGTON'S STORY

I determined when quite a small child that, if I accomplished nothing else in life, I would in some way get enough education to enable me to read common books and newspapers. Soon after we got settled in some manner in our new cabin in West Virginia, I induced my mother to get hold of a book for me. How or where she got it I do not know, but in some way she procured an old copy of 'Webster's Blue-back Spelling-book,' which contained the alphabet, followed by such meaningless words as 'ab,' 'ba,'

'ca,' and 'da.' I began at once to devour this book, and I think that it was the first one I ever had in my hands. I had learned from somebody that the way to begin to read was to learn the alphabet, so I tried in all the ways I could think of to learn it--all, of course, without a teacher, for I could find no one to teach me. At that time there was not a single member of my race anywhere near us who could read, and I was too timid to approach any of the white people. In some way, within a few weeks, I mastered the greater portion of the alphabet. In all my efforts to learn to read my mother shared fully my ambition and sympathized with me and aided me in every way that she could. Though she was totally ignorant so far as mere book knowledge was concerned, she had high ambitions for her children, and a large fund of good hard common sense, which seemed to enable her to meet and master every situation. If I have done anything in life worth attention, I feel sure that I inherited the disposition from my mother.

The opening of the school in the Kanawha Valley brought to me one of the keenest disappointments that I ever experienced. I had been working in a salt-furnace for several months, and my stepfather had discovered that I had a financial value, and so, when the school opened, he decided that he could not spare me from my work. This decision seemed to cloud my every ambition. The disappointment was made all the more severe by reason of the fact that my place of work was where I could see the happy children pa.s.sing to and from school morning and afternoon. Despite this disappointment, however, I determined that I would learn something anyway.

I applied myself with greater earnestness than ever to the mastering of what was in the blue-back speller.

My mother sympathized with me in my disappointment and sought to comfort me in all the ways she could and to help me find a way to learn. After a while I succeeded in making arrangements with the teacher to give me some lessons at night, after the day's work was done. These night lessons were so welcome that I think I learned more at night than the other children did during the day. My own experiences in the night-school gave me faith in the night-school idea, with which, in after years, I had to do both at Hampton and Tuskegee. But my boyish heart was still set upon going to day-school and I let no opportunity slip to push my case. Finally I won, and was permitted to go to the school in the day for a few months, with the understanding that I was to rise early in the morning and work in the furnace till nine o'clock, and return immediately after school closed in the afternoon for at least two hours more of work.

The schoolhouse was some distance from the furnace, and as I had to work till nine o'clock, and the school opened at nine, I found myself in a difficulty. School would always be begun before I reached it, and sometimes my cla.s.s had recited. To get around this difficulty I yielded to a temptation for which most people, I suppose, will condemn me; but since it is a fact, I might as well state it. I have great faith in the power and influence of facts. It is seldom that anything is permanently gained by holding back a fact. There was a large clock in a little office in the furnace. This clock, of course, all the hundred or more workmen depended upon to regulate their hours of beginning and ending the day's work. I got the idea that the way for me to reach school on time was to move the hands from half-past eight up to the nine o'clock mark. This I found myself doing morning after morning, till the furnace 'boss' discovered that something was wrong, and locked the clock in a case. I did not mean to inconvenience anybody. I simply meant to reach that schoolhouse on time.

When, however, I found myself at the school for the first time, I also found myself confronted with two other difficulties. In the first place, I found that all of the other children wore hats or caps on their heads, and I had neither hat nor cap. In fact, I do not remember that, up to the time of going to school, I had ever worn any kind of covering upon my head, nor do I recall that either I or anybody else had even thought anything about the need of covering for my head. But, of course, when I saw how all the other boys were dressed, I began to feel quite uncomfortable. As usual, I put the case before my mother, and she explained to me that she had no money with which to buy a 'store hat,' which was a rather new inst.i.tution at that time among the members of my race and was considered quite the thing for young and old to own, but that she would find a way to help me out of the difficulty. She accordingly got two pieces of 'homespun'

(jeans) and sewed them together, and I was soon the proud possessor of my first cap.

My second difficulty was with regard to my name, or rather, a name. From the time when I could remember anything I had been called simply 'Booker.'

Before going to school it had never occurred to me that it was needful or appropriate to have an additional name. When I heard the school roll called, I noticed that all of the children had at least two names, and some of them indulged in what seemed to me the extravagance of having three. I was in deep perplexity, because I knew the teacher would demand of me at least two names, and I had only one. By the time the occasion came for the enrolling of my name, an idea occurred to me which I thought would make me equal to the situation; and so, when the teacher asked me what my full name was, I calmly told him 'Booker Was.h.i.+ngton,' as if I had been called by that name all my life; and by that name I have since been known. Later in my life I found that my mother had given me the name of 'Booker Taliaferro' soon after I was born, but in some way that part of my name seemed to disappear and for a long while was forgotten, but as soon as I found out about it I revived it, and made my full name, 'Booker Taliaferro Was.h.i.+ngton.' I think there are not many men in our country who have had the privilege of naming themselves in the way that I have.

The time that I was permitted to attend school during the day was short, and my attendance was irregular. It was not long before I had to stop attending day-school altogether, and devote all of my time again to work.

I resorted to the night-school again. In fact, the greater part of the education I secured in my boyhood was gathered through the night-school after my day's work was done. I had difficulty often in securing a satisfactory teacher. Sometimes, after I had secured someone to teach me at night, I would find, much to my disappointment, that the teacher knew but little more than I did. Often I would have to walk several miles at night in order to recite my night-school lessons. There was never a time in my youth, no matter how dark and discouraging the days might be, when one resolve did not continually remain with me, and that was a determination to secure an education at any cost....

After I had worked in the salt-furnace for some time, work was secured for me in a coal mine, which was operated mainly for the purpose of securing fuel for the salt-furnace.

In those days, and later, as a young man, I used to try to picture in my imagination the feelings and ambitions of a white boy with absolutely no limit placed upon his aspirations and activities. I used to envy the white boy who had no obstacle placed in the way of his becoming a Congressman, Governor, Bishop, or President by reason of the accident of his birth or race. I used to picture the way that I would act under such circ.u.mstances; how I would begin at the bottom and keep rising until I reached the highest round of success.

One day, while at work in the coal mine, I happened to overhear two miners talking about a great school for colored people somewhere in Virginia.

This was the first time that I had ever heard anything about any kind of school or college that was more pretentious than the little colored school in our town.

In the darkness of the mine I noiselessly crept as close as I could to the two men talking. I heard one tell the other that not only was the school established for the members of my race, but that opportunities were provided by which poor but worthy students could work out all or a part of the cost of board, and at the same time be taught some trade or industry.

As they went on describing the school, it seemed to me that it must be the greatest place on earth, and not even Heaven presented more attractions for me at that time than did the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Inst.i.tute of Virginia, about which these men were talking. I resolved at once to go to that school, although I had no idea where it was, or how many miles away, or how I was going to reach it; I remembered only that I was on fire constantly with one ambition, and that was to go to Hampton. This thought was with me day and night.

In the fall of 1872, I determined to make an effort to get there, although, as I have stated, I had no definite idea of the direction in which Hampton was, or of what it would cost to go there. I do not think that anyone thoroughly sympathized with me in my ambition to go to Hampton, unless it was my mother, and she was troubled with a grave fear that I was starting out on a wild-goose chase. At any rate, I got only a half-hearted consent from her that I might start. The small amount of money that I had earned had been consumed by my step-father and the remainder of the family, with the exception of a very few dollars, and so I had very little with which to buy clothes and pay my traveling expenses.

Finally, the great day came and I started for Hampton. I had only a small, cheap satchel that contained what few articles of clothing I could get. My mother, at the time, was rather weak and broken in health. I hardly expected to see her again, and thus our parting was all the more sad. She, however, was very brave through it all. At that time there were no through trains connecting that part of West Virginia with eastern Virginia. Trains ran only a portion of the way, and the remainder of the distance was traveled by stage-coaches.

The distance from Malden to Hampton is about five hundred miles. I had not been away from home many hours before it began to grow painfully evident that I did not have enough money to pay my fare to Hampton.

By walking, begging rides, both in wagons and in the cars, in some way, after a number of days, I reached the city of Richmond, Virginia, about eighty-two miles from Hampton. When I reached there, tired, hungry, and dirty, it was late in the night. I had never been in a large city before, and this rather added to my misery. When I reached Richmond I was completely out of money. I had not a single acquaintance in the place, and, being unused to city ways, I did not know where to go. I applied at several places for lodging, but they all wanted money, and that was what I did not have. Knowing nothing else better to do, I walked the streets. In doing this I pa.s.sed by many food-stands, where fried chicken and half-moon apple pies were piled high and made to present a most tempting appearance.

At that time it seemed to me that I would have promised all that I expected to possess in the future to have gotten hold of one of those chicken legs or one of those pies. But I could not get either of these, nor anything else to eat.

I must have walked the streets till after midnight. At last I became so exhausted that I could walk no longer. I was tired; I was hungry; I was everything but discouraged. Just about the time when I reached extreme physical exhaustion, I came upon a portion of a street where the board sidewalk was considerably elevated. I waited for a few minutes, till I was sure that no pa.s.sers-by could see me, and then crept under the sidewalk and lay for the night upon the ground, with my satchel of clothing for a pillow. Nearly all night I could hear the tramp of feet above my head. The next morning I found myself somewhat refreshed, but I was extremely hungry, because it had been a long time since I had had sufficient food.

As soon as it became light enough for me to see my surroundings I noticed that I was near a large s.h.i.+p, and that this s.h.i.+p seemed to be unloading a cargo of pig iron. I went at once to the vessel and asked the captain to permit me to help unload the vessel in order to get money for food. The captain, a white man, who seemed to be kind-hearted, consented. I worked long enough to earn money for my breakfast, and it seems to me, as I remember it now, to have been about the best breakfast that I have ever eaten.

"My work pleased the captain so well that he told me if I desired, I could continue working for a small amount per day. This I was very glad to do. I continued working on this vessel for a number of days. After buying food with the small wages I received there was not much left to add to the amount I must get to pay my way to Hampton. In order to economize in every way possible, so as to be sure to reach Hampton in a reasonable time, I continued to sleep under the same sidewalk that gave me shelter the first night I was in Richmond.

"When I had saved what I considered enough money with which to reach Hampton, I thanked the captain of the vessel for his kindness and started again. Without any unusual occurrence I reached Hampton, with a surplus of exactly fifty cents with which to begin my education. To me it had been a long, eventful journey, but the first sight of the large, three-story, brick school building seemed to have rewarded me for all that I had undergone in order to reach the place.

"It seemed to me to be the largest and most beautiful building I had ever seen. The sight of it seemed to give me new life. I felt that a new kind of existence had now begun--that life would now have a new meaning. I felt that I had reached the promised land, and I resolved to let no obstacle prevent me from putting forth the highest effort to fit myself to accomplish the most good in the world.