Men of training the century must demand. It is impossible to drop into
greatness. "There is always room at the top." so the Chicago merchant said
to his son, "but the elevator is not running." You must walk up the stairs
on your own feet. It is as easy to do great things as small, if you only
know how. The only way to learn to do great things is to do small things
well, patiently, loyally. If your ambitions run high, it will take a long
time in preparation. There is no hurry. No wise man begrudges any of the
time spent in the preparation for life, so long as it is actually making
ready.

"Profligacy," says Emerson, "consists not in spending, but in spending off
the line of your career. The crime which bankrupts men and nations is that
of turning aside from one's main purpose to serve a job here and there."

The value of the college training of to-day cannot be too strongly
emphasized. You cannot save time nor money by omitting it, whatever the
profession on which you enter. The college is becoming a part of life. For
a long time the American college was swayed by the traditions of the
English aristocracy. Its purpose was to certify to a man's personal
culture. The young man was sent to college that he might be a member of a
gentler caste. His degree was his badge that in his youth he had done the
proper thing for a gentleman to do. It attested not that he was wise or
good or competent to serve, but that he was bred a gentleman among
gentlemen.

So long as the title of academic bachelor had this significance, the man of
action passed it by. It had no meaning to him, and the fine edge of
accuracy in thought and perception, which only the college can give, was
wanting in his work. The college education did not seem to disclose the
secret of power, and the man of affairs would have none of it.