Success in business; or, Money, and how to make it
Every observer of the outward condition of men must have noticed that in every civilized country the comparatively poor greatly outnumber the independently rich; in other words, that the number of those who are obliged to depend upon their daily labour for their daily bread, is much greater than that of those whose wants are supplied by the interest on their accumulated capital or the profits of some business in which they are engaged.
The first class are subject to all the uncertainties of work; they are liable to be thrown out of employment by any chance which changes in the markets or disturbance in finance may produce, and having constantly recurring expenses for individual and family support are therefore subject to anxieties, and in the event of loss of employment, harassment which make life a burden.
The second class, living (ix) as they may on their own premises; having investments more or less large and lucrative; conducting or connected with some safe and sure business, with therefore an ample and a comparatively certain income, are removed from the numberless anxieties and annoyances that distract the mind and make miserable the life of their less fortunate or less wisely instructed brethren.
To show to each individual worker, who is now liable to all the uncertainties and perplexities that belong to a condition where work and wages are largely dependent upon another's a will, and where therefore the means of sustaining life are comparatively beyond his control, a way by which he can escape from this thraldom, rise to pecuniary independence, and therefore manhood is one design of this volume.
And in making suggestions, and giving advice with this end in view, the mutual relations of labour and capital, of employer and employee are never lost sight of; the design being to encourage the labouring man to do better work and more of it, to be deserving of the largest wages which his employer can afford to pay; and especially, by wise use of his money in the support of himself and family, have some portion of his wages which he can each week or month lay aside, and thus begin an accumulation of property which will be satisfaction as well as a solace and help in all subsequent time.
Everyone acquainted with any considerable number of businessmen must have discovered that among individuals engaged in the same vocation, having each the same capital and the same advantages, one is successful and another not; or one is more successful than another, or neither is as successful as he might and should be.
To help the one who has hitherto failed; to enable the medium man to take a higher position; to give to the thrifty man advice and suggest modes that will enable him the more to outstrip his fellows, is another design of this volume. Unnumbered thousands of young men in this country leave the paternal mansion and go out into the wide world each year.
Their future depends to a great degree upon the choice they make of a business. If they are adapted to the one they enter upon — if they seek it because after a calm examination of their business tastes and desires they conclude they are fitted for it, and it for them, success is usually the result. But if without knowledge of themselves or the demands of the business in which they embark, failure is almost inevitable.
To suggest to every young man who carefully reads this volume the considerations that should always govern in the choice of a business — to aid him in his selection, by presenting the probabilities and the possibilities of success in many if not most of the kinds of business which he would naturally seek — to instruct him in the general principles that underlie all business, and, many times, in the particular mode in which the one he chooses should be managed; encouraging economy in expenditures, and showing how this saving grace in all temporal matters can be most effectively exercised; thus helping to fortune those who otherwise might fail, and so the world, having more of success and less of disaster in it, be made the happier and the better, is still another reason for offering this book for the acceptance and study of the great American Public.
We are not of that number who inveigh against wealth. If u the love of money is the root of all evil," the proper use of it is productive of measure- less good; and as the world grows wiser, and business becomes more or less largely consecrated to something infinitely higher than the present and personal gratification, money will become one of the most effective means in hastening the benign advent of " the good time coming."
As all wealth comes originally from the soil. as no inconsiderable portion of the inhabitants of this country is engaged more or less largely in agricultural pursuits, we have given considerable space to the business of farming and its. kindred in- industries. Next in order of space come trade, manufactures, and the professions, with enough of biography to show the paths that other men have trod, and thus the possibility of doing what other men have done; with help, finally, to make children wise in money matters, the wife an efficient aid in the accumulation of a common and goodly fortune, with thoughts practical and earnest, adapted to all classes of workers and fitted to help and cheer every condition in life
The author has purposely united with plain practical instruction, enough of history and incident to relieve the volume from any textbook tendency, and sincerely believing that no man or woman can read it without receiving a value far greater than its cost, he commends it to the calm consideration of every person who, like himself, beginning comparatively poor, is anxious to reach what all men should desire and labour for Pecuniary Independence.
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