Advice to young men and boys: A series of addresses delivered by B. B. Comegys to the pupils of Girard CollegeComegys, B. B. (Benjamin Bartis)
Religion
Advice to young men and boys: A series of addresses delivered by B. B. Comegys to the pupils of Girard College
Comegys, B. B. (Benjamin Bartis)
Conduct of life; Girard College
Set out with the determination that you will be faithful in everything.
Only last week a Girard boy called on me to help him get employment.
I asked him some questions, and he told me that he had been out of
the college five or six years, and had five or six situations. Do you
think he had been faithful in anything? If he had been, he would not
have lost place after place. When you get a place, and I hope every
one of you will have a place provided for you before you leave here,
be among the first to arrive in the morning, and be among the last to
leave at the end of the day’s work. Do not let any fascination of base
ball or anything else lead you to forget that your first duty is to
your employer. Be quick to answer every call. Don’t say to yourself,
“It is not my place to answer that call, it is the other boy’s place,”
but go yourself, if the other fellow is slow, and let it be seen that
you are ready for any work. And be very prompt to answer. Do whatever
you are told. Say “yes, sir,” “no, sir” with hearty good-will, and say
“good-morning” as if you meant it. In short, do not be slovenly in
anything you have to do; be alive, and remember all the time that no
labor is degrading.
Be sure to treat your employers with unfailing respect, and your
fellow-clerks or workers, whether superiors, inferiors or equals, with
hearty good-will.
Do not tell lies directly or indirectly, for even if your employer do
so, he will despise you for doing so. No matter if he is untruthful,
he will respect you if you tell the truth always. Do not indulge in
or listen to impure talk. No real gentleman does this, and you can
be a real gentleman even if you are poor, for you will be educated.
Make yourself indispensable to your employer; this, too, is quite
possible, and it will almost certainly insure success. Be ambitious in
the highest sense. Remember, that if not now, you will hereafter have
others dependent upon you for support or help. It is a splendid thing
for a boy to go out from this college with the determination to support
his mother; and some that I know and you know are doing this, and many
others will do it.
I pause here to say that, so far, my words have been spoken as to your
duties to the world, to yourselves. I have supposed that you boys would
rather be bosses than journeymen, that you would rather own teams than
drive them for other people, that you would rather be a contractor than
carry the pick and shovel, that you would rather be a bricklayer than
carry the hod, that you would rather be a house-builder than a shoveler
of coal into the house-builder’s cellar. Is it not so?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account