It was a homely, up-state father who said that, but he was a wise and a good man and I revere him. He was a father who knew the boy from the skin in. He knew that the boy’s first employer is, in the boy’s eyes, the greatest man in the world. He perceived that his son, who for twenty years had looked upon him, the father, as the man of men, was about to have set before him a new pattern, a new ideal. And out of his heart came the question: “What is this man like?” It is a fine thing to know that you have brought your boy through that plastic period between his cradle-hood and his majority, and to know when he comes of age that he is clean and straight and true. It must be gratifying indeed, when the last text-book is closed and laid away, to see him start into the world, a man grown, with keen aspirations and high ideals, ready and eager to grapple with the world on his own account, and capable of taking care of himself with his own hands. If you have brought him through safely to this momentous hour, you have done much. But is your task quite ended? Does your responsibility stop here? That up-state father whom I have just referred to thought that it did not; and I agree with him. I believe that the father and mother yet have that one last touch to give to the character they have helped to form. I believe it is their duty to see, not that the boy has a good situation, but that he starts under a good man. Naturally, the employer, in most cases, is a man who has met with some success in his business or his profession. He sits apart from his subordinates. However much they may use their ingenuity, it is he who shapes the policy of the business and dominates the concern. Every one about him defers to him. Everything that is done is subject to his approval. He is, in fine, the head and front of the entire establishment. There are clerks and salesmen and accountants and confidential advisers in the place, some with long experience and grey hairs, but none are as great as he, and all look up to the place he occupies as a position worthy of aspiring to.