The importance of business training, that is, training for the special occupation in which a man’s energies are to be developed, is always made apparent when those energies are put to the test of competition, or are called upon to put forth an extraordinary effort. If a man has not got the special training, whether in the army or in civil life, he is never reliable in an emergency, but is like that weak and vacillating friend which old Solomon compared to a broken ankle. I say, therefore, to the young man of the rising generation, while you don’t relax any effort to procure all the education that your time and means will afford, above all things, don’t neglect the paramount importance of business training. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER V. PERSONAL HONOR OF WALL STREET MEN. BREACH OF TRUST RARE AMONG WALL STREET MEN.—THE ENGLISH CLERGYMAN’S NOTION OF TALMAGE’S TIRADES AGAINST WALL STREET.—ADVENTUROUS THIEVES HAVE NO SYMPATHIZERS AMONG WALL STREET OPERATORS.—EARLY TRAINING NECESSARY FOR SUCCESS IN SPECULATION.—FERDINAND WARD’S EVIL GENIUS.—A GREAT BUSINESS CAN ONLY BE BUILT UP ON HONEST PRINCIPLES.—GREAT GENERALS MAKE POOR FINANCIERS, THROUGH WANT OF EARLY TRAINING.—PRACTICAL BUSINESS IS THE BEST COLLEGE. There is no place in the world where people are trusted so much on faith as they are in Wall Street; not even in the Church. The business is one of mutual confidence, and each day there are numerous opportunities for men to secure many millions of dollars of other people’s money and take themselves safely off to that Paradise of defaulters and absconders over the Border. Yet instances of this nature are comparatively rare when we consider the large number of transactions and the immense amount of money handled in Wall Street. The men of Wall Street have, therefore, become world-renowned for straightforward dealing, and have thus obtained the first position as leading spirits in the speculative affairs not only of their own country, but of the entire world. Wherever the speculative spirit of the age has obtained a foothold, there Wall Street is a household word, and Wall Street men are held in the highest esteem. It has become a term familiar to the ears of those even who know nothing about the business which has made its name almost universal. “What is that Wall Street?” said an English curate to a friend of mine who recently visited Liverpool. “What a queer place,” he continued, “for Mr. Talmage to have his Tabernacle.” The English divine, evidently only having “caught on” to isolated sketches of the Brooklyn preacher’s calumnious invectives, thought they were actually delivered among the bulls and bears, and that Talmage had the boldness to beard these ferocious animals in their den.