comrades. Read only "tonic books," as Goethe calls them. Yes, read, and abundantly—but don't stop there. Don't imagine that books, of themselves, will make you wise. Reading, alone, will not render you effective.

Mingle with the people—I mean the common people. Talk with them. Do not talk to them but talk with them, and get them to talk with you. Who that has had the experience would exchange the wit and wisdom of the "hands" at the "threshings," during the half hour of rest after eating, for the studied smartness of the salon or even the conversation of the learned? But think not to get this by going out to them and saying, "Talk up now." The farm-hand, the railroad laborer, the working man of every kind, does not wear his heart on his sleeve.

Mark the idioms in Shakespeare. He spoke the words and uttered the thoughts of hostlers as well as of kings. Observe the common language in the Bible. It is curious to note the number of the pithy expressions daily appearing among us which are repetitions of what the people were saying in the time of Isaiah.

All who love Robert Burns have their affection for him rooted in the human quality of him; and Burns's oneness with the rest of us is revealed by the earthiness of his words. They smell of home. They have the fragrance of trees and soil. We know that they were not coined by Burns the genius, but repeated from the mouths of plain men and women by Burns the reporter. It is so with all literature that lives.

Mingle with the people, therefore; be one of them. Who are you that you should not be one of them? Who is any one that he should not be one of the people? Their common thought is necessarily higher and better than the thought of any man. This is mathematical.

And the people, too, are young, eternally young. They are the source of all power, not politically speaking now, but ethnically, even commercially, speaking. The successful manager of any business will tell you that he takes as careful an inventory of public opinion as he does of the material items of his merchandise. A capable merchant told me that he makes it a point to mingle with the crowds.

"Not," said he, "to hear what they have to say, for you catch only a scrap or a sentence here and there; but to go up against them. Somehow or other you get their drift that way. Anyhow I am conscious that this helps me to understand what the people need and want. There is such a thing as commercial instinct; and contact with the people keeps this fresh and true."

We have come to that state of enlightenment where the people want to know not only that they are getting the best goods or best service, but that the business which supplies either is run all right. Who can doubt that in the universal mind there is a question as to the moral element in American business?

This is nothing but the composite conscience of the American people demanding that American business shall not only be conducted ably, but also that it shall be conducted honestly. It is a force which you must take into account. It will be a glorious asset for you if you will pay enough attention to it to understand it.

But you must mingle with the people yourself in order to comprehend this source of power. Do not sit alone in your room and read about the people; that is no way to learn about them.

Remember that no workable constitution was ever written exclusively by scholars. Recall the ordinance for the government of Carolina devised by the philosopher Locke. It failed; yet it reads well. Time and again theorists with highest purpose and broadest book wisdom have formulated laws for the good of mankind which would not work.

Most statutes that live and operate have had their origins among men of the soil as well as men of the study. The point I am making is that learning and accomplishments will do no good if you do not connect them with the people.

Is not this why so many reformers retire disappointed—men and women of finest excellencies of purpose and practical and fruitful thought—they have insisted in projecting their reforms from office or parlor upon the masses without knowing those masses? It is as impossible for the wisest man to be a statesman by confining himself to his study and his weighty volumes and his careful abstract thinking, as it is to be a chemist by reading about chemistry.

The laboratory, the test-tube, the actual contact with the real materials and forces in nature, are essential to the scientist of matter. This is much more true of the art of government. No man ever lived so wise that association with the millions would not enrich his wisdom mightily. And thus, page after page, we might go on pointing out the value of contact with the people, whom, after all, it ought to be your highest purpose to serve in some way.

For in all your doings never forget that, build you ever so cunningly, young man, you have builded in vain if the work of your hands has not helped humanity. Every occupation, trade, business, employment has its reason in service of the people.

Grocery man, harness-maker, carpenter; doctor, lawyer, or railway man; farmer, miner, or journalist; actor on the stage, teacher in the school-room, preacher in the pulpit—all your effort is for the service of the people, the ministering to their needs, the enlightenment of their minds, the uplifting of their souls. And I insist, therefore, that you shall know with the knowledge of kinship this humanity with whom you are to work and for whom you are to work.

Spend some time with Nature, too. The people and Nature—they alone contain the elemental forces. They alone are unartificial, unexhausted. You will be surprised at the strength you will get from a day in the woods. I do not mean physical strength alone, but mental vigor and spiritual insight.

The old fable of Antæus is so true that it is almost literally true. Every time he touched the earth when thrown, that common mother of us all gave him new strength; and, rising, he came to the combat as fresh as when he began.

Learn to know the trees; make friends with them. I know that this counsel will appear far-fetched if you have never cultivated the companionship of the woods. But try it, and keep on trying it, and you will find that there is such a thing as making friends with the trees. They will come to have a sort of personality for you.

No doubt this is all in your mind. No matter, it is good for you. It makes you more natural; that means that you are more simple, kindly, and truthful. What is more soothing and restorative than to stand quite still in field or forest and listen to the thousand mingled sounds that make up that wondrous melody which Nature is always playing on the numberless strings of her golden harp. Learn the peace which that music brings to you.

In short, cultivate Nature, get close to Nature. Try to get Nature to give you what she has for you as earnestly as you try to get what you want in business; and your days and nights will be glorified with a beauty and strength the existence of which you would have denied before you experienced their blessings.

But, of course, you must work for the benefits you get from Nature, just as you must work for everything worth having. You cannot quit your office and say, "Now I shall take a ten-minutes' walk in the park and commune with Nature." Nature is not to be courted in any such way. She does not fling her favors at your feet—not until you have won her utterly. Then all of the wealth and power which Nature has for those who love her are yours in a profuse and exhaustless opulence.

There is nothing so important for a young man, especially a young American, as to resolve not to wear himself out nervously and physically. Take stated vacations, therefore. I should advise every young man who expects to run a long race to resolve, after he has established himself, that he will take one,