The young man with a University education, or who has been too long at a Public School, enters an environment that is too often distasteful after the atmosphere he has breathed. He is mentally antagonistic to his surroundings, because his brain has been organized in other directions; he has formed a habit of mind that is frequently difficult to change. He has to learn to be quick-witted and self-reliant, and accustom himself to irksome routine. He is sometimes slow to learn that business discussions and decisions have no resemblance to argumentative school methods. Although life is a blend of thought and action, it is usually true that the abstract world of thought, and the business world of action, develop different types of mind. As Emerson said, “Commerce is a game of skill which every man cannot play.”

The mental faculties that are most in need of training, in nine cases out of ten, are those that tend to alertness of mind, to keen observation, to sustained concentration, to quick decision and a capacity for getting things done. To perform routine methods and follow in old lines is an easy thing; but to think out new lines which are essential from time to time, and to act independently on one’s own judgment and take the responsibility of the result, need special gifts. Influences calling for new methods and changes in policy are always at work; in fact, certain quickness in detecting such influences and changing conditions, and providing for them, has been the making of many a large enterprise.

There are some who would say that mental culture of a high order is incompatible with the business mind; in other words, that the habit of mind of the scholar is quite different from the habit of mind of the business man. Generally speaking, that may be true, but the point need not be discussed here. Undoubtedly in these days the conduct of a large business makes a serious demand on the mind and the time of the business man; it does not leave him much leisure to pursue academic studies. He has a definite object before him; it calls for unflagging pursuit, continual thought and reflection.

The majority of successful business men, although possessing highly organized brains, would not, in the academic sense, better “educated “by their scholastic friends. Nor would the business man claim that scholastic attainments are of much use to him so far as his business is concerned. He is content with his store of “worldly” knowledge-a clear brain, mental activity and abounding common sense. His school has been intercourse with his fellow-men; his wits pitted against theirs; he has no slavish dependence on books; he has experienced the truth of a saying:

“The original and proper sources of knowledge are not books, but life, experience, personal thinking, feeling and acting… Books are no doubt very useful helps to knowledge, and in some measure also to the practice of useful arts and accomplishments, but they are not, in any case, the primary and rational sources of culture, and in my opinion their virtue is not a little apt to be over-rated, even in those branches of acquirements where they seem most indispensable. They are not creative powers in any sense; they are merely helps, instruments, tools, and even as tools they are only artificial tools, superadded to those with which the wise prevision of Nature has equipped us.”