Self Help

When I lifted the paper from his face, he reached up, took it out of my hands, put it back over his face and went right on sleeping. Then I used a little strategy by removing the paper from his face and placing it behind me, where he could not get it. He then sat up on the ground and I interviewed him. That fellow was a graduate from two of the great universities of the east, with a master's degree from one, and a Ph.D. from the other.

His story was pathetic. He had held job after job, but always his employer or his fellow employee had it in for him. He hadn't been able to make them see the value of his college training. They wouldn't give him a chance. Here was a man who might have been at the head of some great business, or the outstanding figure in one of the professions had he not built his house upon the sands of procrastination and held to the false belief that the world should pay him for what he knew!

Luckily, most college graduates do not build upon such flimsy foundations, because no college on earth can crown with success the man who tries to collect for that which he knows instead of that which he can do with what he knows.

The man to whom I have referred was from one of the best known families of Virginia. He traced his ancestry back to the landing of the Mayflower. He threw back his shoulders, pounded himself on the breast with his fist and said:

Just think of it, sir! I am a son of one of the first families of old Virginia! My observations lead me to believe that being the son of a first family is not always fortunate for either the son or the family.

Too often these sons of first families try to slide home from third base on their family names. This may be only a peculiar notion of mine, but I have observed that the men and women who are doing the world's work have but little time, and less inclination, to brag about their ancestry.

Not long ago I took a trip back to southwest Virginia, where I was born. It was the first time I had been there in over twenty years. It was a sad sight to compare the sons of some of those who were known as "first families" twenty years ago, with the sons of those who were but plain men who made it their business to express themselves in action of the most intensive nature.