More just before the turn of the 20th century "How to do business."
EDUCATION
Stay at school another year or two, and don't be ashamed of what ought to be your glory, that you want to learn more. Step from the district school to the high school, form the high school to the college, if you can. Get a business education by all means, --- you will never learn to much.
If you desire too become a mechanic instead of an engineer or a farmer, an education will not unfit you to become either. It will always be capital bearing a large income of interest.
"When home and lands are gone and spent,
Then learning is most excellent."
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GET INTO THE RIGHT PLACE.
How many poor physicians who would have made masterly mechanics; how many wretched merchants, who would have made noble, athletic farmers; how many pettifogging parchment-minded lawyers, who might have done the community some service as cobblers.
No wonder the old philosopher said, "God has made in this world two kinds of holes: round holes and three-cornered holes, and also two kinds of people: round people and three-cornered people, but almost all the round people are in the three-cornered holes, and the three-cornered people are in the round holes."
Hence the uneasiness and unhappiness of society and the failure of so many enterprises. Get into the right place, stay there and master your situation, and success is yours. There was never a business in which all failed. There is always room at the top.
WHAT TO DO
Young men, you are architects of your own fortunes. Rely upon you own strength of body and soul. Take for your star, self-reliance. Don't take too much advice --- keep at your helm and steer your own ship, and remember that the great art of commanding is to take a fair share of the work.
Think well of yourself. Strike out. Assume your own position. Put potatoes in a cart over a rough road, and the small ones go to the bottom. Rise above the envious and jealous. Fire above the mark you intend to hit.
Energy, invincible determination with a right motive, are the levers that move the world. Be in earnest. Be self-reliant. Be generous. Be civil. Read the papers. Advertise your business. Make money, and do good with it. Love your God and fellowmen. Love truth and virtue. Love your country and obey its laws.
Source: The Business Guide; or, Safe Methods of Business. J.L. Nichols; Naperville, ILLS., 1891.