“I had been in Chicago three years before good fortune seemed to come my way. I had visited every banking house several times in search of a position, for I was convinced that banking ought to be my career, and I was a familiar applicant to all the officials. On the third of August, 1858, a date I shall always remember, I was summoned to the office of the Merchants’ Loan and Trust Company, where my name was on file as a candidate for any position, however humble. ‘Can you keep a set of books?’ asked Mr. Holt, the cashier. ‘I can try,’ was my answer. ‘That isn’t what we want,’ said Mr. Holt; ‘can you do it?’ ‘I can, if it can be done in twenty-three hours out of twenty-four,’ I replied, and I was thereupon engaged at an annual salary of five hundred dollars. After working for so long at uncongenial employment with low wages, this opening made me very happy. I felt that my future was assured, for I had obtained, at length, the long-desired standing-room in a Chicago bank.
THE PUBLIC WOULD RATHER INVEST ITS MONEY IN MEN THAN IN FINE BUILDINGS.
“The story of my further progress can be of little interest to those who are beginning life in the financial world. My early preparation in the New York village was most useful, and, since I had also benefited from my experience with the world, my position was secure. If a young man has some preparation for his work, if he secures a proper opening, and if he behaves himself, there can be no question of his future. In two years after I entered the service of the Merchants’ Loan and Trust Company, I was given the position of cashier, at an annual salary of two thousand dollars, and naturally I was encouraged to find that my efforts were appreciated. I enjoyed my work, and was more convinced than ever before that banking was the career for which I was best fitted by nature.
“Every successful man started in a different way from that adopted by any other, and there is no rule which can be laid down as certain to win in the end. Some have received the benefit of a college training, and others have been self-educated. Some began life in other business and drifted into banking, and some were employed in financial houses from the very beginning. It often happens that those who make the most earnest efforts to succeed accomplish less than others who have had less preparation for the work. The prizes of life do not always come to the most deserving. Many things must co-operate to bring great results. Innate ability, which schools cannot furnish, must find conjunction with conditions, circumstances, and opportunities which lie outside of individual control. If you find a man great, distinguished, a business Saul among his brethren, do not worship him overmuch. Perhaps among the humble and unrecognized are a score or a hundred as worthy as he, to whom circumstances were unfavorable or opportunity did not come.
“The public appreciates more and more the importance of investing money in men, not in buildings. When I hear of large gifts to erect magnificent halls at our colleges, I think what greater good would be accomplished if that money were used to help a number of deserving young men and women through their college courses. When these young people have finished their work in the world, they may each and all be able to erect fifty-thousand-dollar buildings for their alma maters. A certain generous-minded man once said to me, ‘I have given money quite freely to help the distressed, to soften the bitterness of helpless age, and to alleviate the condition of the unfortunate; but there was little or no inspiration in it. When, on the other hand, I have helped a bright boy to secure for himself a good education, my imagination has become effected. I have seen my dollars—won by hard application, in sordid ways—transmitted into intellectual agencies powerful to effect the thoughts and feelings of generations which will live when I am dead.’ This sentiment is becoming prevalent among the thoughtful men of America.”
XI
A Young Millionaire not Afraid to Work in Overalls.
A TALL, slender young man walked into the office of the master of motive power and construction, in the Grand Central Station, New York. He was dressed in clothes that showed marks of travel, and his face had a tired look. This was young Cornelius Vanderbilt, son of the head of the house of Vanderbilt, and great-grandson of his namesake, the founder of the Vanderbilt fortune. Cornelius had come to the office to report to the man under whom he is working, for the heir to the Vanderbilt millions was then serving his apprenticeship in the railroad business, and had to report the work he had accomplished, just like any other young mechanic on the road. Every clerk in the office stared at him, but the stare was affectionate, for every employee of the road has learned to like him. They have seen him with jacket and overalls, working in the yards and in the round-houses and machine-shops all along the system.
“It was not a sudden determination which led me to go out on the road and study the practical side of the railroad business,” said young Cornelius Vanderbilt, in answer to my question as to his motive; “I had long intended to do it, because I know that the best way to learn a business is to begin at the bottom and work up. So when Mr. Depew arranged for me to begin in this department, I gladly accepted the place. I have been out on the road, off and on, for several months, and feel that I have learned a great deal that I could never have learned in any other way.”
FROM THE FOUNDATION UP.
“I have enjoyed the experience, too. I think I have had a natural inclination for mechanics all my life, and I enjoyed having to do with engines and the construction of the road-bed. I am learning, gradually, of course, to build an engine, and to run one successfully. It won’t be long before I can do that.”
“And what will you undertake when you have finished with the construction and motive-power departments?” I asked.
“Well, I haven’t planned that far ahead yet, but I hope, eventually, to know as much about the finances of the road as I do about the mechanics, and I also want to know something of the way in which the road is managed. All this will take time, but I am determined to give it all the time it needs. I think the advantages to be derived from such a training are worth a great deal of time and work.”
“Does it seem like very hard work to you?”
“No; you know, I’m very much interested in such things, and so I don’t mind the work. I would much prefer working in the yards and round-houses to working in the offices. It is much more to my taste.”
I asked Mr. Vanderbilt whether he ever expected to run an engine attached to a train, and he said he had no idea of doing so, but he could, if necessary. “I’m glad to know how,” he said.
And then Mr. Vanderbilt went to attend to some work awaiting him outside, and I entered Mr. Depew’s office. When I asked Mr. Depew to tell me something more of the young man whom he has so nobly befriended in all his trials, he spoke with great animation.
WISE DEVELOPMENT OF INHERITED TENDENCIES.
“Cornelius,” said he, “is a remarkable youth. From his early boyhood, I have seen in him signs of a peculiar ability. He has always been passionately fond of mechanics, and once, when a boy, was found trying to construct a steam engine out of an old saucepan. I have always hoped that he would enter actively into the work of the road, and