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mind probably wears a very long ulster, and a
big diamond ring, arid almost as large a shirt-stud as
a hotel clerk, and he smokes very fragrant Havannas,
and stops at the best hotels, and travels all over
the country, and seems to have a real good time.
But there is a different commercial traveller, for I
have some very good friends who are commercial
travellers, and they are among the best men, as well
as the smartest salesmen I know. Yet I fear these
men would not attract your attention, for they don’t
wear much jewelry, and they are quiet, modest, active
business men. ‘This other class of runners, however,
whom you often see, and often envy perhaps, you
ought not to-hold up as your ideal young business
From what these eighty-three business men
Upon this

men.
tell me, I think the system is a.bad one.
subject one writes:

“The present method of doing business is an
absolute curse to young men, subjecting a very large
proportion of them to every form of temptation,
where there is absolutely no restraint.”

Another adds: “I know of nothing so dangerous
to young men entering business now, as this travelling
about the country to sell goods. I believe that hun-
dreds are ruined in body and soul every year by
it. Formerly the country dealer visited the city,
where he saw the various wares in the market, and
had the benefit of comparison. His views were
broadened by contact with men of broader views
than his own, and he returned home impressed with
his visit. Now he stays at home; the runner brings
his wares to his door; tells him they are the best and
the cheapest; will be scarce soon: perhaps loads him
down with miserable goods. The system is costly
alike to seller and buyer.”

Here is some good advice to those of you who
will realize your ambition and become runners one of
these days: “ A salesman should never urge goods
upon a buyer, but show them to him fairly, with
as few comments as possible, giving the buyer to
understand that he should be glad to sell to him if
he thinks it for his advantage to buy. He should
make very few allusions to his competitors or their

wares, but answer questions with regard to them, if |

at all, truthfully. By this practice, he will finally
establish confidence in himself, which will be better
to him than capital.”

Many others say very much the same thing; and ©

these words are all the more weighty because many
of these men have been through the commercial trav-

‘ business at once, at any rate.

OUR BUSINESS BOYS.

eller’s school, and have sold goods on-the road.

One steady, upright man, who has the reputation
of being one of the smartest salesmen who ever
went out of Portland, says this to me: “While one
rich customer always caroused and drank with my
rival in business, he invariably bought his goods of
me;” showing that good habits are respected and
trusted by men of bad habits.

But I do not suppose that you or JI, or all the
business men, can change this method of doing
So we must accept
things as they are, and, while we sail the sea, keep
off the rocks.

Another of the peculiar evils of the present day is
the lack of practical education. All our young men
want to go behind a counter; none want to go behind
awork-bench. It is a great pity that the old system
of apprenticeship has gone out of vogue, and nothing
has sprung up to take its place. _ -

“T have been in business as a master mason for
fifteen years,” one gentleman writes me, “and I have
never had an application from an American boy
to learn the trade. All the mechanical trades, as
soon as the present generation passes away, will be
exclusively in the hands of foreigners, and young
men of American parentage will be trying to earn
their living as clerks or book-keepers, without a trade
to fall back on, in case of failure in business.”

Says another: “Many of our younger mechanics
are bunglers for want of the old-fashioned, long and
patient training under constant responsibility. Young
men are too often seeking the profession or the count-
ing-room, while the farm or the shop are deserted.”

“Where shall we go in the future for skilled
labor?” asks another; “it is a serious problem.”

“Nineteen twentieths of the successful business
men of Portland,” writes a former mayor of the
city, ‘whether in money, or character, or both, com-
menced their work at as early an age as fourteen
years, showing that training is an essential element.
Every merchant captain out of Portland, for the last
fifty years, commenced sea-life a boy at about four-
teen years of age. Training again.”

“One of Portland’s richest men,” another person
writes, “has a son in a woollen mill, who began pick-
ing wool, and is fitting himself, while at his daily
labor, for the post of master manufacturer, in which
he will be in the way of earning more thousands
a year than most of our young lawyers.and doctors
are hundreds,”