What do you think?
Rate this book
Speaking of Change; a Selection of Speeches and Articles
Excerpt from Speaking of A Selection of Speeches and Articles
My first ambition as a boy was the usual one - I wanted to keep a candy store. When I became older and found that there was a stomach-ache in too much candy I changed my ambition, and an engineer operating a railroad engine seemed a god worthy of imitation. Next I wanted to be a conqueror - to ride on a big black horse with nodding plumes and go out into battle with a sharp flashing sword, cut off four heads at one time and come back riding through streets with the assembled multitudes waving flags and acclaiming me as a hero and strewing roses in my path.
But there came a day when I realized that to ride back from battle on a big black horse along a rose-strewn road, having killed men and left their families to suffer from want and starvation, also had an ache in it.
So childish days went, and with my adolescence came an ambition to be useful, to study and make myself a learned man, and although I was working in a store until nine o'clock every night (and Saturday was the only night I did not work until nine, because I worked then until one o'clock on Sunday morning), I managed to prepare myself to enter Harvard. And then after all I couldn't go because my father was sick with heart trouble, and I had to look after things. I remember my disappointment and how ill-used I felt myself to be when I could not go to Harvard. I thought that I should never now be a learned man, never be a very useful one, without this Harvard education.
Instead I began to study subjects with which my work brought me into contact in a practical way - that is, subjects that would correct or amplify the theories I was applying to the problems of my business.
About the Publisher
Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com
My first ambition as a boy was the usual one - I wanted to keep a candy store. When I became older and found that there was a stomach-ache in too much candy I changed my ambition, and an engineer operating a railroad engine seemed a god worthy of imitation. Next I wanted to be a conqueror - to ride on a big black horse with nodding plumes and go out into battle with a sharp flashing sword, cut off four heads at one time and come back riding through streets with the assembled multitudes waving flags and acclaiming me as a hero and strewing roses in my path.
But there came a day when I realized that to ride back from battle on a big black horse along a rose-strewn road, having killed men and left their families to suffer from want and starvation, also had an ache in it.
So childish days went, and with my adolescence came an ambition to be useful, to study and make myself a learned man, and although I was working in a store until nine o'clock every night (and Saturday was the only night I did not work until nine, because I worked then until one o'clock on Sunday morning), I managed to prepare myself to enter Harvard. And then after all I couldn't go because my father was sick with heart trouble, and I had to look after things. I remember my disappointment and how ill-used I felt myself to be when I could not go to Harvard. I thought that I should never now be a learned man, never be a very useful one, without this Harvard education.
Instead I began to study subjects with which my work brought me into contact in a practical way - that is, subjects that would correct or amplify the theories I was applying to the problems of my business.
About the Publisher
Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com
366 pages, Kindle Edition
First published September 27, 2015
2 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
No one has reviewed this book yet.