You probably know of a number of people who have done most remarkable things under less favorable conditions than surround you, and if they can do it, why can't you?

Whenever you see a young man with no higher qualifications than your own, making a remarkable career out of what you consider very ordinary material and conditions, it should set you thinking. You ought to say, "Why can't I do it? If this fellow is making such a grand success out of such forbidding assets, in such an inhospitable environment, why can't I do something myself? I am not mentally inferior to those about me who are doing splendid work, attracting attention by their unusual methods, and I shall do big things, too."

Why is it that Joseph Pulitzer, who came to America a poor boy from Germany, so poor that he slept on the benches in the park in front of the space now occupied by the World Building, which he built later, could make millions out of a paper which was pretty nearly a failure in the hands of the people who had it before him?

Why is it that some men will take a rundown business, that is losing a lot of money, and in a very short time turn the tide and make a fortune out of it?

Why is it that an office boy, Hugh Chalmers, earning $4 or $5 a week in the National Cash Register offices, can climb by leaps and bounds, over the heads of thousands of other employees,

into a $72,000 salary position; and even resign this later to go into business for himself and achieve such remarkable success?

How is it that in England, where the chances are not one-hundredth part as great as here, we see poor young men, Harmsworth, Pearson, George Newnes, climbing up from the humblest position in the same publishing house to the highest attainable place? Harmsworth, who is to-day Lord Northcliffe, is worth a great many million dollars, owning $2,000,000 worth of paper-making timber land in Newfoundland.

How is it that Jonn Wanamaker, a poor boy walking four miles into Philadelphia every morning to work for $1.75 per week, could make of himself one of the greatest living merchants? How was it that after a little country storekeeper in Pittsfield, Mass., had pronounced him a failure as a clerk, and told his father that his boy would never make a merchant in a thousand years, the late Marshall Field was able to climb to the head of the greatest merchandise institution in America?

How did Edward Bok conquer his place as editor of "The Ladies' Home Journal," the most successful magazine in the world? When battling for a foothold in the world did he have any advantage over you? On the contrary, he got his principal schooling in a bitter struggle with poverty from the time he was six years old, when, with his family, he came from Holland to this

country, until he had won his spurs. "At ten years of age I got my first job," said Mr. Bok, "washing the windows of the baker's shop at fifty cents a week. In a week or two I was allowed to sell bread and cakes behind the counter after school hours for a dollar a week—handing out freshly baked cakes and warm, deliciously smelling bread, when scarcely a crumb had passed my mouth that day!" Later, he made and sold lemonade to thirsty wayfarers at two cents a glass; and, "in turn," he said, "I became a reporter evenings, an office boy daytimes, and learned stenography at midnight!"

This was how Mr. Bok won his way up, and it was all the harder because he had not been born in poverty. On the contrary, he was of gentle birth, and until the age of six had had a luxurious home in his native land. Business reverses ruined the family, and young Bok and his little brother found themselves in a strange land, whose tongue they did not know, destitute, with a frail and delicately nurtured mother to care for.

These things are not accidental or the result of chance. The success of these men in their various fields was not owing to a boost, a pull, or any outside influence. There was a reason in each instance for the rapid rise, and the reason was inside the man. It was not in circumstances, in luck, or in anything from the outside. It was all right inside the man.

There is where you must look for your great booster—inside of yourself. If you are going to make any sort of a figure in life, you must call out the full meed of your ability; you must measure up to the highest thing that is in you. You cannot afford to do anything else, anything less than the highest that is in you, and be a real man. Many people measure up to twenty, thirty, forty, and fifty per cent. of themselves but never up to their highest. Some reach well up toward one hundred in their money-making possibilities, but they do not measure up even to normal in their character, in their manhood. They stop just short of the man, and that is not success, no matter how much money they accumulate.

In a land where poor boys are every day conquering hard conditions and rising to distinction, in a land where Abe Lincoln, a poor backwoods boy, born in a log cabin, could climb to the White House, and make of himself the most colossal figure in his country, one of the grandest figures in history, there are no limits to the possibilities of youth.

"What I most need," says Emerson, "is somebody to make me do what I can." To do what you can, that is your problem; not what a Napoleon or a Lincoln could do, but what you can do. It makes all the difference in the world to you whether you bring out the best thing in yourself or only your second, third, or fourth best—whether

you utilize ten, fifteen, twenty-five, or one hundred per cent, of your ability. Your concern is, not to do what some other man has done, but to do the best you can do.

Most of us need some stimulus, some arouser to make us do our best, to put forth all our strength instead of one-half or only a little bit of it.

Without any idea of being an imitator, anything more or less than his possibilities admit, it is a good thing for the ambitious youth when he meets or sees a man who has lifted his head above the crowd and is forging ahead, to form the habit of saying to himself, "Why can't I do it? Why can't I do what William Brown or John Smith is doing? What is there to prevent me from lifting myself to the height he has reached?"

Whenever you see or hear of an example of success, some one who has achieved success under great difficulties; whenever you read an account of such an one in newspapers, magazines, or books, just say to yourself, "Why can't I do it?" Whenever you go into a gallery and see the portrait of a man who has been of sufficient benefit to the world to be there, or when you see a similar picture in a paper or magazine, repeat the question, "Why can't I do it?" Keep this practice up and your ambition will begin to take fire. Before you realize it you will find yourself answering, "I can do it, and I will do it." Substitute "I can," "I will" for "I