Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: V CHAPTER VIIL LESSENING OOMPETITION. Of Two clerks working side by side, other things being equal, the one who has the best general educa- tion will prove the most valuable jderk. T?he merchant who is thoroughly posted about his business, and possesses the other requisite qualities, is sure to succeed in life; but if, in addition to this, he is a reading man and a student, his. success will be vastly greater. Business is made up of much besides mere business. When we have sold a country merchant a bill of goods, we do not turn on our heels and bow him out in the quickest method possible, but we feel like laying our order book down and having five minutes' chat on some other topic than business. The customer who comes in to buy a few goods at retail may be a gossipy sort of man, and while he is doing his trading enters into conversation upon matters entirely foreign to the goods we keep or he is buying. In this day and country, where education counts for so much, it seems at first sight as if the boy who is compelled to leave school at twelve or thirteen to begin life, is much to be pitied, but I am not sure that such is the case. Our schools of to-day are graded even more than sugars are. With the dispositioncommon in human nature, to magnify their office, tin school teachers of our common schools have adopted distinctions that were in use only in the higher universities, and children are being trained with much more regard to methods than the real object for which they go to school. A boy of twelve ought to have a good knowledge of spelling, arithmetic, grammar, geography, and the main points of history. With this foundation he can build quite a structure of learning, with only himself for a teacher. But as boys are turned out to-day at twelve, they have a little ...