The Value of Advice

 It is obvious by now to those of you who follow my blog that I enjoy history.  Recently I was looking at a textbook titled "The Business of Life," published in 1936 for business students.  I thought it would be interesting to share some of the advice the authors' included.  They begin:  "Life is no round-trip ticket.  This journey, according to present-day reckoning, lasts about fifty-nine years for the average person."  I did a quick check for today's life expectancy in America and found that it is about 81-years for women and 77 for men.  Obviously, life expectancy has changed significantly.  I was curious to see how much the advice of the authors has changed, and I hope you enjoy what I found. 

The authors believed that the lack of a real purpose is the cause of many peoples' failures on the journey of life.  As an example, the authors' wrote, "At a railroad or bus station we do not ask for a ticket to 'somewhere,' but rather we should ask for a specific destination."  The authors explained that just as you should know where you want to go when you buy a ticket, you should also want to know your purpose when you begin your journey into adulthood. Today's kids are unlikely to be going off to college by railroad or bus, but, more importantly, how many of today's students actually know how to answer 'Exactly what career have you chosen for the rest of your life?' when they leave for college?  The authors' 1936 advice:  "The great secret of making the journey of life successfully lies in discovering at the start the main highway and then in staying on it," would sound ridiculous to most students leaving high school today, and even if they did adhere to a chosen career path, how many would adhere to that path for their entire lives?

Today there are professors with the specific purpose of advising students about the selection of a career path, and correspondingly, the classes  they should take for that career.  In 1936, apparently students were assumed to arrive at college knowing what they wanted to do with their lives, or otherwise, they   would be unlikely to enroll without a specific goal.  That is not the case today. 

Although some of the advice included in the book is relevant, much of it is obsolete.  The authors' recognized that time changes the appropriate advice for students, and we certainly recognize that  technology has created many unimagined options.  Years ago I thought a great high school graduation gift was a nice leather bound dictionary with the recipient's name stamped in gold on the lower corner of the dictionary.  Today I'm sure kids use the dictionary on their smart phones.  Once I realized that the dictionary idea was probably not appreciated, I came up with another idea--a really nice photo album with their name on it.  But, today photographs are probably on their smart phones, not displayed in an album.  Year by year things change, and many things become obsolete.  Sometimes it seems hard to keep up!

One suggestion in the 1936 book was looking to men (notice women were not included in their advice) you admire as potential role models, with their suggested examples being Lincoln, Lindberg, and Edison.  Lincoln remains a popular president, and respect for Edison's inventions continues, but the reputation of Lindbergh was sullied by his isolationist outspokenness during the lead-up to W.W. II.  Perhaps the biggest difference between the 1936 choices and current surveys for most admired is that women are now included.  Politics, entertainment, and sports tend to dominate polls today.  Are these men and women truly appropriate role models for this young generation?  Yes and no, probably.

During my search through the 1936 The Business of Life textbook, I was surprised to come across  the illustration above.  Expanding on the caption beneath the illustration the authors wrote, "No real sportsman would think of shooting a covey of birds without first flushing them, nor would he think of firing at a rabbit except when it was on the run."  The authors admitted that even in 1936 the common ethics of sportsmanship had deteriorated, until "today there is little sport left in this country."  What would the authors of their textbook think of the weapons used by hunters today, as well as access to ownership and other issues?

Reading the 1936 book was interesting, but I cannot imagine that the advice would hold the attention of today's students.  I did find one section titled "Qualities That Make For Character" interesting, and I thought it worth quoting.  "Perhaps the best trait of character that everyone may acquire is to do the very best he can at all times, regardless of the handicap under which he may have to labor.  This is all that we should expect of anyone.  Most of the following qualities are considered necessary, and all of them are important to good character:  courage, honesty, reliability, perseverance, industry, accuracy, self-control, enthusiasm, open-mindedness, and cooperation.  Other qualities, such as leadership, judgement, and thinking ability may be necessary for great success but not necessary for a good character ."

The young man who first owned this book, perhaps a nephew of my husband's grandmother, was a  teenager in 1936.  I don't know how the book made its way from Iowa to Kansas.  All I know is that it was among the things we sorted at the time of my mother-in-law's death.  How I would love to know what young Lloyd Clapp, whose name is written neatly in the front of the book, thought of his textbook and whether the faint underlining under "Qualities That Make for Character" were made by Lloyd.