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THE
ffUJIC TIRADE
V O L . X L V I I . N o . 25. Published Every Saturday by Edward Lyman Bill at I Madison Ave., New York, December 19, i908. SINGL$ !oS°PER S YEAR CENTS -
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REQUENTLY, the statement is made, incorrectly, T think, when referring to some noted man,
that he possesses great natural ability.
Natural ability, to my mind, is a gift possessed by but few individuals.
Acquired ability is possessed by many, and it is safe to assume that acquired ability
counts for more in the history of our modern world, than natural ability.
Why? According to my belief, acquired ability is gained by reasoning—by contact with
men—by dissecting conditions—by study—by watchfulness—by persistence—by assimilating and by
broadening.
Natural ability is more of the volatile order, and it lacks the strength of acquired ability. It is
truly rare, and it usually is uncertain and vacillating—it is scintillatingly brilliant, but it lacks ad-
hesiveness.
And acquired ability usually sticks. It is gained by hard knocks, and that is one of the rea-
sons why the men of acquired ability have become such tremendous forces in the world's develop-
ment.
Cecil Rhodes was not noted during his student days as a young man of great natural ability,
but what he acquired is eloquently told in the history of South Africa and the monument raised on
the Matappo hills is erected to a MAN.
William McKinley was not known in his youth and his early manhood as a remarkable man,
but he acquired a marvelous ability—acquired a mastery over men—acquired sufficient strength to
hold a great nation in check which was loudly clamoring for war until that nation was in some sort
of preparedness.
I recall that when I was a young student, I studied with a man who had acquired a knowledge
of more than sixty languages and dialects. That man was Elihu Burritt, sometimes called "The
Learned Blacksmith." He wrote a number of books, was a leader in the great Abolition movement,
and when he was Consul to Birmingham, England, was first to advocate a cheap ocean postage. He
was master of all the modern tongues, the language of the ancients was as familiar to him as English;
all of the Slavonic tongues, as well as Hebrew, Sanscrit and the Chaldean dialects were plain as day
to him, added to which he was an Egyptologist of note. I have seen him quickly decipher scrolls
on papyrus exhumed in Asia-Minor and in Egypt in the presence of noted European savants. I
have seen him do this as easily as I would read from a page in a Latin grammar. And yet the man
who possessed these marvelous linguistic qualities often told me that none of his ability was natural—
that it was all acquired, and all without a teacher. He said that by concentration of his mind upon any
linguistic problem, he was able to solve it, but not easily, and his marvelous ability to delve into all
the language mines of the world, was acquired only by diligent study and powerful concentration.
Acquired ability—is to do thoroughly what you set out to accomplish. Master every detail
of the work that falls to your lot to perform. Really, the genius of success is nothing more than
doing well what you do. If we all followed this rule broadly, we could not fail to develop ability of
some kind, and how great that ability, depends largely upon our own capacity for acquiring.
Practice, constant, unceasing practice, is the only way in which to acquire business ability, for
good business judgment after all, is nothing more than applying to our work sound business princi-
ples, some of which, it is safe to say, have been acquired through bitter, and ofttimes costly experi-
ences
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EDWARD LYMAN BILL,