I lately met with an account of a youth, under the above title, which contains a volume of instruction. It is from a southern paper, and while particularly designed for a latitude where servants abound, it contains hints which may prove highly useful to lads in communities where servants are less numerous:

"'I wish that you would send a servant to open the gate for me,' said a well-grown boy of ten to his mother, as he paused with his satchel upon his back, before the gate, and surveyed its clasped fastening.

"'Why, John, can't you open the gate for yourself?' said Mrs. Easy. 'A boy of your age and strength ought certainly to be able to do that.'

"'I could do it, I suppose,' said the child, 'but it's heavy, and I don't like the trouble. The servant can open it for me just as well. Pray, what is the use of having servants if they are not to wait upon us?'

"The servant was sent to open the gate. The boy passed out, and went whistling on his way to school. When he reached his seat in the academy, he drew from his satchel his arithmetic and began to inspect his sums.

"'I cannot do these,' he whispered to his seat-mate; they are too hard.'

"'But you can try,' replied his companion.

"'I know that I can,' said John, 'but it's too much trouble. Pray, what are teachers for if not to help us out of difficulties? I shall carry my slate to Prof. Helpwell."

"Alas! poor John. He had come to another closed gate—a gate leading into a beautiful and boundless science, 'the laws of which are the modes in which God acts in sustaining all the works of His hands'—the science of mathematics. He could have opened the gate and entered in alone and explored the riches of the realm, but his mother had injudiciously let him rest with the idea, that it is as well to have gates opened for us, as to exert our own strength. The result was, that her son, like the young hopeful sent to Mr. Wiseman, soon concluded that he had no 'genius' for mathematics, and threw up the study.

"The same was true of Latin. He could have learned the declensions of the nouns and the conjugation of the verbs as well as other boys of his age; but his seat-mate very kindly volunteered to 'tell him in class,' and what was the use in opening the gate into the Latin language, when another would do it for him? Oh, no! John Easy had no idea of tasking mental or physical strength when he could avoid it, and the consequence was, that numerous gates remained closed to him all the days of his life—gates of honor—gates to riches—gates to happiness. Children ought to be early taught that it is always best to help themselves."

This is the true secret of making a man. What would Columbus, or Washington and Franklin, or Webster and Clay, have accomplished had they proceeded on the principle of John Easy? No youth can rationally hope to attain to eminence in any thing who is not ready to "open the gate" for himself. And then, poor Mrs. Easy, how she did misjudge! Better for her son, had she dismissed her servants—or rather had she directed them to some more appropriate service, and let Master John have remained at the gate day and night for a month, unless willing, before the expiration of that time, to have opened it for himself, and by his own strength. Parents in their well-meant kindness, or, perhaps, it were better named, thoughtless indulgence, often repress energies which, if their children were compelled to put forth, would result in benefits of the most important character.

It is, indeed, painful to see boys, as we sometimes see them, struggling against "wind and tide;" but watch such boys—follow them—see how they put forth strength as it accumulates—apply energies as they increase—make use of new expedients as they need them, and by-and-by where are they? Indeed, now and then they are obliged to lift at the gate pretty lustily to get it open; now and then they are obliged to turn a pretty sharp corner, and, perhaps, lose a little skin from a shin-bone or a knuckle-joint, but, at length, where are they? Why, you see them sitting in "the gate"—a scriptural phrase for the post of honor. Who is that judge who so adorns the bench? My Lord Mansfield, or Sir Matthew Hale, or Chief Justice Marshall? Why, and from what condition, has he reached his eminence? That was a boy who some years since was an active, persevering little fellow round the streets, the son of the poor widow, who lives under the hill. She was poor, but she had the faculty of infusing her own energy into her boy, Matthew or Tommy; and now he has grown to be one of the eminent men of the country. Yes; and I recollect there was now and then to be seen with Tommy, when he had occasionally a half hour of leisure—but that was not often—there was one John Easy, whose mother always kept a servant to wait upon him, to open and shut the gate for him, and almost to help him breathe. Well, and where is John Easy? Why there he is, this moment, a poor, shiftless, penniless being, who never loved to open the gate for himself, and now nobody ever desires to open a gate to him.

And the reason for all this difference is the different manner in which these boys were trained in their early days. "Train up a child," says the good book, "in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it." Analyze the direction, and see how it reads. Train up a child—what? Why train him—i.e., educate him, discipline him. Whom did you say? A child. Take him early, in the morning of life, before bad habits, indolent habits, vicious habits are formed. It is easy to bend the sapling, but difficult to bend the grown tree. You said train a child, did you? Yes. But how? Why, in the way in which he ought to go—i.e., in some useful employment—in the exercise of good moral affections—pious duties towards God, and benevolent actions towards his parents, brothers, companions. Thus train him—a child—and what then—what result may you anticipate? Why, the royal preacher says that when he is old—of course, then, during youth, manhood, into old age, through life he means, as long as he lives he will not—what? He will not depart from it, he will neither go back, nor go zig-zag, but forward, in that way in which he ought to walk, as a moral and accountable being of God, and a member of society, bound to do all the good he can. And thus he will come under the conditions of a just or honest man, of whom another Scripture says, "His path is as the shining light, which shineth brighter and brighter unto the perfect day." The perfect day! But when is that? Why in it may mean the day when God will openly acknowledge all the really good as his sons and daughters. But I love to take it in more enlarged sense—I take the perfect day to be when the good will be as perfect as they can be; but as that will not be to the end of eternity, those who are trained up in the way they should go, will probably continue to walk in it till the absolutely perfect day comes which will never come, for the good are going to grow better and better as long as eternity lasts. So much for setting out right with your children, parents!—bringing them up right—and this involves, among other things, teaching them to "open the gate for themselves" and similar sorts of things.

Gratis.

Original.