Silas Xavier Floyd

“ The brave and true man asks only for work. And the men who are occupying what you call the easy places in this life to-day are the men who have climbed into them by hard work. You are very much mistaken if you think that they have stepped into them from the high school. In fact, and you’ll find it out soon enough for yourself, there are really no soft or easy places in this world, and the man who goes about seeking such places stamps himself at once as a failure. Nobody will ever employ such a boy, and such a boy would be no good if he were employed. ”

“ The worst school in this world that any boy can go to is the school of the street. The school of the street turns out the most impure, the most dishonest and the most illiterate boys, and those boys and girls who ever rise to be anything or anybody in the world are the ones who leave the influences of the street in due time, as Little Joe did. The street offers most of its work and most of its attractions at night, as many boys can tell. The life of the street leads to no career that is worth following. ”

“ THE RIGHT TO PLAY. The right to play is one of the divine rights of men and women, of boys and girls, and is just as essential to the peace, happiness and prosperity of the world as is the right to pray. Never be afraid or ashamed, my young friends, of honest, vigorous, healthy play. Dominoes, lawn tennis, baseball, football, ping-pong, golf, foot-racing, leaping and jumping, boxing and wrestling, pole-vaulting, punching the bag, swinging dumb-bells or Indian clubs, and a hundred other things are perfectly sane and wholesome amusements for old or young. ”

“ No man has a right to weaken the faith of others. No man has a right to knock away the staff that supports the crippled wayfarer. And no man has a right to tell an aged mother that it does no good to give her boy a Bible unless he can suggest a better substitute. Destroy the old-fashioned idea concerning the Bible, and we shall have a nation of infidels defying God, defying the law, and repeating the licentiousness and horrors of the French Revolution. We should make the Bible first in all things. ”

“ In all earnestness I implore those to whom God has given winsome little children to begin early, as early as thy find it possible, to train their young lives for God and heaven. Let their little voices learn early to lisp the precious name of Jesus and be attuned to sing His praise. If you leave them this legacy—than which there is none greater—there will come peace and joy to your old age, and the light of heaven, like the golden glow of a radiant sunset, will rest on your dying bed. ”

“ Faults are the easiest things to find in all this world. A fault is something that can be found without looking for it. And I guess no little boy or girl in all the world knows anything that is easier to find than something that he or she doesn’t have to look for. Well, faults are things that we can find without looking for them; so faults are the easiest things to find in all the world. Yet, boys and girls, the habit of fault-finding, or the habit of finding fault, is one of the worst habits that anybody could form. ”

“ But I tell you, boys and girls, that the least enviable people in all the world are those who think that nothing is particularly worth while, that it does not matter much how a thing is done if it is only done with; who dwaddle along in a shabby sort of a way, considering only their own ease, with little sense of responsibility, and with no shame in being shirks. Every boy should make up his mind to live a round, full, earnest, intense life. ”

“ For us to be above our business—for us to think ourselves too good or too dainty to soil our hands with honest toil—for us to feel that it is a lowering of our dignity to carry a bundle through the street, is to prove by our conduct that we are not up to the level of our business, that we are possessed of a great amount of false pride, and, in a higher sense, it shows that we have a foolish and wicked distaste of true service. ”

“ Instead of moping in the valley of the shadow of death, we may live in the sunshine, where beautiful flowers and luscious fruits and delicious sweets grow.
Yes; yes; we might as well live in light as in darkness; make life a joyful song as a funeral dirge; live amid glory as shame. With a radiant countenance, a beaming eye, and a loving hand, we can do more work and have more to do; we can get more out of life and have more life to enjoy; we can scatter more sunshine and have more left for ourselves. ”

“ Be a true boy; be a true girl.
Secondly: Be trustworthy! Be worthy of trust; be reliable; make your word your bond. Conduct yourself in such a way that people can depend on you.
Thirdly: Dare to do right! Whatever comes or doesn’t come, stand by what you believe to be right, even if you have to stand alone. Be honest, upright, faithful, sincere, abhor that which is evil, cleave to that which is good.
True boys and girls are scarce; they are not easily found; they do not grow on trees. ”

“ To-day he is dead,—and those vampires who sucked his life’s blood and helped him to spend his money have no time to give him one thought.
Ah, how insincere and empty is the title of “good fellow” when it is applied to the man whose money is always on tap for those who are desirous of having a good time! And how corrupt and undesirable are the so-called friendships which spring from a lavish expenditure of money! Boys, the roof over your heads covers the best friends you could possibly have on earth. Those who slap you on the shoulder and say hilariously, “Good boy!” ”

“ There is quite a difference between a bad boy and a merely mischievous boy. A boy is not necessarily bad because he makes unearthly noises about the house, or now and then twists the cat’s tail just to hear her mew, or muddies his clothes in an effort to catch crawfish. He is not bad just because he likes to “play fantastic” on the fourth day of July. So many people complain of their boys being bad when they are only mischievous—that is to say, when they are only full of life. Some people think that a good boy is one that has a pale face and looks sickly ”

“ All these little worries which 152we meet each day may lie as stumbling-blocks across our way, or we may make of them, if we choose, stepping-stones of grace.
I want all the little boys and girls who read this book to be joy-makers, to be burden-bearers, to be among those who shall assist in filling the whole world with good cheer. It is our duty to cheer and comfort others; it is our duty to make the world not only better but happier—happier because better—for our having lived in it. ”

“ Daniel Webster said in his speech at the dedication of Bunker Hill monument: ‘Bunker Hill monument is completed. There it stands, a memorial of the past, a monitor of the present, a hope of the future. It looks, speaks, acts!’ So this assembly is a monitor of the present, a memorial of the past, a hope of the future. I see boys and girls around me. Boys, you will be men some day. Girls, you will be women some day. May you become good men and women, intelligent men and women, a credit to yourselves and your country. ”

“ He rushes into empty hearts and idle lives and sows tares thicker than the strewn leaves of autumn. It is an old and senseless and barbarian custom which has taught us that the child can wait or must wait. If anybody must wait at table to be served, it is usually the little child, who may be the hungriest of all; if some one must remain away from church or Sunday-school, it is often the youngest child, who perhaps needs most to go; if some one must be kept out of the day school, it is the smallest child, of course ”

“ Every boy in America should treasure them in his heart. Every girl in America should commit them to memory and make them the rule of her life. Mothers and fathers, school teachers and preachers, and all who have the care of the young in any way would do well to study these wise counsels and reflect upon them and strive to impress upon those for whom they are laboring. ”

“ The young folks themselves should take the lead in this matter. A home is not merely a place with four walls where people meet to eat and drink and sleep securely beneath a roof. Nay, boys and girls, a house is reared to be a home—the center where a family may gather into one; to be a serene retreat where the tenderest affections may find rest; where love may have a dwelling place, and the amenities of life gain ample scope; where parents and children may press one another heart to heart ”

“ THE DEVIL ON AN EXCURSION. I wonder how many boys and girls have ever witnessed a cyclone—a great big hurricane of wind and rain, of lightning and thunder, that just knocks down all the trees and takes the roofs off all the houses.
It is a terrible thing, the cyclone is!
The other day one came to our town. We could look up into the sky and see coming, from afar, a great big black cloud that looked for all the world like a balloon—a great big balloon, ever so large. The wind was blowing at a rapid rate, the dust flying, and everybody was frightened. ”

“ While they are young teach them that far above physical courage, which will lead them to face the cannon’s mouth; above wealth, which would give them farms and houses and bank stocks and gold; is moral courage—that courage by which they will stand fearlessly, frankly, firmly for the right. Every man or woman who dares to stand for the right when evil has its legions, is the true moral victor in this life and in the land beyond the stars. ”

“ Dinner-time was fast approaching. All the morning, the half-dozen little children, who were spending the day with Uncle Hambright at the Sunday-school picnic, had been playing every conceivable sort of game and had been enjoying every imaginable kind of story told in Uncle Ham’s inimitable way,—but still the children were not satisfied. “Just one more story,” or “Just one more game,” or “Give us your best game now for the last before dinner,”—the children clamored one after another.
“Very well,” said Uncle Ham. “You all wait until I come back, and then we’ll play fox-hunting.” ”

“ I see before me an assemblage of young people, full of the blood of youth, just entering upon the voyage of life. It is an interesting spectacle to me, as to us all, to meet such an assembly as I see before me this morning in an institution of learning, of knowledge, and of ethics and of Christian graces. ”

“ I have seen some girls running around in these new-fashioned night gowns, and they call it a Mother Hubbard party. If their mothers don’t allow them to go with the boys they will slip around and meet them somewhere anyhow. And where they are allowed to go with the boys they generally go to extremes. What business has a little girl—ten or twelve or fourteen years old—to be locked-arms with a little stripling of a boy, going home at night from church or some social entertainment. It always disgusts me whenever I see it. Worse than a mannish boy is a womanish girl. ”

“ In fact, every young woman should not only know how to perform every duty connected with a household, but every young woman should take some part in household work. No girl need tell me that she really loves her mother if she is willing to leave to her mother the work of washing the dishes, sweeping and scouring the floors, caring for the little children, doing the Monday washings, the house cleaning, and the like, while she devotes herself to pleasure, novel reading, social calling, butterfly parties, or playing rag-time music or singing rag-time songs. ”

“ To say nothing of the rich opportunities for mental and spiritual development, what a multitude of things have been provided for the innocent pleasure, the wholesome recreation of the young people of to-day; inventions that remind one of the magic of the “Arabian Nights”; tools of sport so perfect that one cannot imagine how they could be bettered; fascinating games, all unknown in the days gone by; books and papers upon which science, art and literary skill have lavished modern resources—all these and many other wonderful things have fallen to the lot of the favored boys and girls of to-day. ”

“ You hear a good deal about poverty nowadays, and the cry goes up to abolish poverty, but it will be the saddest day of civilization when poverty is no longer with us. It is from the soil of poverty that all the virtues spring. ”

“ And, boys and girls, it would greatly assist us in securing sunshine in our souls if we looked at our mercies with both eyes, as I might say, and at our troubles and trials with only one eye. What we enjoy in this world is always a good deal more than that which we do not enjoy; but we do not magnify our blessings sufficiently. We do not make as much of them as we ought. We do not rejoice because of them as we ought. We ought to keep daily a record of God’s goodness and kindness and patience and love. The Lord’s mercies are new every morning and fresh every evening ”

“ There is nothing—no, nothing—beautiful and good that dies and is forgotten. An infant, a prattling child, dying in his cradle, will live again in the better thoughts of those who loved it, and plays its part, though its body be burned to ashes or drowned in the deepest sea. ”