In the canvassing of the past for what might be of use to the present, one finds in the case of Hugh Henry Brackenridge, chaplain to General Washington’s army as well as one of the University of Pittsburgh’s earliest lights, a few words requiring nothing more than republication. The advice in question can be found in his novel Modern Chivalry, a book that has never, despite its quality, achieved anything resembling true readership. The words are:
Young man, you have the good fortune to be born in a republic, a felicity that has been enjoyed but by a small portion of the race of men, in any age of the world. In some ages, it has been enjoyed by none at all. It is a principle of this government that every man has a right to elect, and a right to be elected. In the exercise of the first, the right to elect, be taught, my son, to preserve a scrupulous and delicate honor, and as at school where the sense of shame amongst your equals would restrain you from all fraud, so much more now that you are a man, let it restrain you from all unfairness in this, the great game of man. With regard to being elected, your first consideration will be your talent. At school, you would despise the boy who would set himself forward as an expert swimmer or wrestler but who was deficient in skill at these exercises. In order to be respectable, put not yourself above your strength. If you covet the honor of a public trust, think of qualifying yourself for it, and then let the people think of choosing you to discharge it; that is their business. Lay in a stock of knowledge by reading in early life. Your old age, by these means, will acquire dignity, and appointments will readily follow. You will be under no necessity of soliciting inordinately the suffrages of men.