What a fine thing it was that Grant said at Shiloh.  The first day closed in disaster.  The enemy had all but driven the Union Army into the river.  Not a great distance from the banks of the stream they will point out to you the tree under which Grant stood, cigar clinched between his teeth, directing the disposition of his forces.  Some one reported to him a fresh disaster.

With the calmness of the certainty that nobody could defeat him, so the story runs, Grant replied, “Never mind; I will lick them to-morrow.”  Very like Caesar, was it not? “I came, I saw, I conquered.”  Or that other audacity of the great Roman, when the ship was actually sinking:  “Fear not,” said he; “fear not, you carry Caesar and his fortunes.”

In the same battle it is credibly reported that Grant rode to an important position held by a large number of his troops under one of his most trusted generals.  “What have you been doing?” asked Grant.  “Fighting,” answered the commander in charge of that position, equally laconic.  For a while Grant surveyed the field, and, turning, was about to ride away.  “But what shall I do now, General?” asked his subordinate.  “Keep on fighting,” answered Grant.

Do not get into the habit of feeling that you are not sufficiently well equipped.  This comes of a very honest intellectual process—­the understanding, as we get more knowledge, of how very little we really know; as we get more skill, of how very unskilled we really are; the feeling that, high as our training is, there is some one else more highly trained.  Of course there is; but if that is any excuse why you should do nothing—­because there is some person who can do it better—­you will never do anything; and then what will happen when all of the other fellows who “could do it better” die?

You will by that time be too old to do anything at all.  So sail in yourself, and pat on the back every other young fellow that sails in.  If you learn the law, for example, understand that the way to acquire the art of practising law is to practise it, and not merely watch somebody else practise it.  Suppose every young man with a scientific mind had declined to make any experiment because there were abler scientists than he:  how many Pasteurs and Finsens and Marconis and Edisons and Bells would the world have had?  And I might go on for an hour with similar illustrations.

So go ahead and try to do things you would like to do—­things Nature has fitted you to do.  Believe that you can do these things.  For you can, you know.  You will be amazed at your own powers.  If you do not believe in yourself, how do you expect the world to believe in you?  The world has no time to pet and coddle you, remember that.  So get the habit of faith in yourself and your fellow men.  Cultivate a noble intellectual generosity.  It is a fine tonic for mind and soul—­a fine tonic even for the body.