That’s an absolutely lovely letter — and I wouldn’t have even thought to go hunting for it, had I been reading The Bishop’s Boys!
Thanks for linking it! (I had some trouble reading Wright’s handwriting, but I enjoyed the attempt thoroughly).
One way I’ve found to avoid ‘lessons’ is to read history that isn’t concerned with the recent past. To go back in time a bit. Primary source material is more readily available, which puts me closer to the people involved.
I can’t help but notice there are two separate ideas here:
- Read history that isn’t concerned with the recent past.
- Try and get to the primary source material.
I’m familiar with the first idea but not with the second — and I think it’s a good one.
Edited to add: the full quote and context is really quite striking. Partly for the beliefs and angst that comes through in Wilbur’s writing:
When I learned that you intended to put him (Herbert) into business early I could not help feeling that in teaching him to prefer others to himself you were giving him a very poor training for the life work you had chosen for him, for in business it is the aggressive man who continually has his eye on his own interest who succeeds. Business is merely a form of warfare in which each combatant strives to get the business away from his competitors and at the same time keep them from getting what he already has. No man has ever been successful in business who was not aggressive, self-assertive and even a little bit selfish perhaps. There is nothing reprehensible in an aggressive disposition, so long as it is not carried to excess, for such men make the world and its affairs move. If Herbert were less retiring and more assertive than he is I would entirely agree to putting him into business early. For that is the best training in the world for a business life and is the path which practically all the leaders in the business world have followed. I agree that a college training is wasted on a man who intends (?) to follow commercial pursuits. Neither will putting a boy, who has not the aggressive business instincts to work early, make a successful businessman of him.
I entirely agree that the boys of the Wright family are all lacking in determination and push. That is the very reason that none of us have been or will be more than ordinary businessmen. We have all done reasonably well, better in fact than the average man perhaps, but not one of us has as yet made particular use of the talents in which he excels other men. That is why our success has been only moderate. We ought not to have been businessmen.