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Title: Stories of grit

Author: Archer Wallace

Contributor: Taylor Statten

Release Date: July 16, 2023 [eBook #71202]
Last Updated: July 21, 2023

Language: English

Credits: Al Haines

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STORIES OF GRIT ***








  STORIES OF GRIT

  BY

  ARCHER WALLACE

  Author of "Canadian Heroes of Mission Fields Overseas"


  With an Introduction by

  TAYLOR STATTEN

  Secretary of National Boys' Work Board



  TORONTO
  THE MUSSON BOOK COMPANY
  LIMITED




  Copyright, Canada, 1925
  THE MUSSON BOOK COMPANY LTD.
  PUBLISHERS TORONTO


  PRINTED IN CANADA

  T. H. BEST PRINTING CO., LIMITED
  TORONTO, ONT.




INTRODUCTION

If you are the sort of a boy who is afraid of becoming dissatisfied
with his present outlook on life and vision of possibilities for the
future, you had better not read this book.

In fact, there are just two classes of boys who should be permitted
to read these fascinating pages.

The ambitious boys are in one class; those who are determined to make
their lives count.  That type of boy will be helped toward finding
the best outlet for his services.  He will learn of fields of
investment for his life work which have brought rich returns to other
boys.  His vision will be broadened, his objective made higher.

The other class of boy who should read this book is that in whom the
fires of ambition have not yet been kindled; he who is living on the
dead level of life, just "groping to and fro".  This type of boy will
be inspired to tackle the climbing life when he learns of the
handicaps which other boys have overcome and of the great goals they
have won.  The following lines from the story of Edward Bok, the
little Dutch boy, is descriptive of general conditions: "When he got
out into the world, he was astonished to find how many of his young
friends believed that the only way to get on was through favouritism.
That was not his experience.  He found that if a young man were
willing to work and do his very best, the way to success was wide and
it was not overpeopled.  He was astonished to find how many young men
there were who were not doing their best or anything like it.  He did
all that was expected of him and a little more."

As boys, we resent "being nagged at".  We rebel, and our souls
shrivel up when Dad, Mother, Teacher or some interested friend starts
to point out our weaknesses.  On the other hand, how it stirs our
blood and thrills us as we read of some fellow who has played the
game of life against fearful odds and has come through with a
crowning achievement!

Some one has said, "He can who thinks he can." No boy can read these
"Stories of Grit" without believing more firmly in his ability to
succeed.

When the grind comes and we are ready to give up the struggle, the
inspiration from these "boys who overcame" will send us both to our
little difficulties with an enthusiasm which knows no defeat.

I have talked with boys who have said "Latin has me licked", and they
were ready to throw over the possibilities of a college course and a
chosen profession because of the Latin in the Matriculation
Examination.  Give any boy one hour with these "Stories of Grit", and
I guarantee that it will stiffen his backbone and give him a punch so
effective that he will be able to "lick his weight in wildcats".

TAYLOR STATTEN.




CONTENTS

CHAPTER

I. The Blind Boy who Became Poet, Preacher and Author

II. How a Lame Boy Became the World's Greatest Potter

III. The Dutch Boy who Became a Great Editor

IV. A Deaf Boy who Became a Great Bible Scholar

V. The Slave Boy who Became a Great Leader

VI. The Immigrant Lad who Became a King of Industry

VII. A Shoemaker's Apprentice who Became a Great Scholar

VIII. From Gipsy Tent to Pulpit

IX. A Blind Man who Became Postmaster-General of England

X. The Ploughboy who Became a Famous Naturalist

XI. A Sick Man who Never Gave Up

XII. How a Poor Boy Became a Great Scientist

XIII. What an Illiterate Boy Made of His Life

XIV. A Donkey Boy who Became a Famous Sculptor




STORIES OF GRIT



CHAPTER I.

THE BLIND BOY WHO BECAME POET, PREACHER AND AUTHOR.

George Matheson was born in Glasgow, Scotland, on March 27th, 1842.
When he was only eighteen months old his mother made the melancholy
discovery that his eyesight was defective.  He had inflammation at
the back of the eyes.  Several specialists were consulted, but little
hope was held out to the boy's parents.

The failure of his eyesight was gradual.  For several years he could
see fairly well.  During the greater part of his school-life he could
read and write by using powerful eye-glasses and large type.  He was
permitted to sit near the window so that he might get the full
benefit of the sunlight.  In spite of the serious difficulties which
faced him during those years, George Matheson took high standing in
his class.  He managed to learn French, German, Latin and Greek, and
in some subjects he led his class.

He was ever hoping that his eyesight would improve.  It was the
custom of his family to spend most of their summer holidays at one of
the seaside resorts on the Firth of Clyde, and George took great
delight in watching the steamboats as they plied up and down the
river.  It was there that he spent many anxious hours testing his
eyesight.  He would stand on the pier and watch the boats in the
distance.  He would try to make out how many funnels each had, and as
they drew nearer, what their names were.  At times he thought that
his eyes were improving; but at last he had to admit to himself that
they were gradually getting worse.

For the greater part of his life he was largely dependent upon other
people.  His lessons at college were read to him, and, thanks to a
marvellous memory, he learned with amazing thoroughness.  He had a
wonderfully cheerful disposition.  To become blind when so young
would have been sufficient to crush all brightness out of most lives,
but not so with George Matheson.  He rose above his terrible
calamity, and showed himself a real hero.

When only eleven he was admitted to the Glasgow Academy.  He took his
place alongside other pupils, studied the same subjects, and sat for
the same examinations.  When it came to marking his exam. papers no
favours whatever were granted to him, and yet his four years at the
Academy were years of unbroken distinction.  In his first year he
gained the prize for history and religious knowledge.  In his second
year he gained prizes in Latin, history, geography and English
composition.  In his third and fourth years he won nearly all the
special prizes, and finished with a wonderfully high record.

He matriculated for Glasgow University in 1857, when he was only
fifteen.  During his term there his eyesight became gradually worse,
until by the time he was eighteen he was practically blind.  When
this terrible handicap is taken into consideration, George Matheson's
record at the university stands as a wonderful example of
perseverance and pluck.  In all his classes he stood high, and
especially shone in debates and oratorical contests.  He received his
B.A. degree in 1861, with "honourable distinction in philosophy," and
his M.A. degree one year later.  In 1862 he entered Divinity Hall to
study for the ministry.  For four years he gave himself to the most
careful preparation for that calling, and in 1866, after nine years
spent in Glasgow University, he was licensed to preach.

In January, 1867, George Matheson became the assistant minister at
St. Bernard's parish in Glasgow.  He preached regularly to large
congregations, and prepared his sermons with much care.  When he
stood up to preach people forgot all about his blindness.  He
committed the whole service to memory; hymns, lessons, and sermons,
and such was his splendid memory, that he never seemed at a loss for
anything to say.  After a year at St. Bernard's he was appointed
minister of Innellan Church, where he remained for several years and
preached and ministered to a very large congregation.  Innellan,
because of its beautiful situation and bracing air, had become a
favourite summer resort, and to these attractions was added George
Matheson's fame as a preacher.  People came from far and near to hear
him, and none ever went away disappointed.

What a picture it is to think of that blind man, standing there in
his pulpit, instructing and comforting people who had perfect
eyesight and seemed more favoured than he.  Yet in all his sermons
and in his conversation, there was cheerfulness and gratitude to God.
No one ever heard him murmur or complain, and when he stood up and
offered prayer, or read the Psalms in his clear, ringing voice,
everyone realized that his whole heart was in the service.  He became
known as "Matheson of Innellan" and many people went there, summer
after summer, in order to hear him preach.

In 1886 George Matheson was called to St. Bernard's Church,
Edinburgh.  In May of that year he began his work as minister to that
congregation, and remained for thirteen years.  It was a very large
congregation.  There were nearly fifteen hundred members, in addition
to hundreds of others who were simply attendants.

Dr. Matheson resolved that he would not only preach to his people,
but would visit them in their homes.  His sister was deeply attached
to him, and accompanied him wherever he went.  Before he had been six
months at Edinburgh he had visited six hundred families, besides
calling upon the sick, the aged, the infirm and the dying.  In
addition to all this he was preparing sermons of rare quality and
working in close sympathy with all the associations of his church.
The visits he made upon his people were occasions long to be
remembered.  He was so warm-hearted and full of sympathy, that every
person he met realized that it was no formal visit.  Dr. Matheson
kept up this method of visitation throughout his whole ministry.  His
church grew until there were nearly eighteen hundred members; yet he
made a determined effort to keep in close touch with them all; and,
blind though he was, he succeeded much better than most men would
have done who had perfect vision.

Like Henry Fawcett, the blind Postmaster-General of England, Dr.
Matheson had a marvellous memory.  No doubt the loss of eyesight does
much to quicken the faculty of memory.  Often after he had preached,
the vestry would be besieged with people who were anxious to speak
with him.  Many of these people had known him before, and it was a
source of amazement to them to have the blind preacher call them by
name almost immediately after hearing them speak.  Sometimes visitors
from a distance, whom he had not seen for many years, would say,
"You'll not remember me, Doctor."  Perhaps a puzzled look would cross
his face; then he would say, "yes I do; you are Mackintosh, of ----"
It would be Mackintosh right enough, and Mackintosh would be a very
much surprised man.

In addition to his preaching and visiting, George Matheson was the
author of many fine books.  In 1882 he published a book of
meditations with the title "My Aspirations".  The success of this
book was instantaneous, and in a very short time the entire edition
was sold out, and several other editions followed.  Later he
published many other volumes, among them being: "Moments on the
Mount", "Voices of the Spirit", "Searching in the Silence", "Times of
Refreshing", "Leaves for Quiet Hours", and "Rests by the River".  His
books proved helpful to thousands of people.  From every part of the
world letters came from people whose lives had been greatly blessed
by reading the works of the blind author.  What was true of his
preaching was also true of his writing.  People felt, at once, the
strong, cheerful, grateful heart of the author.  Great numbers of
people, around whose lives heavy clouds had gathered, had their
hearts strengthened, and their faith in God renewed, as they read
George Matheson's books.

In 1882 he wrote his famous hymn, now known the world over, "O Love,
that will not let me go."  It would be impossible to tell just what
this hymn has meant to thousands of people.  The hymn is now found in
most hymnals and has become a great favourite.  George Matheson gives
the following account of how he came to write it; "The hymn was
composed in the manse of Innellan on the evening of the sixth of
June, 1882.  I was at that time alone.  It was the day of my sister's
marriage, and the rest of the family were staying over night in
Glasgow.  Something had happened to me, which was known only to
myself, and which caused me the most severe mental suffering.  The
hymn was the fruit of that suffering.  It was the quickest bit of
work I ever did in my life.  I had the impression of having it
dictated to me by some inward voice rather than of working it out
myself.  I am quite sure that the whole work was completed in five
minutes, and equally sure that it never received at my hands any
retouching or correction."

George Matheson lived to be sixty-four years of age and managed to
fill every hour with useful and loving service.  To read an account
of one day's work in the life of this blind man is sufficient to make
most people realize how hard he worked.  He was methodical in his
habits and careful to leave no duty undone.  After breakfast each
morning he attended to his correspondence, generally answering
letters by return mail.  Then he would have read to him the morning
papers.  He showed a keen interest in everything that was going on.
From that he would pass on to his studies in French and German.  This
would be followed by some study in science, philosophy, history or
theology.  Then he would dictate to his secretary, something for the
press or for his own use as a speaker.  Added to such work, of
course, there were his extensive labors as pastor and preacher, and
it can be truthfully said that he did not fail in anything.  Whatever
task he put his hand to, he did with all his might.

George Matheson died at North Berwick, on August 28th, 1906, and was
buried at Glasgow a few days later.  Tributes of sympathy came to his
relatives from all over the world.  By his strong preaching, and
probably still more by his brave, cheerful spirit as set forth in his
books, he had helped a very great number of people everywhere.  In
his noble hymn he had written, "I trace the rainbow through the
rain."  That is exactly what he did.  Where so many others saw only
difficulties, he saw possibilities.  And so it came to pass that,
though he lived in darkness for nearly half a century, he served God
and his fellow-men with a devotion which will never be forgotten.




CHAPTER II.

HOW A LAME BOY BECAME THE WORLD'S GREATEST POTTER.

In the summer of 1730 a little lad was born at Burslem in
Staffordshire, England.  There was no fear of the little fellow being
lonely for he came into a family where there were already twelve boys
and girls.  Josiah Wedgewood, for that was the boy's name, was number
thirteen.  Was he unlucky?  Well, in some ways he was, but in others
he was not.  His mother had her hands full with so large a family,
but she taught Josiah to read and write and then sent him to a dame's
school.  Later he was sent to a school in Newcastle-under-Lyme.  This
school was three and a half miles from where he lived, but the little
fellow was keen to get an education and cheerfully trudged the seven
miles to and from school each day.  He was a lively boy, fond of all
kinds of sports and a general favourite at school.  He showed a
remarkable faculty for making paper designs.  With pen and scissors
he cut out designs of an army in combat, a fleet of ships at sea, a
house and gardens, and many other interesting things.  This gift of
Josiah's gave great pleasure to his little friends, but the
schoolmaster took a very different view and rather severely
admonished the budding designer.  Josiah was also fond of collecting
fossils, shells and beautiful things which he found around the
country lanes.  He was constantly bringing these things home, and at
last he fitted up a disused workshop of his father's and it served
the purpose of a miniature museum.

When Josiah was nine years of age his father died.  It was a great
blow to the family, for while the father had never been more than an
ordinary workingman, he had kept his family in fairly good
circumstances.  Josiah was taken from school at once and sent to help
in the factory, where his eldest brother, Thomas, was in charge.  For
several generations the Wedgewoods had been potters and the whole
countryside was famous as the chief centre of the industry in
England.  It was a proud day for Josiah when first he began to work
at the trade in which he was destined to become so great.  He was too
young to understand what a serious handicap it is to be sent out into
the world with little education, and besides, in those days,
comparatively few received a thorough training in school.  Several of
his brothers and sisters never learned to read or write, and after
they became men and women, they had to sign their names with a mark,
for they had never learned to write even their own names.

When he was eleven a serious misfortune befell Josiah; one which
darkened his whole life.  The terrible scourge of small-pox swept
over England, as it did over all European countries from time to
time, and he suffered a severe attack.  In those days medical skill
had not developed very much, and the doctors were quite unequal to
the task of dealing with the dreadful disease.  Besides that, the
utter lack of sanitation, and the conditions under which most of the
people lived, were such that it seemed as though plagues must just
run their course.  Severe cases of small-pox were almost regarded as
hopeless, and recovery was very rare.  For a time it seemed as though
Josiah could not live, but at last he rallied.  His right knee,
however, was seriously affected, and for the remainder of his life he
was a cripple.

When only fourteen years of age Josiah was formally apprenticed to
his brother.  He had, like other apprentices, to sign an agreement
that he would not gamble, frequent taverns, or indulge in any of the
prevailing vices.  Many boys, of course, signed such agreements
without really intending to live up to their vows, but Josiah lived
up to his pledge.  Throughout the years of his apprenticeship he
devoted himself with amazing concentration to his trade.  There was a
great deal of drunkenness and gambling and other vices at that time,
but Josiah's record was beyond reproach.  He loved his work and gave
himself fully to it.  Everything connected with the potter's trade he
found interesting.  He did not know what dull moments were.

Josiah soon showed a desire to do things in his own way.  He was
constantly striving after new effects and attempting new designs.
Many of those working with him marvelled at his wonderful skill, but
his brother Thomas did not like it.  Thomas was making a fair living
by doing the same old things in the same old way and he did not want
any changes introduced.  It seemed to him that Josiah was simply
wasting his time with his new-fangled ideas.  When Josiah had served
his apprenticeship he offered to go into partnership with Thomas, but
the elder brother was not willing, so Josiah had to look elsewhere
for work.

For a while he became associated with other men and he was at liberty
to make his experiments to his heart's content.  But soon Josiah
discovered that his associates were simply taking advantage of his
good nature and profiting by his skill.  In 1759, when he was
twenty-nine years of age, he started in business for himself.  His
beginning was in a very humble way, for he had very little money; but
he rejoiced in being his own master, and resolved to work away at
carrying out some of the ideas he had cherished for so long.

About this time he suffered very great pain from his injured leg.  At
times he had to work away with his leg resting on a stool in front of
him.  On one occasion he injured his leg and was laid up in bed for
several months.  During this period he did a good deal of reading and
tried to make up for his lack of early training.  He also had time to
think out many new plans for his work, and he solemnly resolved to
become the greatest potter of his time.  His mother had died some
years previously and his outlook in some ways was not very bright.
He wrote in his diary: "I have my trade, a lame leg, the marks of
small-pox, and I never was good-looking anyway."

When he was able to get about again he resumed his work with more
enthusiasm than ever.  Instead of doing as his brother Thomas and
other potters were doing--simply making plain butter-crocks, brown
jugs and such like, he spent a great deal of time experimenting in
glazes, in a semi-transparent green color which he had made for
himself.  Soon his wonderfully artistic designs began to attract
attention, and his reputation extended throughout England.

Up till this time practically all the really beautiful pottery in
England had been imported from other countries.  Because of the great
distance and of the difficulties of transportation, this pottery was
very expensive.  An aristocratic Burnham family, who possessed some
very fine rare specimens, had the misfortune to have their largest
plate broken.  They sought the assistance of all the leading potters
to help them get a duplicate, but failed.  Then they were directed to
Josiah Wedgewood.  He succeeded where others had failed and to the
amazement of all he produced a perfect facsimile of the broken plate.
The news of this achievement soon spread and he received orders for
more work than he could carry out.

Some years before this, Josiah had seen Sarah Wedgewood and had
become deeply attached to her.  Sarah's father and his own were
cousins, but whereas his father had been a humble workman, Richard
Wedgewood was considered a wealthy man.  By dint of hard work Josiah
saved a hundred pounds, which in those days was considered quite a
sum of money.  He wrote to Sarah and told her of his success, and she
wrote back and congratulated him, telling him how proud they were of
his achievements in artistic pottery.  Josiah was greatly encouraged
by this letter, and on the strength of it he visited her home and
asked her hand in marriage.  Sarah seems to have been quite willing,
but her father was very angry.  He had taken a friendly interest in
his distant relative, and was glad to know of the wonderful things he
was doing in artistic pottery, but after all Josiah was still poor,
lame, and disfigured by small-pox.  He had no intention of allowing
his daughter to marry such a man.  He had some one else in view whom
he considered would be a much better match.

It was a very painful experience for the lame man, but its bitterness
was offset by one thing: Sarah herself hastened to make it clear to
Josiah that she loved him and did not want to marry any one else.
Encouraged by this he resolved to work harder than ever.  He wrote to
Sarah telling her that he would yet be the best potter that England
had ever seen.

This was no idle boast.  Orders for his work came so fast that he had
to extend his workshop from time to time and take on more workmen.
He had often noticed how untidy and slovenly the men were in the
various workshops and he determined to have things done differently
in his factory.  Some of the men keenly resented his particular ways,
but he reasoned with them, and showed them the wisdom of his methods.
Soon the workmen caught the enthusiasm of their master and fell
heartily in with his plans.

He determined that not one bit of poor pottery should leave his
workshop.  Sometimes he would look very carefully at some piece, then
say, "It is good--but not good enough for Josiah Wedgewood."  Then it
would be destroyed.  Day after day he sat with his workmen, going
from one to another, rendering assistance and seeking to give to each
one a very high ideal for work.  He had to face great difficulties.
Many of the tools in use were of no service whatever in his porcelain
ware.  He had often to greatly improve the tools, and in many cases
invent new ones altogether.  But he was not easily daunted, and his
marvellous perseverance overcame all difficulties.

He was married to Sarah Wedgewood in 1764, when he was thirty-four
years of age and she was twenty-nine.  For many years she had been a
great inspiration to him in his work and she continued to be
throughout his life.

Four years after this his leg, which had seldom allowed him to have
one day without pain for twenty-two years, became worse.  After
consultation with several doctors it was decided to have the limb
amputated.  There were no anæsthetics in those days by which the
patient in such a severe operation could be made unconscious, and so
without anything to alleviate the pain he suffered the operation.  He
did not shrink but bore the pain with magnificent courage.  It was
not his way to complain.  During the twenty-two years of suffering he
had very seldom said a word about his agony.

By this time Josiah Wedgewood was known throughout England and in
many lands far beyond.  There was great interest taken when his leg
was amputated and many of the leading people of England, including
the King and Queen, were greatly relieved when it was known that the
operation had been a success.  When he regained his strength he soon
returned to the work he loved so much and sought to make his products
more perfect.

Probably there has never been a more skilled potter than Josiah
Wedgewood.  There have been other skilful men, but they have almost
always copied one from another.  He followed out his own ideas.  When
a boy, walking several miles to and from school each day over the
wide moorland, he had noticed the exquisite tints of the wild
flowers.  When he became a potter he copied out those same flowers in
his marvellous designs.  He did not copy the works of other men; he
followed as his ideal the things which God had made.  He was by far
the most original potter that the world has ever seen.  His business
became one of the great industries of England and he and Sarah built
an ideal village called Etruria, where they lived with their daughter
Susannah, who became the mother of the famous scientist, Charles
Darwin.

And so it was that the crippled boy, who left school at nine, and for
long years was hardly ever a day without violent pain, became the
greatest potter the world has ever known.




CHAPTER III.

THE DUTCH BOY WHO BECAME A GREAT EDITOR.

When the ocean liner, _The Queen_, docked at New York on September
20, 1870, she discharged among her passengers a Dutch family named
Bok.  Mr. Bok, the father, had once been in fairly good
circumstances, but unwise investments had left him quite poor, so he
and his wife decided to leave Holland, and with their two boys,
William and Edward, start over again in the United States.

The younger boy, Edward, was not quite seven years of age.  Within a
few days of landing he and his brother were sent to a public school
in Brooklyn.  It seemed a hard beginning, for neither of the boys
knew one word of English.  They did not know what the other boys were
talking about, nor could they make themselves understood.  In their
helplessness they did not have the sympathy of each other's company
for they were graded according to age, and so were parted during
school hours.  As soon as school was dismissed the boys were each the
centre of a group of tormentors, who seemed to enjoy teasing the
little fellows who could neither speak, nor understand, a word of
English.  Edward was nick-named "Dutchy" and there was scarcely any
form of cruelty which the other boys did not inflict upon him.

One day Edward was goaded into fury and turned on the ringleader
among his tormentors.  Much to the surprise of the big bully, and to
the boys, Edward gave him a sound thrashing, and from that day on, he
had the respect, at least, of his schoolmates.  He learned the
language quickly, and although he spoke with a Dutch accent, he
adapted himself to the ways of the new country and gained confidence.

Edward's father did not find it easy to make good.  He was between
forty and fifty years of age and everything was new and strange.  He
could not find work for quite a long time and the strain began to
tell upon his wife's health.  Edward and his brother were quick to
see how the heavy burdens were weighing upon their mother, so they
decided to relieve her by rising early in the mornings; building the
fire, preparing the breakfast, and washing the dishes, before they
went to school.  After school they gave up their play and swept and
scrubbed, and helped their mother to prepare the evening meal, and
wash the dishes afterwards.

One morning the boys woke up to find that there was no kindling wood
or coal wherewith to build the fire, so they decided to go out each
evening to gather coal which had been carelessly spilled when coal
was being delivered.  A good deal of wood was also lying about the
streets which they were glad to get.  The mother remonstrated with
the boys, but Edward said: "It is all right, Mother; this is America,
where one can do anything if it is honest.  So long as we don't steal
why shouldn't we get it?"

Money was badly needed in that home and Edward looked around to see
if he could not earn something.  One day he was standing looking
longingly into the window of a baker's shop.  The baker had just put
a tray of tempting buns, tarts, and pies, in the window and he came
out to look at them.

"They look pretty good, don't they?" he said, noticing the wistful
look on Edward's face.

"They look all right," answered the little Dutch boy, "but they would
look a whole lot better if you had your window cleaned."

"That is true," said the baker, "perhaps you will clean it."

So Edward got his first job.  He cleaned that window every Tuesday
and Friday afternoon, for which he received _fifty cents a week_.
One day the baker was busy and Edward waited on a customer.  When the
baker saw how aptly he did it, he suggested that Edward help him on
certain days after school and on Saturday afternoons.  The salary was
to be one dollar and fifty cents a week.  Edward eagerly consented
and hurried home to tell his parents about his rare good fortune.  On
Saturday mornings he took a delivery route for a newspaper, for which
he received one dollar; thus he brought his weekly earnings up to
two-fifty.

One evening Edward was invited to a party in Brooklyn.  The thought
occurred to him that the hostess would probably like to see an
account of the party in the newspaper, so he wrote an account of it,
giving the name of every boy and girl present, and sent it to the
_Brooklyn Eagle_.  The editor of the newspaper was so pleased with
the idea that he offered to give Edward three dollars a column for
such news.  From that time Edward sought eagerly to find out where
parties were being held in order to keep the editor supplied with
news and to earn some much-needed money.  It pleased people who had
attended parties to see their names in print, and, of course, it
increased the circulation of the paper.  Edward was not yet thirteen,
but he was attending school, working in a bake-shop after hours,
serving a paper route on Saturday mornings, and acting as reporter
for a newspaper.

One evening Edward learned that an office boy was wanted in the
office of the Western Union Telegraph Company.  The salary was six
dollars and twenty-five cents a week.  Edward secured the position,
and so, at the early age of thirteen, he left school to make his way
in the world.  His mother was keenly disappointed at his having to
leave school so early, but owing to the straitened circumstances of
the home, she gave her consent.

Edward early developed habits of thrift.  He never lost a chance of
making five cents, and when he got it he did not spend it foolishly.
He never used a street-car if he could walk.  Thus, he was able to
buy books to improve his education, and to make up for the serious
handicap of having left school so early in life.

About this time he began to collect autographs.  He wrote to
President Garfield, Lord Tennyson, Whittier, General Sherman, Geo. W.
Childs, and a great many other notables, and secured their
autographs, and in several instances received friendly little
letters.  One day a newspaper reporter saw these letters and within a
few days a long article appeared in the New York _Tribune_, giving a
full account of the little Dutch boy who had secured such a
remarkable collection of autographs and letters.  Editors of several
leading newspapers and magazines wrote to Edward and encouraged him
to get into personal touch with as many distinguished people as he
could, and to write brief accounts of his experiences.  Thus
encouraged, Edward sought and obtained interviews with President
Garfield, General Grant, General Sherman, President Hayes, Mrs.
Abraham Lincoln, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Longfellow, Phillips Brooks,
Emerson, and many others.  In every case the boy's eagerness to
learn, and courteous conduct made a favourable impression and he was
received with uniform kindness.

When Edward was eighteen his father died and the small amount of
insurance he left barely covered the funeral expenses.  Hence the two
boys faced the problem of supporting their mother on their meagre
income.  The boys there and then determined to make their mother
comfortable.

At this time he was a member of Plymouth Church, Brooklyn, where the
great Henry Ward Beecher was pastor.  The Young People's Society of
the Church decided to publish a magazine and Edward was asked to
become editor.  He made a decided success of this task and before
long a good deal of attention was directed to the magazine.  Edward
published sermons by Dr. Beecher, Dr. Talmage and others, and besides
he got a number of prominent people to write for it.  Readers were
amazed when they opened its pages to find articles signed by the
greatest people in the country.  At first, the circulation of this
little publication, which was named _The Brooklyn Magazine_, was
small, and Edward and another boy wrapped up all the copies
themselves and took them to the post office.  As the circulation
increased the bundles were too heavy to be carried, and a baker's
cart had to be used.  Before long a double-horse truck was necessary,
and three trips had to be made.  All this time Edward was working for
the Western Union Telegraph Company in the day time and doing his
editorial work in the evenings.  In 1882--when, he was nineteen--he
gave up his position and devoted his whole time to editing and
publishing the magazine, which was now known as _The American
Magazine_, and had become an important publication.

In 1884, before Edward had reached his twenty-first birthday, he was
offered a position with the well-known book publishers, Charles
Scribner and Sons, which he accepted.  The salary was eighteen
dollars a week, which in those days was considered a good salary for
one so young.  He astonished every one by his energy and enterprise.
There wasn't a lazy bone in his body.  He had an ever-willingness to
work which made his success a certainty.  When he got out into the
world he was astonished to find how many of his young, friends
believed that the only way to get on was through favouritism.  That
was not his experience.  He found that if a young man were willing to
work, and to do his very best, the way to success was wide, and it
was not overpeopled.  He was amazed to find how many young men there
were who were not doing their best, or anything like it.  They were
constantly watching the clock, and afraid lest they should work one
minute more than they were being paid for.  When luncheon time came,
Edward listened to the conversation around him and he was surprised
to note that scarcely any youth ever gave a thought to anything
except wages and outside interests.

Edward's idea of work was different.  He resolved to do his very best
and to do it every hour of the day.  He did all that was expected of
him and a little more.  When others played, he worked, convinced that
his play-time would come later.  He met with many difficulties, but
he overcame them with a smile.  He liked fun and play just as much as
any other fellow, but he felt that he ought not to take his
employers' time for these things, and he felt that owing to the
circumstances in his own home, it was up to him to make good.

In 1889, while he was still a young man--twenty-six years of age--he
accepted the position of editor of the _Ladies' Home Journal_ and
moved to Philadelphia.  When he took over this magazine it had a
circulation of over 400,000, and so was already very well known.
Under his able editorship it became one of the most influential
magazines in America--and for that matter in the world.  Edward Bok
remained as editor for thirty years, and, under his direction, and
largely owing to his great skill and hard work, the circulation grew
until, when he resigned in 1919, the circulation was over _two
million_.

Edward Bok was sitting one evening chatting with Theodore Roosevelt,
who was at that time President of the United States.  The President
said, "Bok, I envy you your power with the public."

Edward Bok replied, "That is a strange remark from a President of the
United States."

"You may think so," Roosevelt said, "but what you write is read by
thousands when their day's work is over, and the mind is at rest.
You have it on me: I envy you your power with the public."  This
illustrates, at least, what a tremendous influence the little Dutch
boy had become in the nation, and in the world.

As editor of the _Ladies' Home Journal_, Edward Bok did a great many
things which helped to make him one of the most prominent and useful
citizens of the United States.  He gave prizes to those who succeeded
in securing new subscribers.  Remembering his own lack of opportunity
to secure an education, he hit upon the simple plan of giving free
scholarships as premiums to the most successful canvassers.  This
plan grew so that nearly all the leading colleges were included, and
by 1919 no less than one thousand four hundred and fifty-three free
scholarships had been awarded.  By this plan it was made possible for
many to obtain an education who later filled conspicuous places in
the business and professional world.

Edward Bok was twice asked to become American Ambassador to Holland,
the land of his birth.  It would certainly have seemed a wonderful
thing if he could have returned in such a high position to the land
he left as a poor boy, but he did not see his way clear to accept the
post.  He enjoyed the confidence and close friendship of such men as
President Cleveland and President Roosevelt.  In fact there was
hardly an outstanding man in the United States with whom Edward Bok
did not come into contact.

In 1918, he was invited by the British Government to join a party of
thirteen American editors who were to visit Great Britain and France.
On this trip he met many of the most distinguished military men and
statesmen of the Allied nations.  His visit to the battlefields made
a great impression upon him and he was deeply moved at the courage of
the Allied soldiers.

Edward Bok resigned from the editorship of the _Ladies' Home Journal_
in 1919.  He has since turned his attention to many things, for which
his previously busy life left little room.  He has been the recipient
of many degrees from the great American Universities, and today, he
who came to America's shores unable to speak one word of English, is
recognized as a citizen of whom America may well be proud.




CHAPTER IV.

A DEAF BOY WHO BECAME A GREAT BIBLE SCHOLAR.

John Kitto was born at Plymouth, in the south of England, on December
4, 1804.  His father, who was by trade a stone-mason, was a man of
intemperate habits, and as a result there was constant poverty in the
Kitto home.  John never went to school for more than a few days in
his life.  At ten years of age he began to help his father and often
had to stagger along under very heavy loads, or climb ladders
carrying slates for the roof.  For two years the boy did almost a
man's work, and then, one day as he was ascending a ladder carrying a
heavy load of slates, he missed his footing and fell a distance of
thirty-five feet.  A group of terrified workmen gathered around him
and he was carried, limp and bleeding, to his humble home.

For two weeks he seemed more dead than alive.  Then one day he awoke
and tried to get up.  He did not understand his inability to rise.
When his mother came he asked for a book which, in spite of his lack
of schooling, he had learned to read.  His mother answered his
inquiry by writing upon a slate.  Then it was that the sad truth
slowly dawned upon John Kitto that, as a result of his terrible
accident, his sense of hearing had been totally destroyed.  Several
remedies were tried, but they were of no avail.  The injury to the
nerve of the ear was such that he could not hear any one speak, in
fact he could not hear even the loudest music.  Thus John Kitto, not
yet thirteen years of age, found himself shut up into a world of his
own in which his chief companions were books.

He was unable to help his father any longer and tried to make a
little money by painting signs, such as, "Lodgings to Let".  This,
however, did not prove to be much of a source of income, and so his
parents sent him to Plymouth workhouse, where he was taught the trade
of shoemaking.  When fifteen years of age he was apprenticed to a man
named Bowden.  This man treated the deaf boy with much cruelty.  John
was compelled to work hard from six o'clock in the morning until ten
o'clock at night, thus working for sixteen hours each day.  Even then
the boy's great love for reading showed itself, for weary though he
was, he spent some of the time allowed him for sleep, in poring over
books.  At length the cruelty of his employer became more than he
could bear, so he complained to the authorities.  He was released
from his contract and taken back to the workhouse.  There he remained
for another four years, reading very eagerly the few books which were
obtainable.  The poor boy was practically denied companionship with
other young people, not only because he was deaf, but also because,
not being able to hear other people speak, he largely lost the art of
speech himself.  This difficulty increased as the years went by,
until people who were strangers could only make out what he said with
great difficulty.

His studious habits soon began to attract attention.  He wrote some
articles to the _Plymouth Journal_ which were read with much
interest.  A public subscription was taken up for him in the town and
he was sent to a school, that he might learn to become a printer for
a missionary society.

Just about this time he came into contact with a Mr. Groves, a
dentist of Exeter, who was greatly attracted to the deaf boy.  He was
engaged as a tutor of Mr. Groves' sons; and also several other pupils
were secured for him.  By this time he had become much interested in
learning languages, and had mastered several, including Hebrew.  Then
something happened which changed everything for John Kitto.  He was
taken by Mr. Groves on a trip abroad, which included long sojourns in
Russia, Persia, the Caucasian Provinces, and other places in the
East.  Four years were spent abroad, and they were great years for
John Kitto.  Probably the extent of his misfortune had sharpened his
other faculties; at all events his observation was unusually keen and
nothing escaped him.  He returned to England in 1833 and wrote a
series of very interesting articles for the _Penny Magazine_, signed,
"The Deaf Traveller".  His sojourn abroad had given him an insight
into Eastern life and customs.  On his return to England he decided
to publish some books which would make the life of Palestine more
vivid and thus increase interest in the Bible.  Accordingly he
published "The Pictorial Bible", in three large volumes.  At that
time very few books had been written with such a purpose and they
were eagerly read by Bible students.  Several years later--in
1845--he published his greatest work, and one which has entitled him
to a foremost place among Bible commentators: "The Cyclopædia of
Biblical Literature".  This extensive work reveals an amazing amount
of painstaking research.  For a great many years it was regarded as
indispensable for those who wished to closely study the Scriptures.
While it is not nearly so well known now it is certain that most of
the valuable material it contains has been made use of by later
writers who have worked along similar lines.  In addition to the
foregoing books John Kitto wrote a large number of others, and also
many magazine articles.  Gradually his reputation spread and he
became recognized as one of the great Bible scholars of his day.

He was a man of very regular habits and almost every waking moment
was spent at his work of reading and writing.  He rose as early as
four o'clock in the morning, did a little gardening, then worked in
his study nearly all day long.  Several people visited him and tried
to carry on some kind of a conversation, but seldom with much
success.  At first the method of talking by finger signs was tried,
but few could understand it.  Later he tried to hold some kind of
intercourse by writing everything down; but this was so painfully
slow that it was given up.  Thus it came about that even those who
wanted to help him, realized that their visits were a strain upon him
and that he seemed happier when left alone.

There was one family, however, where there were several children, all
of whom loved him very much.  Each one of them learned to use finger
signs and were never so proud as when they would carry on some sort
of conversation with the great scholar.  He was deeply touched by the
friendship of these children, and although he could not hear them as
they practised on the piano, he could feel the vibration by placing
his fingers on the soundingboard and in that way marked their
progress in music.

John Kitto married and had children of his own, whom he loved dearly,
although he never heard them speak.  In spite of the great value of
his books his income was never very large at any time.  In 1850 he
was granted a civic pension of five hundred pounds a year.  In those
days that was considered a good income and no doubt it did much to
lift the burden of anxiety from his mind.  There certainly was no
mistaking the high regard which was felt for him everywhere.
Although a layman he was granted the degree of Doctor of Divinity by
the University of Giessen in 1845.  He was also made a Fellow of the
Society of Antiquaries the same year.

In 1851 his health began to fail and some time later he went to
Germany to try the mineral waters there.  He did not obtain the
desired benefit, however, and he died at Cannstadt in 1854, having
reached the age of fifty.  His passing was greatly mourned in
England, for the boy from Plymouth workhouse, living for nearly forty
years under a terrible handicap, had found a place of very great
usefulness in the world.




CHAPTER V.

THE SLAVE BOY WHO BECAME A GREAT LEADER.

Some time about the year 1858 or 1859 a negro child was born in a log
cabin in Virginia, U.S.A.  The parents of the child were slaves, and
utterly without education.  When the child grew to be a man he could
never find out the exact date, or even the year of his birth.  The
first things he remembered were the scenes around the squalid, little
log cabin, where his earliest years were spent.  The cabin itself was
sixteen feet by fourteen.  It not only had to serve as the sole home
for the family, but was used as the kitchen for the plantation.
There were no windows in it, only openings in the side which let in
the light.  The same openings, of course, let in the chilly air in
winter.  A broken-down door hung on uncertain hinges.  In one corner
of the miserable cabin there was a "cat hole"--a hole about seven or
eight inches square--to enable the family cat to pass in or out.  As
there were half a dozen other holes in the cabin walls, this
contrivance seemed unnecessary.  There was no wooden floor to the
cabin, the bare earth being considered all that was necessary.  In
the centre of the floor there was a large, deep hole which was used
to store sweet potatoes during the winter.  There was no stove in the
cabin, all the cooking being done over an open fireplace.

The little negro boy--whose name was Booker Taliaferro
Washington--never knew what it was to sleep in a bed.  With his
brother, John, and his sister, Amanda, he slept on a bundle of filthy
rags on the dirty floor.  The poor mother, who acted as cook to the
slaves on the plantation, had little or no time to give to the
training of her children, so they just grew up, and early learned to
do hard work.

The family never sat down around the table together for a meal, nor
was God's blessing ever asked upon the food.  Like most other slaves
at that time, they hardly ate like civilized beings.  The children
got their meals very much like dumb animals.  It was a piece of bread
here, and a scrap of meat there, and perhaps a potato in another
place.  Sometimes one member of the family would eat out of a pot, or
skillet, while another would be eating from a tin plate on his knees,
often using nothing but the hands to hold the food.  One day, when
young Booker was over at the slave-owner's house, he saw two of the
young ladies eating gingerbread.  It seemed to him, at that time,
that the most tempting thing in the world was a piece of gingerbread,
and he made a solemn vow that if ever he could afford to buy some
gingerbread he would do so.

Young Booker had little time for play, in fact he hardly understood
what the word meant.  He cleaned the yard, carried water to the
slaves in the field, and once a week took corn to the mill.  This
last job was heartbreaking.  A heavy bag of corn would be thrown over
the back of a horse, but as the horse jogged along the uneven road,
often the bag would fall off, and probably young Booker would fall
with it.  He was not strong enough to get it back upon the horse, and
so he would have to wait, maybe for several hours, for a chance
passer-by to help him.  These hours of waiting would often bring
bitter tears, for he knew he would be late in reaching home.  It was
a lonely, dark road, and he was much afraid, and besides, when he did
get home, he generally received a severe flogging for being so late.

When Booker was about eight years of age the slaves were liberated,
and he, with his mother and brother and sister, set out for West
Virginia, where his stepfather worked in the salt mines.  The family
packed up their few belongings, and, with very little money, set out
on the long and tedious journey of several hundred miles.  The
children walked most of the way, until their feet were sore and
blistered.  It took them several weeks to make the journey, and they
slept, either in the open or in some abandoned cabin by the roadside.

Although he was only a child, Booker was put to work in the salt
mines as soon as they reached Maiden, where his stepfather lived.
There was no play for him, nothing but hard work.  Sometimes he had
to rise at four o'clock in the morning, and work until he was nearly
dropping from sheer exhaustion.

Once when he was a little fellow, he had taken some books to the
school house for his young mistress.  He looked in and saw several
dozen white boys and girls learning to read and write, and it seemed
a wonderful thing to him.  He thought that getting into school must
be like getting into Paradise.  Once he got settled in Maiden a great
desire to learn to read came over him.  In some way a copy of
Webster's spelling book found its way to their cabin, and he eagerly
began to learn the alphabet.  At that time there was no single person
of his race whom he knew, who could spell, and he was afraid to ask
the white people.  But in some way he learned what the letters stood
for, and soon he began to spell out simple words.  His mother was
totally ignorant, but she encouraged him all she could.

About this time some kind of a school for coloured children was
opened in the town, and a young negro who had learned to read was put
in charge.  Booker's stepfather, however, decided that he could not
afford to lose the money that he was earning, and that he must
continue to work in the salt mines.  This was a most crushing blow to
the negro boy who was so anxious to learn.  However, he succeeded in
persuading the teacher to give him lessons at night, and he worked
hard, although he was often tired in body.  After a while he was
allowed to attend day school, on the understanding that he also did
his work in the mines.  So he worked in the mines from very early in
the morning until nine o'clock, when school opened, and again he
returned when school hours were over.

When he did get to school he found difficulties.  All the other boys
had "store" caps, of which they were very proud.  Booker had none,
nor had his mother any money wherewith to buy one, but she sewed two
pieces of cloth together, which answered for a "cap".  The other boys
made great fun of his homemade cap, but he knew it was the best that
his mother could do, so he tried to ignore their ridicule.  Young
Booker had heaps of trouble, and difficulties at every turn, but
there never was a time in all those hard years when he did not have
the determination to secure an education.

One day, while he was working in the mine, young Booker overheard two
men talking about an advanced school for coloured boys at some
distance away.  In the darkness he crept closer, and he heard one of
the men say that opportunities for work were provided, so that worthy
pupils could pay part of their board, and at the same time be taught
some trade.  That was a turning point in his life.  He determined
there and then to get to that school.  Once he had formed that
resolution, the idea never left him day or night.

By means of very hard work he managed to save enough money to start
him on the road to the school, which was known as Hampton Normal and
Agricultural Institute.  After many hardships and bitter experiences,
he arrived there, but when he presented himself before the head
teacher she hesitated about taking him in.  He was tired after the
long, weary journey, and his clothes were worn threadbare.  He looked
like a worthless tramp.  After some hesitation the teacher gave him a
broom, and told him to sweep a room.

Did he sweep that room clean?  He never tackled anything with so much
delight.  He swept it, then dusted it four times.  He rubbed every
piece of furniture in that room until it shone.  He felt that his
future depended upon the way he cleaned that room.  When he had
finished the head teacher came and examined his work.  She couldn't
find a particle of dust anywhere.  "I guess you will do to enter this
institution," she said.

He spent three years at Hampton.  They were hard years in many ways,
for he had little money, and besides, he had to learn everything,
almost from the beginning.  But he was sheer grit, and things which
would have discouraged others only made him more determined.  He soon
gained a grasp of his studies, and, by very hard grinding, worked his
way to the front in his classes.  After his course was completed he
was made a teacher in the institution, and put in charge of a group
of Indians, with whom he did remarkably well.

Then a great opportunity opened up for him.  A normal school for
coloured people was to be opened in Tuskegee, Alabama.  A great many
schools for coloured children had been opened since the abolition of
slavery, but most of the teachers themselves were not educated, and
this normal school was instituted for their benefit.  Booker T.
Washington was asked if he would take charge of it, and he gladly did
so.  He began his work in a disused shanty with about thirty pupils,
practically all of whom had been trying to teach school.

Soon the shanty became too small for those who came, and Booker
Washington saw a large, old disused plantation house, which he
decided to purchase and use as a school.  He succeeded in raising the
necessary five hundred dollars, and soon the whole school moved into
the larger premises.

Under his leadership the school grew by leaps and bounds.  The
coloured people were so thankful for the institution that they
brought live cattle, as they could afford it, and these animals were
used to maintain the institution, and as a means to train the negroes
for farming.  Very soon the school owned two hundred horses, colts,
mules, oxen, calves, and over seven hundred pigs, sheep and goats.
It became necessary to add to the buildings, and soon the work of
Tuskegee Institute became known the whole world over.  After a few
years the school which Booker Washington began in an old shanty, had
grown to be an institution with eleven hundred pupils and a staff of
eighty-six officers and teachers.

Booker T. Washington--now known everywhere as Professor
Washington--became one of the greatest orators in the United States.
Often he made speeches before tremendous audiences, and always
succeeded in raising the white man's idea of the coloured people.  He
became a close personal friend of Grover Cleveland, at that time
President of the United States, and several times he was invited to
the White House, to be guest of the President.  Later, he visited
England, and was welcomed by Queen Victoria, and many of the most
distinguished people of Great Britain.  He received the honourary
degree of Master of Arts from Harvard University, and it is safe to
say that the little negro boy, who began life under such great
handicaps, became one of the most highly respected of the world's
citizens.




CHAPTER VI.

THE IMMIGRANT LAD WHO BECAME A KING OF INDUSTRY.

In November, 1837--the year in which Queen Victoria ascended the
throne--Andrew Carnegie was born in Dunfermline, Scotland.  His
father was a weaver, and before the invention of the steam loom, made
a comfortable, if modest, living.  Andrew's mother early impressed
upon him that economy was a virtue, a lesson which he never forgot in
later days.  On one occasion Mrs. Carnegie asked her children to
repeat a proverb from the Bible.  When it came to Andrew's turn, he
stood up and said, "Take care of the pence and the pounds will take
care of themselves".  While Andrew was mistaken in thinking this was
in the Bible, it shows how deeply it had been fixed in his mind.

One day Andrew's father came home very dejected.  "Andy," he said, "I
have no more work."  Up till that time all weaving had been done on
hand looms, and the introduction of the steam looms threw hundreds of
men out of work.  Andrew never forgot how bitter and harsh his
father's words sounded.  "No more work!"  That meant no more money,
and poverty stared them in the face.

Andrew's father could not obtain work in the town.  Hundreds of
others, like himself, were thrown out of work.  It was no use moving
to another town for conditions were the same everywhere.  After some
anxious days of planning together, the family decided that the only
thing to do was to follow the example of some relations and move to
the United States.

The Carnegies sold their hand looms and household belongings, and got
ready for their long voyage.  There were only two children, Andrew
and his younger brother, Tom.  Those were the days of sailing
vessels, and crossing the Atlantic meant a rough voyage of many weary
weeks and, after that, long and tiresome railway journeys.  Andrew
was only eleven at this time.

The family reached Pittsburgh safely and Mr. Carnegie obtained work
at a cotton factory.  Soon after this Andrew got a position as a
bobbin boy, at _one dollar and twenty cents a week_.  He was
delighted to be actually earning money.  At the end of the first
week, when his wages were put into his hand, he felt as happy as a
king.  One dollar and twenty cents, earned by his own efforts; how
proud he felt!

The work was hard and the hours of labour very long.  He worked from
early morning till late at night, with only an interval of forty
minutes for dinner.  After a time he got another situation which was,
if anything, even harder.  This work was to fire the boiler and run
the steam-engine which drove the machinery of a small factory.  The
work was so hard that it soon began to tell upon his health.  Night
and day he was haunted by the possibility of a calamity, and in his
sleep he would often put out his hand to test the water-gauge.

Those were dark days for the young Scotch boy, but he determined not
to bring his troubles into the home.  He was blessed with a keen
spirit of determination to succeed and, no matter how hard he found
his work, he never complained.  There was poverty in the home, but it
was honest poverty and he was not ashamed of it.  He often had to
deny himself pleasures which other boys could afford, and had to wear
his clothes long after they had become shabby; but nobody ever heard
him grumble or complain.

When he became fourteen Andrew got a position as a telegraph boy at
_three dollars a week_.  There was not a prouder boy in Pittsburgh.
Besides the advance in wages, the work was healthier.  He was so
overjoyed with his position that soon he began to fear lest he should
lose it.  He was not acquainted with the business section of the city
where he had to deliver most of his messages, but he overcame this by
using his excellent memory.  He committed to memory the exact
location of all the business houses in the principal streets, so that
when a telegram was handed to him, he knew at once where it had to be
delivered.

His regular habits and attention to his work soon attracted the
attention of those over him and at the age of sixteen he was promoted
to the position of telegraph operator, at a salary of three hundred
dollars a year.  This advance came at the right time, for Andrew's
father had just died and the burden of carrying on the home fell upon
Andrew's shoulders.  Soon after this he accepted a position with the
Pittsburgh Division of the Pennsylvania Railroad, at an increase of
ten dollars a month.

At this time something happened which did much to change his whole
life.  Through the interest of his superintendent it became possible
for him to purchase ten shares in The Adams Express Company for five
hundred dollars.  Andrew's business instinct led him to see that it
was a splendid opportunity, and his mother was just as anxious as he
was to make the venture.  After a consultation they decided to
mortgage their little home and buy the shares.  This little
transaction was destined to be the forerunner of many successful
business deals.

One day, while he was travelling on the railway, a man showed him the
model of a sleeping-car.  Such things were at that time unknown, but
Andrew saw instantly that the invention was a good one, and made
arrangements for the inventor to meet the superintendent of the
railroad.  The outcome was that a company was formed to build
sleeping-cars, and Andrew Carnegie was one of the number.  Soon after
this he was made superintendent of the Pittsburgh division of the
Pennsylvania Railroad.

Not long after he was promoted to this position the company began to
make experiments with an iron bridge.  Up to this time all bridges
had been built of wood.  The experiments with iron proved successful.
There had been so much delay on the railways by the bridges being
broken or burned that the cast-iron bridges were welcomed.  Mr.
Carnegie, with his keen business instinct, saw at once that iron
bridges must displace the wooden ones.  He formed a syndicate known
as The Keystone Bridge Works, and his first undertaking was to build
a bridge with a span of three hundred feet over the Ohio River.  Thus
began the work of iron and steel constructions which Mr. Carnegie
followed up until he became known throughout the world as the "Steel
King."

Before many years had passed Mr. Carnegie not only owned his own
immense iron and steel works, but also a fleet of steamers which were
used to transport the iron ore across the Great Lakes.  He built his
own railroad to convey the ore from the lake ports to Pittsburgh, a
distance of 425 miles.

In 1900 The Carnegie Steel Company was organized with a capital of
one hundred million dollars.  The enormous concern gave employment to
45,000 people.  One of the plants alone covers an area of
seventy-five acres.  It is no exaggeration to say that it is by far
the greatest manufacturing concern of its kind in the world.  When
Mr. Carnegie decided to retire he sold out his interest in the steel
works for two hundred and fifty million dollars.  It was said at that
time that he could give away thirty-five thousand dollars a day and
never touch his capital.  For many years he gave large sums of money
for public libraries and other enterprises which seemed to him to be
deserving of assistance.

Having worked his own way in the world, from a very humble beginning
to a position of great power and influence, Mr. Carnegie never had
much patience with lazy people.  He would never tolerate around him
what are known as "dead heads".  "Concentration," he said, "is my
motto.  First, honesty, then industry, then concentration."  He
expected every one in his employ to be anxious to do their best.

Throughout his life he was a man of good habits, and a non-smoker,
and attributed his vigor of mind and body to the fact that he avoided
anything which would undermine his health.  The careful religious
training which he received in his humble home in Scotland had a
lasting influence for good upon his life.  Clean living, honesty, and
devotion to his work, no matter how hard it was, made Andrew Carnegie
one of the foremost business men of his generation.




CHAPTER VII.

A SHOEMAKER'S APPRENTICE WHO BECAME A GREAT SCHOLAR.

On the last day of November, 1852, a lad was born near the village of
Llangernyw, in Denbigshire, Wales.  The proud father, who was the
village shoemaker, took the baby to church that same day, and there
he was baptized--Henry Jones.

Young Henry's parents were poor, and his grandparents were if
anything, poorer.  His grandfather worked on the estate of the local
squire, and as he grew older his wages were repeatedly reduced, until
he was receiving only four shillings a week.  But even this was not
the worst, for he was offered two shillings and sixpence a week.
That seemed too much for the old man, and very soon after he died.

The house in which young Henry was born, was very small.  It
consisted of one small room downstairs, about ten feet square, and
another room the same size upstairs.  This tiny downstairs room, was
almost always terribly overcrowded.  It had to serve as kitchen,
dining-room, and living-room all in one.  Seven persons had their
meals each day in that small room.  How to find a seat for every one
was a problem, but a way out of the difficulty was found by having
the children take their meals in relays.  Young Henry, being in a
great hurry to get out to play, often took his meals standing, or
sitting on the doorstep.

When Henry's little baby sister was born, they all wondered how room
could be found for the cradle in that already over-crowded room.  But
there was a way out.  The cradle was put upstairs, and a string let
down from it through a hole in the ceiling.  Whenever the baby cried,
the mother bade one of the children pull the string, which rocked the
cradle.  Many a time Henry's play was interrupted so that he might
spend a time pulling that old string.

There was a constant struggle against poverty in that home, for Elias
Jones--Henry's father--never earned more than twenty shillings a
week, and generally quite a bit less.  The food was plain, but
wholesome, consisting for the most part of bread and milk and "shot",
that is, ground oat-cake and milk.  There were no dull moments in
that home.  It was crowded and restless all day long.  Either the
mother was cooking or the father was heating his irons in the fire,
or some of the children were clamouring for bread and butter, or
perhaps a neighbour had dropped in to see if his shoes were ready and
then lingered for a chat.  In spite of poverty, which sometimes was
severe, it was a happy home, for each one sought to help the others.

Henry did not enjoy attending the village school, in fact none of the
children in that village did.  The schoolmaster was very cruel and
ignorant.  The cane was very seldom out of his hands.  Any fault or
error was punished very severely.  If a child whispered and the
master was not sure which one it was, he thrashed the entire school.
In fact, there was wailing and lamentation in that school the whole
day long, and small wonder that when four o'clock came each day, the
scholars breathed more freely.

When the school holidays came around, each year in June, the boys
were sent out in gangs to thin the turnips for the neighbouring
farmers.  The whole of the five weeks of summer holidays were spent
at this work.  The boys were paid from eight-pence to one shilling a
day, fourpence being deducted if the farmer provided meals.  Young
Henry Jones went with his brothers to do this hard work when he was
only five and a half years old.  When evening came he was often too
exhausted to walk, and had to be carried home by the bigger boys.
From that time until he was taken to work as a shoemaker, Henry
helped to thin turnips each year.

While still a very young boy Henry began to help his father make and
repair shoes.  It was the greatest ambition of his life to become a
good shoemaker.  One day an incident happened which made him very
proud.  Toe-caps for boots were just coming into fashion, and they
had to be carefully stitched.  When it came to putting on the caps,
Elias Jones was not sure of himself, so he went over to the school
and asked permission for Henry to return home and do the sewing.

When twelve years of age Henry left school to become a shoemaker's
apprentice with his father.  It was a happy moment in his life when
he put on the leather apron.  His mother wanted him to be a
blacksmith, or a gardener like his brothers, or a grocer, anything in
fact, other than a shoemaker, but Henry stubbornly refused to listen.
His mind was made up.  He wanted to be a shoemaker like his father.
The little workshop in which Henry and his father worked, was a
little lean-to at the gable-end of the cottage.  Out of the window
Henry could see a barn and an old thatched cottage.  The room was so
small that those working had to get into opposite corners so as not
to interfere with each other's movements.  Sometimes there was a
hired workman, and even a fourth place was often made for the local
postman, who worked at making and repairing ladies' boots between his
arrival with the letters and his departure.  Henry used to think that
there was so little room for privacy that it was impossible to keep
even one's thoughts to oneself.

Henry soon became a good shoemaker.  The work was hard, and the hours
very long, but he liked it, and there was not a lazy bone in his
body.  Just at this time something happened which had a great
influence over Henry's life.  A lad named Tom Redfern, about his own
age, came to Llangernyw to take charge of the school; a friendship
sprung up between the two, and soon Tom Redfern told Henry of his
ambition to attend the university.  Soon that same ambition came to
Henry, although it seemed madness for him even to think about such a
thing, as his parents were so poor, and his own education had been
sadly neglected.

For some time Henry was most unhappy.  It seemed to him as if there
were no way whereby his ambition could be realized.  But his purpose
became more resolute, and he made up his mind that if at all possible
he would reach his goal.  At last arrangements were made enabling
Henry to attend a school at a place called Pandy, some distance away,
three days each week.  Henry got out his old schoolbooks and began to
attend Pandy School every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.  The
remaining three days he worked away at his trade harder than ever.
There was an examination known as the Queen's Scholarship held each
year, and successful students earned the right to attend Bangor
Training College for teachers.  Henry determined to try for this,
although it did seem an almost impossible task.  He retired to rest
about eight o'clock each evening, and at one o'clock in the morning
the village policeman tapped at his window.  Then he got up and
dressed and worked away at his books until morning came.  There was
so much to be learned that at times he almost despaired, but he never
gave up.

At last the time came for him to try the examination.  He went to
Bangor in fear and trembling.  One of his brothers had loaned him a
suit of clothes, and another brother loaned him a watch.  He stayed
at the college during the days of the examination.  There were quite
a number of competitors, and only a few could succeed.  Henry was
appalled by the look of cleverness and by the smart appearance of
most of the students.  He felt he had made a horrible mistake in even
giving in his name.  When he was alone he wept like a child and felt
he had no chance whatever.  Although he was terribly nervous and
covered with confusion he did his best, and when the examination
results were published, a few weeks later, his name appeared among
those who had passed in the first class.

He entered the training college at Bangor and studied hard for two
years.  He had to be extremely careful, as he had very little money.
Throughout those two years he maintained his place at the head of the
college list, and then in 1873--when he was just nineteen, he was put
in charge of a school at Brynamman, a mining village in Wales.  He
remained there for two years, greatly beloved by the pupils in the
school, and by the people of the village.  Then in 1875 he passed the
examinations for entrance into Glasgow University.

The years Henry Jones spent at Glasgow University were packed full of
interest for him.  There was much hard work for him, and there was a
constant struggle with poverty.  His parents were not in a position
to help him, and sometimes it almost seemed as though he must give
up, but somehow a way always opened, and he was able to continue his
studies.  At the close of his term he sat for an examination, known
as the "Clark Fellowship."  This was the "blue ribbon," of the
University, and, of course, was the most coveted honour among the
students.  He had no intention of trying for it, but one of the
professors, who was interested in him, persuaded him to sit for the
examination.  He did, and to his amazement, he was awarded the prize,
although all the cleverest students of the University, who were
eligible, had also tried.  In addition to the great distinction the
fellowship carried with it a grant of £225 (about $1,100) a year for
four years.  And then, for the first time in his life, Henry Jones
knew what it was to have money to pay his way and a little left over.

A great day came for him, when in 1884 he was elected to a
professorship in Bangor College, Wales.  He remained there for
several years, and then was made a professor in the University of St.
Andrews, in Scotland.  After three years there--years of hard work,
but of great power and wide influence, he was elected to a very
important position; that of Professor of Moral Philosophy in Glasgow
University.  This was one of the great positions in the universities
of Great Britain.  It was one which only a great scholar could fill
and Henry Jones did fill it with credit to himself and with very
great profit to the students, for a period of twenty-eight years.

From being a shoemaker's apprentice, Henry Jones rose to a position
of great power and influence.  It was not by any means an easy road.
There was a terrific struggle with poverty, and at times it seemed as
though it would be too much for him.  But his tremendous perseverence
and grit carried him along, and he succeeded to an extent that he had
never dared even to dream of.  During the Great War he delivered
scores of lectures throughout Great Britain and in the United States.
His three sons were on the firing line, and the youngest of them was
killed in France.  Henry Jones died in 1922, and left behind him the
memory of a brave and noble life.




CHAPTER VIII.

FROM GIPSY TENT TO PULPIT.

In March, 1860, a family of gipsies camped on a piece of land near
Epping Forest, in the south of England.  They were shiftless people
moving here and there over the country according to their whims.
They were not made welcome anywhere, for gipsies have a reputation
for dishonesty, and probably this family named Smith were very much
the same as other members of their tribe.  But one day during their
stay in that place--to be exact it was March 31st--a baby boy was
born in that gipsy tent, to whom his parents gave the name of Rodney.

Rodney's parents earned their living very much as other gipsies.
They travelled up and down the country making and selling baskets,
tinware, clothespegs, and recaning cane chairs.  Rodney's
father--whose name was Cornelius, also made a business of buying and
selling horses.  Of course, young Rodney grew up without education.
He travelled with his parents and soon learned to go from house to
house selling clothespegs and other things.  He was a bright lad and
together with his brothers and sisters, soon knew more about the
flowers and birds than most folks.  His parents could neither read or
write and so he was not burdened with any kind of lessons.  He was
too young to understand the value of education and so did not worry
over that.  He was a happy, care-free little fellow, when something
happened which changed his whole life.

Rodney's eldest sister was taken ill and the father drove the gipsy
wagon to the door of the doctor's house.  The doctor climbed the
steps of the wagon, leaned over the door and called the sick child to
him.  "Your daughter has small-pox," he said to Rodney's father.
"You must get out of the town at once."  The sorrow-stricken man
drove his wagon about two miles out of the town to a place called
Morton Lane.  There he erected a tent and then drove the wagon
farther down the lane with the sick child in it.  He remained in the
wagon with the child while the mother and the other four children
lived in the tent.  Soon one of the boys was taken ill and he also
was removed to the wagon.  Those were hard days for Rodney's mother.
She would prepare the food for her sick children, then carry it
half-way from the tent to the wagon, then give some signal and the
father would come for it.  In her anxiety the poor mother seemed to
approach a little nearer to the wagon each day.  One day she came too
near.  She too, was taken ill, and when the doctor saw her, he said
it was smallpox.

For several days the man watched tenderly over his wife and cared for
her, but it was of no avail; she gradually sank.  Rodney was walking
in the lane with his sister Tilly, when his eldest sister called him.
"Rodney," she said, "mother's dead."  The little gipsy lad fell on
his face as though he had been shot.  Rodney's mother was only a poor
gipsy woman without any education, but she was mother, and the little
fellow knew that without her life would be much harder.

After his mother's death Rodney continued to help his father by
selling the homemade clothespegs and tinware.  He was very proud of
the amount of business he could do.  Some days he sold nearly nine
hundred pegs.  He was a bright-eyed little fellow, not at all
bashful, and he became a favourite in the towns which the gipsies
visited.  When women did not wish to buy or seemed to hesitate, he
would say: "Come, now, Madam, here you have the best pegs on the
market.  They will not eat and will not wear clothes out.  They will
not cry nor wake you up in the middle of the night."  If they still
hesitated, Rodney would tell them that he had no mother.  It was no
wonder that with his humour and determination he generally managed to
do a good business.

When Rodney was in his early teens his father became a Christian.  It
made a great change for the better in Cornelius Smith and life in
that gipsy wagon became happier.  The father was tremendously in
earnest.  He gave up his habits of drinking, stealing and swearing,
and wherever the wagon went he sought some place of worship where he
and his family might learn more about God.  The change in Cornelius
Smith soon impressed the children and Rodney decided to do as his
father had done, and committed himself in simple trust to God.

Although he was at this time about fifteen, Rodney Smith could
neither read or write.  He had never been to school a day in his
life.  When he opened the Bible to try and read it, he often had it
the wrong way up.  As he passed along the streets of towns where the
wagon was he tried to read the signs over the shops, but it was hard
work, and unless they were very simple words he could not make them
out.  By trying in every spare moment, however, he soon learned to
read; slowly at first, but gradually getting on better each day.  He
bought a dictionary, and it was in constant use.  Whenever he came to
a word he did not understand, down came the dictionary.  He had a
good memory, and once he looked up the meaning of a word he seldom
forgot it.  He read the Bible a great deal and soon he began to hope
that some day he might be able to preach.  He knew that for ten years
he had been roaming about the fields and streets, when he ought to
have been at school, but that was not his fault, and he resolved to
try and make up for lost time.  He was a good singer and he often
sang at religious meetings in the towns and villages they visited.
Then he became bold enough to deliver short addresses.  As he had
very little education, and had scarcely read anything, these
addresses were very simple, but he was in earnest and did much good.

Just at this time Rev. William Booth--later known as General
Booth--began a movement which was known as the Christian Mission.
Mr. Booth heard about Rodney Smith, and persuaded him to become a
worker with him, and Rodney agreed.  This was in 1877, when he was
seventeen years of age.

There was tremendous excitement in the gipsy wagon when Rodney stated
his intention of becoming a preacher.  Rodney strode up and down in
front of the wagon with his three or four books under his arm.  On
the morning of his departure Rodney dressed himself up in the new
clothes which he had bought with what little money he had.  All his
belongings he packed into a box which he had bought for sixty cents.
He bade good-bye to his father and his brothers and sisters, and then
this young gipsy lad, with very little education and scarcely any
money, took the train for London to engage in Christian work.  He
arrived in London that same evening and went to the people with whom
he was to live for the time being.  That evening Rodney sat up to a
table for a meal, and used a knife and fork, for the first time in
his life.  He was terribly embarrassed, and when a piece of linen was
placed beside his plate he did not know what to do with it.  He
thought it must be a pocket handkerchief and said so to his hosts.
He could see at once that he had made a mistake, and overwhelmed with
confusion he said: "Please forgive me, I do not know any better.  I
am only a gipsy boy, and have never been taught what these things
are.  I know I shall make lots of blunders, but if you correct me
whenever I make a mistake I will be grateful.  I will never be angry,
and never cross."

A serious difficulty confronted Rodney when he had to conduct his
first services alone.  He could speak, pray, and sing, but as yet he
could read only with difficulty.  However, he did his best.  He would
commence to read a chapter and if he came to big words that he could
not pronounce, he would stop and talk a little, then begin to read
again at the other side of the big word.  He soon became known as a
good speaker and an earnest worker.  The fact that he was a gipsy
attracted people's attention and before long he was speaking
regularly to large gatherings.

During the few years following Rodney made great progress.  He soon
learned to read with ease and his addresses were listened to with
great interest.  He rose early in the mornings and spent several
hours in reading and in devotions.  During the afternoons he visited
those in need, and in the evenings he addressed meetings both in the
open-air and in halls.  He was often sent to towns where the work of
the Christian Mission was at a very low ebb, but wherever he went it
was the same, his earnest preaching and sweet singing attracted the
people.

While he was stationed at Hull his congregations were greater than
ever.  Often fifteen hundred people would be gathered at the
Sunday-morning prayer meeting at seven a.m., and the crowds at the
regular services were so great that often thousands would be unable
to get into the large building.  Rodney was by this time married and
known as "Gipsy Smith", and the Christian Mission had become the
Salvation Army.  Under his care the work at Hull grew so that 15,000
copies of the _War Cry_ were sold each week.

From Hull Gipsy Smith was sent to Hanley.  Here he found a small
number of people worshipping in a large building which had been a
circus.  Soon the old circus which held 2,500 people was crowded to
the doors, and crowds as great, if not greater, than those which had
gathered at Hull, came to hear the gipsy.  There was a great revival
of religion and the influence of it was felt for many miles around.

Soon after this Gipsy Smith began work as an evangelist among the
churches, and he has continued to do this with great success up to
the present time.  In 1886, at the earnest request of some friends,
he paid his first visit to America.  When he arrived in New York he
was scarcely known to any and the idea of a gipsy preacher rather
startled the ministers and members of the churches.  After some
hesitation the minister of a large church agreed to have Gipsy Smith
conduct a mission in his church.  It was a large building, holding
fifteen hundred people, but it was packed from the first service, and
continued so for the three weeks that the gipsy was there.  Soon more
requests came in for services than the Gipsy could grant.  The
newspapers contained glowing accounts of his work, and from all sides
came testimonies to the great good that he had done.  Thousands of
people were blessed under his earnest preaching, and when the time
came for him to return to England a vast number of people wished him
god-speed.

People who heard Gipsy Smith preach could scarcely believe that he
had been born in a gipsy tent and had never spent a day in school.
His use of the English language was so good, and his thoughts so fine
and clear, that it seemed as if he must have received his training in
a university.  But he never forgot, himself, nor did he wish any one
else to forget, what a very lowly beginning he had.

After his return to England Gipsy Smith became an assistant to the
Rev. F. S. Collier, of Manchester.  Here he continued to be a means
of blessing to great numbers of people.  Sometimes he preached to
congregations of over five thousand, and always with good results.
He soon became known as one of the greatest evangelists of Great
Britain and wielded a great influence for good.

Gipsy Smith has paid several visits to America, and each time he has
risen higher in the respect and love of the people.  Wherever he goes
crowds flock to hear him, and they are never disappointed.  Americans
have learned to look upon his visits as red-letter days for the
churches, and if he could be spared from the Homeland, he would be
warmly welcomed on this side of the Atlantic.

Gipsy Smith has preached in nearly all parts of the British Empire.
He has been, for many years now, one of the great evangelists of the
homeland.  Thousands of people have been made better by his simple,
direct message.  Many great men have recognized in him a prophet of
God, and they have been glad to honour him as such.  He has counted
among his friends some of the greatest men living, yet he has never
lost his simplicity and gratitude to God for making him what he is.
Not long ago he said: "I have had rich and strange experiences.  I
have lived in many houses, the guest of many sorts and conditions of
people.  I have been presented to two presidents of the United
States, dined with bishops and archbishops.  In my study hangs a
letter from her late Majesty, Queen Victoria, and another from a
royal duchess, but the most treasured things in my home are two
pictures which adorn the walls of my bedroom.  One is the picture of
the wagon in which my mother died, and the other is a picture of a
group of gipsies.  I never sleep in that room without looking at
these pictures and saying to myself: "Rodney, you would have been
there to-day but for the grace of God.  Glory be to His name for
ever."




CHAPTER IX.

A BLIND MAN WHO BECAME POSTMASTER-GENERAL OF ENGLAND.

On August 26th, 1833, just four years before Queen Victoria began to
reign, Henry Fawcett was born at Salisbury, England.  He was sent to
a Dame's school where he did not get on very well.  The teacher said
that he had a head like a colander, and he was so slow in learning
his lessons that he became known as the dunce of the class.  Young
Harry himself admitted that he did not enjoy school.  He loved to be
out in the open and in the woods, but he went like a snail,
unwillingly, to school.

There was one thing which never failed him and that was his appetite.
He was always complaining that he did not get enough to eat.  When
his family moved away from Salisbury Harry went to a boarding-school,
and in nearly every letter he wrote home he said he was nearly
starving.  In one letter to his mother he said: "Please, when the
family has quite finished with the ham bone, send it on to me."
However, in spite of his complaints, he grew stronger and bigger
every day, until by the time he was ten he was several inches taller
than his school mates of his own age.

When he was fourteen he was sent to a school known as Queenwood
College and he began to take more interest in his studies.  He worked
hard while at this school and when he was nineteen he entered the
famous Cambridge University.  Henry Fawcett was popular with the
other students from the first day that he entered Cambridge.  He was
very tall--over six feet three inches in height--and he moved around
the college halls and over the campus with enormous long strides.  He
had an exceedingly happy and good-natured disposition and was welcome
everywhere.

His greatest ambition in life was to fit himself for service as a
member of the British Parliament.  He desired to enter Parliament for
no other reason than that of serving his fellowmen.  There were so
many laws which seemed to him to be cruel and unjust; so many heavy
burdens weighing upon the shoulders of the poorer classes, that he
longed with all his heart to be in a position where he could help to
make things better.

In order to fit himself for Parliament he began to study law, but he
had considerable trouble with his eyes.  This was so serious that he
was forbidden to do any reading until they were better.  He did not
complain, but obeyed the physician's orders.  He went to stay with
his family at Salisbury.  It was during this visit that a terrible
thing happened.  On the morning of September 15, of 1858, he and his
father began to climb Harnham Hill, from which a very fine view of
the surrounding country could be obtained.  Both father and son had
their guns, for they hoped to secure some partridge.  As they were
crossing a field, Henry advanced in front of his father.  A partridge
arose and the father, who did not see just how near Henry was, fired,
and some of the stray shot entered Henry's eyes, and from that moment
until his death he was totally blind.

Henry Fawcett was just twenty-five when this terrible accident
happened.  He was taken back to his father's house in a cart.  He
remained perfectly calm as he listened to the doctor's verdict.  The
curtain had fallen and never again could he see the things which
other people saw, nor read the books and papers he so dearly loved.
But from that day until his death, twenty-six years later, no one
ever heard him complain nor give any outward sign of the terrible
disappointment which he must have felt.  He did not wish people to
openly sympathize with him, and the scores of letters which he
received from well-meaning people, intended to console him in his
misfortune, really gave him pain.  He wanted people to forget that he
was blind and treat him as one of themselves.

He straightway determined that he would continue to prepare himself
to serve the people in Parliament.  He knew that he was handicapped,
in such manner as perhaps no other statesman had ever been, still he
showed a courage and perseverance which was extraordinary.

Soon after his accident he began to walk about in the open.  He
naturally stumbled at his first step.  When some one caught him by
the arm to pick him up he said: "Leave me alone; I've got to learn to
walk without seeing and I mean to begin at once--only tell me when I
am going off the road."

All who knew Henry Fawcett at this time bear witness to his amazing
courage and cheerfulness.  If he had a heavy heart, he said nothing
of it to others.  Especially was this true in his relations with his
father and mother.  Whenever he was with them he was the life of the
home, full of mischief as a schoolboy, and with a hearty laugh that
made the house ring.  "I want to live to be ninety," he said, and he
meant it.  He was the soul of kindness and good nature.  No one ever
knew him to say a cruel or unkind thing, or to spread a report that
would injure any one.  Throughout his life he sought to promote
good-will and understanding and he was never happier than when he was
helping some one who was in difficulty.

He had a remarkable memory for voices--that is a faculty which often
becomes acute in blind people.  It was said of him that if he heard a
voice once he never forgot it.  Sometimes when spoken to by a person
whom he had not heard for many years, a puzzled look would cross his
face, but it would suddenly clear up as he called the person by name.
His sense of hearing became so keen that he could tell when his
friends were not feeling as well as usual from their voices.  Often
he would startle them by saying: "What's the matter with you to-day,
you're looking pale?"  A man who had not been near him for twenty
years once spoke to him and without a moment's hesitation Fawcett
called him by name.

Henry Fawcett made two unsuccessful attempts to enter Parliament.  He
was defeated in Cambridge in 1863 by only eighty-one votes and a few
months later he was defeated in Brighton.  Many people voted against
him because they thought that blindness was too severe a handicap for
any man to become really useful in that great assembly.  He himself
did not think so, however, and he made a third attempt in 1865--when
he was thirty-two years of age--and this time he was elected.

It was a proud day for Henry Fawcett when he entered Parliament.
After he became blind no one, not even those who loved him most,
believed that it was possible.  Only a determination that absolutely
refused to be thwarted, made his election possible.

Surrounded by many of the greatest statesmen of the nineteenth
century, the blind man quietly took his place in Parliament.  During
his first session there he said very little.  He had to learn the
ways of Parliament, which is a difficult task for any one, and made
much harder in his case.  He made his first speech in March, 1866.
Unlike most men he had no notes to help him.  He had to rely
altogether upon his fine memory.  His speech was listened to with
rapt attention.  The picture of this tall, sightless man with earnest
voice and manner, cast a spell over the House, and even those who
disagreed with him were deeply impressed by his fine appearance and
earnest manner.

In the years which followed Henry Fawcett made a great many speeches
in Parliament.  He was by no means a silent member.  In every good
cause which came up for discussion his voice was heard, and always on
the side of those who needed help.  Not only the struggling people of
the British Isles interested him, but for several years he fought
very hard on behalf of the poor people in far-off India.  He became
such a champion of the Indians that he was nicknamed, "The member for
India," and he received many letters expressing deep gratitude from
those people whom he could never hope to see.

He entered into a great many political battles, but there was one
thing which even his opponents admitted; that was he never sought
anything for himself.  He laboured hard to help those whose lot he
considered was less fortunate than his own.

In 1880 Henry Fawcett was made Postmaster-General of England, a
position of very great importance and responsibility.  There were
over ninety thousand employees under the administration of the
postoffice.

One bright spring day Henry Fawcett took up his duties at the General
Post Office.  He was introduced to the heads of the various
departments and to those next in rank.  As he began to warmly shake
the hands of all to whom he was being introduced, some one whispered
to him, "It is not usual for Her Majesty's Postmaster-General to
shake hands with any one in the office below the rank of head of a
department."  It took a good deal to make Henry Fawcett indignant,
but that remark pretty nearly did it.  He said, "I suppose I am at
liberty to make what use I like of my own hands."

He took a very great interest in all who in any way served the Post
Office.  From the first day that he took over his position he
laboured hard to improve working conditions.  He interested himself
in every employee and nothing ever seemed too much trouble to this
blind man of almost infinite patience and sympathy.  No doubt his
wonderful kindness meant that some took unfair advantage of him, but
he found his supreme happiness in realizing that never before in the
history of the great English Post-Office system had the work been
done so thoroughly and to the satisfaction of the public.  One of the
great statesmen of that day said that, "The Postoffice could never
have a more capable Postmaster-General, nor its officers a truer
friend."

In December, 1883, he was taken seriously ill with diphtheria, and
this was followed by typhoid fever.  For a while his life was
despaired of, and it illustrates what a large place in the life of
his country the blind man had filled, to know that all England read
the bulletins which told of his condition.  The Queen herself,
telegraphed every day, and sometimes oftener.

Mr. Fawcett recovered from this illness and was soon at work again as
hard as ever.  The following year he was honoured with degrees from
many great universities, including Oxford and Glasgow.  Then in
November, 1884, he was taken suddenly ill and quietly passed away in
the presence of his wife and daughter and several friends.  He who
had lived in total darkness for nearly thirty years; years in which
he was never once heard to murmur or complain, passed into the
eternal light of God's presence.

A whole nation mourned deeply when this man of such magnificent
courage was laid to rest in the quiet churchyard at Salisbury, where
he had been born.  Tributes to his memory were paid to him by the
greatest in the land.  Queen Victoria wrote a most touching letter to
his widow, and Hon. W. E. Gladstone said that no man had become more
deeply enshrined in the memory of his fellow-countrymen.  The
terrible handicap of blindness had not prevented Henry Fawcett from
becoming one of the greatest men of his generation.




CHAPTER X.

THE PLOUGHBOY WHO BECAME A FAMOUS NATURALIST.

One evening, in the town of Dunbar, Scotland, an excited lad hurried
through the streets shouting to his schoolmates: "I'm gaun tae
Amaraka the morn!"  When they refused to believe him he said,
"Weel--just you see if I am at skule the morn."

The lad was John Muir.  That evening, as he and his brother, David
sat by the fireside learning their lessons, his father walked in and
said, "Bairns, you needna learn your lessons the nicht, for we're
gaun to America the morn!"  The boys were wild with joy.  Even the
natural heart-pain of parting from their grandparents, whom they
deeply loved, was quickly quenched as they conjured up pictures of
the life they were to lead across the seas.  Mr. Muir decided to take
with him John, who was eleven years of age, David, a brother, aged
nine, Sarah, who was thirteen.  Mrs. Muir and four children remained
in Scotland until the new home was ready for them.

After a voyage of nearly seven weeks, in a sailing ship, the
immigrants arrived in America and very soon after settled on their
claim in Wisconsin.  With the help of some neighbours, Mr. Muir built
a shanty in less than a day, after the materials for the roof and
walls were ready.  From the first John Muir fell in love with his
surroundings.  To him the wilderness was a glorious place.  He
watched the birds and animals, the trees and the flowers, the streams
and lakes--everything around him filled him with delight.  It was a
backwoods farm, and the hard work of clearing the farm began at once.
John enjoyed piling up immense quantities of brushwood and making
huge fires.  Mr. Muir bought a yoke of oxen and the task of clearing
the land began in earnest.  The lads were up early and late, doing
their best to help their father get the place cleared and a frame
house built, so that the other members of the family, who had been
left behind in Scotland, could join them.  Late in the fall, just
before the winter snow began to fall, the house was ready, and Mrs.
Muir and the other four children arrived.

John was the eldest of the boys, and his father looked to him to do
almost a man's work.  The summer work was heavy, and especially
harvesting and corn-hoeing.  All the ground had to be hoed over the
first few years and John had scarcely a minute to rest.  They had no
proper farm implements to begin with, and the hoes had to be kept
moving up and down as if they were worked by machinery.  John took
great pride in the amount of work he was able to do, and very often
worked sixteen and seventeen hours a day.

In winter time John and his brothers arose early to feed the cattle,
grind axes, bring in the wood, and dozens of other jobs that needed
to be done.  No matter what the weather was, there was work to be
done.  It was pioneer farming, and it was only by long and hard
effort that it was possible to earn a livelihood.

John was put to work at the plough at twelve years of age, when his
head little more than reached the handles.  For many years the bulk
of the ploughing on that hard backwoods farm fell to his lot.  From
the first he determined to do as good ploughing as though he were a
man, and in this he did not fail.  None could draw a straighter
furrow.  The work was made especially hard because of the tree stumps
which were everywhere on the half-cleared land.

To John's lot also fell the task of splitting rails for the long
lines of zig-zag fences.  Making rails was hard work and required no
little skill.  Sometimes John would cut and split one hundred rails a
day from short, knotty, oak timbers, swinging the heavy mallet from
early morning to late at night, until his hands were sore.  He was
proud of the amount of work that he was able to do, but the heavy
exertions of those days probably prevented his growth and earned for
him the title of the "Runt of the Family."

After eight years of very hard work the farm was at last cleared.
John had worked as hard as any man, often rising at four o'clock in
the morning and toiling till late at night.  He made the rash vow
that he would do a man's work, and even when he was not well, he made
good his pledge.  Then, when at last the land was cleared, his father
bought a half section of wild land four or five miles away, and the
task of clearing, breaking up, and fencing began all over again.

Soon after the entire family moved to the new farm, which was known
as Hickory Hill Farm.  It was high and dry, and very good land, but
there was no living water, and so a well, ninety feet deep, had to be
dug.  With the exception of the first ten feet of ground, was hard,
fine-grained sandstone.  Mr. Muir tried to blast the sandstone, but
failed, and he decided to have John do all the work with mason's
chisels.  This was a long, hard job, with a good deal of danger in
it.  He had to sit cramped in a place about three feet in diameter,
and chip, chip away, day after day, for months.  In the morning Mr.
Muir and David lowered John in a windlass, then went away to the farm
work and returned at noon to haul him up for dinner.  After dinner he
was promptly lowered again and left there until evening.

One day he was almost suffocated by carbonic acid gas which had
settled at the bottom during the night.  He was almost overcome as
soon as he had been let down, but managed to shout, "Take me out".
He was hauled up almost more dead than alive.  Water was thrown down
to absorb the gas, and a bundle of hay attached to a light rope was
dropped and used to carry down pure air to stir up the poison.  At
last water was secured and two iron-bound buckets swung, which drew
water from the well for many a long year.

It was fortunate for John that he had made good progress at school
before he left Scotland, for he had few opportunities to study after
he arrived on the backwoods farm.

For many years nearly every waking moment was spent in doing some
kind of manual work.  However, he was hungry for knowledge, and
eagerly read the few books which came his way.  Among these were the
Bible, parts of Shakespeare's poems, and selections from Milton,
Cowper and others, not often read by boys of his age.

When he was twenty-three he decided to attend the State University.
His father told him that he would have to support himself by his own
efforts.  This he did, first by living very simply, and then by
seizing every opportunity to earn a dollar.  He taught school and
worked in the harvest fields during the long summer vacations.  When
in college he lived so frugally that sometimes he did not spend more
than half a dollar a week.

The greatest interest of John Muir's life had always been the things
he found in nature.  From the days when, as a little fellow, he
played around the fields and streams near Dunbar in Scotland, he had
loved the open air and the hundreds of things which lived and grew
there.  When he did finish his course at college he suffered from eye
trouble, and was even threatened with blindness.  He there and then
decided to live in the open and see as much of the world as possible.

He set out on a walking tour through several States.  He visited
Cuba, then the Isthmus of Panama, and then went straight to San
Francisco, where he arrived with less than a dollar in his pocket.
This distance was all covered on foot.  He slept in the open most of
the time and gathered biological specimens as he went.  Sometimes he
ran completely out of money, and when this happened he secured work
until he had sufficient to proceed.

Soon after he arrived in San Francisco he visited the Sierra Nevada
Mountains, and from then until the time of his death he found these
great hills a source of never-ending joy.  He tramped among them
until he knew them thoroughly.  It was chiefly through his efforts
that Congress set aside Yosemite as a national park.  He was often
called "Father of the Yosemite."

In 1876 he was appointed a member of the United States Coast and
Geodetic Survey, and he saw Alaska, where he travelled hundreds of
miles alone.  Later he visited Siberia, Norway, and Switzerland.  He
did not hurry through those lands as many tourists do, but wherever
he went he studied, with much care, the flowers and the animals that
lived in the great open spaces.  Things which others passed with only
a glance he closely observed.  His passion to study these things led
him to visit India, Russia, Australia, New Zealand, Brazil and many
other countries.  He travelled thousands of miles on foot and
generally slept in camps and tents.

He wrote several books and a great many articles which appeared in
the big magazines.  He wrote about animals, insects, and flowers, and
his information was gained at first hand.  He knew these things
because he lived among them and loved them.  His knowledge was
recognized and appreciated.  Harvard and several other universities
conferred honourary degrees upon him, but he cared little for these
things.  From his travels abroad he returned to the Sierra Mountains
which he loved so passionately.  Several universities invited him to
become professor, but he preferred to live his simple life among the
mountains.  After his death, in 1914, these beautiful lines were
written about him by Odell Shepard:


  THE PRAYER OF JOHN MUIR.

  Let me sleep among the shadows of the mountain when I die,
    In the murmur of the pines and gliding streams,
      Where the long day loiters by
      Like a cloud across the sky,
    And the night is calm and musical with dreams.

  Lay me down within a canyon of the mountains, far away,
    In a valley filled with dim and rosy light;
      Let me hear the streams at play
      Through the vivid golden day,
    And a voice of many waters in the night.

  Let me lie where glinting rivers ramble down the slanting glade,
    Under bending alders, garrulous and cool,
      Where the sycamores have made
      Leafy shrines of shifting shade,
    Tremulous about the ferned and pebbled pool.




CHAPTER XI.

A SICK MAN WHO NEVER GAVE UP.

Francis Parkman was born at Boston on September 16, 1823.  He had a
fairly good start in life.  He lived in a fine large brick house of
three stories, with good big lawns and lots of room, so that any boy
could have a real good time.  There were flowers and fruit trees in
abundance, and no doubt young Francis thought himself a very lucky
boy.

When he was eight years of age he went to live on a farm with his
grandfather, and remained there for nearly five years.  It was during
this time that he began to take a keen interest in nature.  When not
at school he spent most of his time collecting eggs, insects,
reptiles, trapping squirrels, woodchucks, and other animals.  All his
life he was greatly interested in animals, and many good stories are
told about him.  Once when he was sitting at his desk in school a
snake which had revived in the warmth of the schoolroom stuck its
head out of his pocket, much to the consternation and alarm of some
pupils sitting near.

His father was a minister, and one Sunday morning while Rev. Dr.
Parkman and his wife were walking solemnly down the street to church
with Francis close behind, Mrs. Parkman noticed a smile on the faces
of those they passed.  She turned around to see what was the matter,
and there was Francis carrying by the tail, at arm's length, a dead
rat.  His father made him throw away the rat and walk with more
dignity.

His favourite subject at school was history.  He was especially
interested in reading about Indians.  By the time he was seventeen he
made up his mind to write a history of the Indian wars, and this
resolution became the controlling power of his life.  From that time
on he never lost an opportunity of studying Indian life.  Nearly all
his vacations were spent either with Indian tribes or in carefully
going over ground which had been the scenes of many fierce conflicts.

About this time Francis Parkman began to have trouble both with his
eyes and his heart.  He consulted several doctors and travelled
extensively, seeking to improve his health.  For this reason, and
also in order to better acquaint himself with the manners and customs
of Indians, he joined a band of Indians on their way to the remote
West.  During this extensive trip he suffered great pain, yet he knew
that it would be unwise to complain or show signs of weakness.  Day
after day he faced the hardships of a strange life, riding daily on
horseback over a wild country, and taking his share with the Indians
in hunting buffalo.

Instead of improving his health this trip greatly weakened him, and
probably did him permanent injury.  He could not digest the food that
was given him; he became so faint and dizzy that he had to be helped
into the saddle, and at times his mind lost its clearness.  He could
not sleep at nights, and from that time until his death he rarely, if
ever, enjoyed a good night's sleep.  When he got three hours' sleep
out of twenty-four he thought himself lucky.  Most of the time he got
even less than this.  He was attacked with rheumatic gout, which
particularly affected one of his knees.  This caused him intense
suffering, and for many years he could only hobble around with the
aid of a stick.

Francis Parkman, while still in his early twenties, was a sick man.
He had so many disorders that he was never free from pain.  Often the
pain was so intense that he could not concentrate on any subject.  He
used to refer to his many troubles as "the enemy", and this can be
said to his credit, that he never ceased to fight "the enemy".  He
had amazing courage; probably not one man in ten thousand could have
been so brave and cheerful with so much physical pain.

He felt his misfortunes all the more because he so much admired
strong men.  As a boy, one of the great ambitions of his life had
been to become strong physically.  One thing which he so much admired
about the Indians was their great agility and endurance.  And so very
early in life, he began to avoid habits which would undermine his
strength.  For such a man, admiring the physically strong as he did,
it became a terrible trial for him to have to go through life as an
invalid.

In the spring of 1848 he began to write the "History of the
Conspiracy of Pontiac."  He did this partly because he felt that to
have a strong purpose, and to keep his mind occupied, would help him
partly to forget his troubles.  In view of his condition it was a
great task to attempt.  His eyes were so extremely weak that he could
not write his own name except by closing them.  His brain would not
permit him to work for more than a few minutes at a time.  Every
effort he made cost him a good deal of pain.  He caused a wooden
frame to be constructed of the same size and shape as a sheet of
paper.  Stout wires were fixed horizontally across it, half an inch
apart, and a movable back of thick pasteboard fitted behind them.
The paper for writing was placed between the pasteboard and the
wires, guided by which, and using a black lead crayon, he could write
fairly well with closed eyes.

He made notes for his book with eyes closed, and these were
afterwards read to him until they had become thoroughly fixed in his
memory.  But under such terrible handicaps did he work, that for a
year and a half he only averaged six lines of writing each day.

The fact that he could not use his eyes in writing made his work very
slow indeed.  He had to depend upon the eyes of others.  Often he
would go to a public library with some educated person and for hours
listen to passages from books which were likely to help him.  If he
had been well he could have seen at a glance what books were worth
spending his time over.  As it was he had to listen to a great many
unimportant and tedious details.

Even when he was fairly well his condition was such that he could not
listen to any person reading for more than an hour or two each day
and that with frequent intervals of rest.  It was all painfully slow
and tedious work and it is not hard to believe what he wrote in the
following words: "Taking the last forty years as a whole, the
capacity for literary work which during that time has fallen to my
share has, I am confident, been considerably less than a fourth part
of what it would have been under normal conditions."

In 1851 Francis Parkman published "The Conspiracy of Pontiac" in two
volumes.  Fourteen years later he published "The Pioneers of France
in the New World".  Then followed, "The Jesuits in North America",
"LaSalle and the Discovery of the Great West", "The Old Regime",
"Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV", "Montcalm and
Wolfe" and "A Half Century of Conflict".

All those books were marked by the author's extraordinary accuracy.
One could have forgiven a man who was in such great pain if he had
shown signs of carelessness, yet a lack of thoroughness was the one
thing which annoyed Francis Parkman.  He expected other people to be
thorough and painstaking in their work, and he carried it out in his
own life.  If there was the least doubt about any statement he would
not rest until he had looked carefully into the matter.  As a result
his books probably rank as the most reliable authorities on Indian
life, customs and history.  The thoroughness and accuracy of his
books is admitted by all.  During the period 1848 to 1867 he never
knew a day when his body was not racked with pain, and yet the books
he wrote during these years of severe suffering are a model of
first-class workmanship.

Many great universities hastened to honour the scholar who had worked
under such great difficulties.  In 1879 McGill University conferred
on him the degree of Doctor of Laws and Languages, and Harvard
University honoured him with the same degree in 1889.  He was made an
honourary member of over twenty scientific societies in Great Britain
and America.  He died in 1893 at the age of seventy.  Thus came to an
end the life of one who, in spite of terrible handicaps, became one
of the greatest historians of his age.




CHAPTER XII.

HOW A POOR BOY BECAME A GREAT SCIENTIST.

Just a few days before Christmas, in 1823, a little boy was born in
the French village of Saint Leons.  His parents were very poor, and
the young boy, whose name was Jean Henri Fabre, was sent to live with
his grandparents, who tilled a small farm some miles away.  There he
lived until he was seven, and made friends with the calves, the
sheep, the geese and the hens, who were almost his sole companions.

His grandparents had no education.  They had never opened a book in
their lives.  They had lived all their lives in that lonely
farmhouse, and they knew little, and cared less, about the outside
world.  The grandfather was a stern old man, with his serious face,
and unclipped hair, which he generally brought behind his ears with a
flick of his thumb.  He wore curious breeches, buckled at the knees,
and heavy wooden shoes stuffed with straw.  Young Henri was devoted
to his old grandmother, who, while she could not read, told the
little fellow many a thrilling story.

When meal time came all the members of the family, big and little,
sat round the table, which consisted of long planks laid over two
benches.  At one end of the table would be a huge loaf of rye bread,
which only the grandfather was allowed to cut.  The grandmother
generally attended to the bacon and turnips, which formed the staple
food.  Sometimes, on special occasions, there would be a good supply
of homemade cheese.  There were no proper beds in the little home,
but as Henri was the youngest, he was given a sack, stuffed with
oat-chaff, upon which to sleep.

In spite of the poverty of his surroundings, Henri was not unhappy.
He was too young to worry much about his appearance.  It is true that
his clothes were rough and shabby.  He generally wore a rough frieze
frock which flapped against his bare legs, but his hardships were
forgotten in his great love for the animals around that little farm.
He loved the flowers, but even more he loved the living things all
around him.  Butterflies, grasshoppers, bees, spiders, wasps, in
fact, every living thing the boy watched, and, when in the evening
the family sat around the rough table to eat, Henri told them of his
love for all these creatures.  The other members of the family just
laughed at Henri.  How little they thought that some day Henri would
know more about these insects than any one else in the world.  When
he was seven the time came for him to go to school, so he returned to
his father's house in Saint Leons.  The school he attended, which was
the schoolmaster's home, consisted of one room, which had to serve as
school, kitchen, bedroom, dining-room, and, sometimes, chicken-house
and piggery.  The schoolmaster himself was not a man of much
learning, and seemed more interested in his chickens and pigs than in
anything else, but he managed to teach the pupils their letters and
some elementary subjects.  Often in the middle of a lesson the door
would be burst open, and a dozen hungry little pigs would scamper in,
followed by a brood of chickens.  By the time they had been put out
the schoolmaster would have considerable difficulty in getting his
scholars' attention back to the lesson.  It was a noisy school
indeed.  All the boys loved the arithmetic lesson because it gave
them a chance to shout.  The whole class would recite the
multiplication table in unison, and they would simply yell until even
the little pigs became scared, and bolted out of the school.

Just about this time something happened which had a great influence
over Henri Fabre.  As a reward for doing well at school he was given
a prize--a book about animals, with scores of pictures in it.  True,
it was only a cheap edition, with paper covers, but to Henri it
seemed priceless.  How he pored over its contents, and looked at the
pictures of coons, foxes, wolves, dogs, cats, asses, rabbits, and
dozens of other animals!  This served to kindle his love for living
things, and when the schoolmaster told the boys to go into his garden
and kill the insects Henri crammed them into his pockets.  Snails,
beetles, and even wasps, all seemed to him too interesting to be
ruthlessly killed.

When Henri was ten his parents moved from Saint Leons to the town of
Rodez.  There he attended a school where he was granted free tuition
for rendering certain services in the chapel.  Attired in a surplice,
red skull-cap, and cassock, he, together with three other boys,
performed his services in the chapel, and received instruction of a
much more advanced character than he had yet received.  Some of the
studies he found difficult, and if he had listened to the call of the
woods, he would often have played truant, for he was much more
interested in the living things he found there than in the dry
subjects learned in the school.  But he remembered his poor parents
at home, and their anxiety to see him make progress, so he stuck to
even the most difficult tasks, and his record there was a good one.

Soon after this misfortune visited his family, and Henri had to leave
school, and for some considerable time he suffered many hardships.
He often went without food, and wandered along the highroads, selling
lemons at country fairs, and later working at the building of a
railway.  Just at that time he was fortunate in winning a bursary for
the normal school at Avignon, and so ended a period of his life which
had been exceedingly dark.

During the years he spent at Avignon he pursued his studies with
earnest purpose, and acquitted himself with distinction.  He gained
his college diploma, and was appointed to teach in a school at
Carpentras, and after some years of close study he was made Professor
of Physics and Chemistry at Ajaccio.

During these years Henri Fabre's interest in insects had been
steadily increasing.  Little creatures that other people thought
ugly, he studied and loved.  One day a naturalist, who had been
attracted to Fabre, was explaining some things to him of unusual
interest.  Suddenly the naturalist took a pair of scissors and burst
open a shell, and then explained to Fabre the anatomy of a snail.
That incident opened a new world for Fabre.  His interest in insects,
which had always been great, became extraordinary.  No longer was he
content to study the outward form of insects, but he dissected and
thoroughly examined all that came within his range.  Often late at
night, or again early in the morning, when other people were in their
beds, he searched the country lanes and pools for specimens of
insects, and then studied them closely to find out their habits of
life.

Soon Henri Fabre became recognized as one who understood insect life
as well, if not better, than any other living person.  This is not to
be wondered at, for an insect, which to other people, meant nothing,
was a subject of great interest to him.  If he were walking along the
highway and an insect appeared, he would leave another man to follow
it and study its movements, and he was quite indifferent as to what
people thought of him.  One day, when in his home, an unusually
interesting wasp appeared; he dropped what he was doing and watched
its movements for hours, utterly forgetting everything else.

Although so well known and respected as a great scientist, Henri
Fabre was still poor.  His income did not amount to much more than
three hundred dollars a year.  Then he was made a member of the
Legion of Honour, one of the greatest distinctions which could be
awarded to any man.  He was introduced to the Emperor of France, and
soon the French people everywhere began to look upon him with great
pride.  In spite of his great fame, he was a comparatively poor man,
but his habits of life were simple, and he did not long for fame.
He was supremely happy when left alone to study the tiny creatures
of the insect world.

In 1879, Fabre retired from the college at Avignon to Serignan.
There, more than ever, he had time to follow the bent of his life,
and then he began to publish his famous books about insects, which
are so fascinating.  One after another, his books were printed, and
all over the world people began to look upon these books as works of
authority.  He wrote: "The Life of the Spider", "The Life of the
Fly", "The Life of the Caterpillar", "The Life of the Grasshopper",
"The Life of the Weevil", "The Glow-worm and other Beetles", and a
great many other books upon subjects of which very few people knew
much.

The methods of his research were very simple--a magnifying-glass, two
scalpels, made by himself from needles, a saucer for his dissecting
trough, empty match-boxes and sardine tins for his specimen cases, a
few wires under which he could imprison insects and watch them--these
were about the only things he needed.  He had extraordinary patience,
and he loved with great tenderness the creatures whose habits he
studied.

Fabre lived to be ninety-two years of age.  He died in 1915, while
the Great War was raging.  Before his death his real genius was
recognized all over the world.  The foremost scientific societies of
England, Sweden, Belgium, Russia and other lands hastened to confer
honourary titles upon him, and while he himself was so simple and
modest that he cared little for fame, the honours conferred showed
how highly he was esteemed.  From being a very poor boy, Henri Fabre
became one of the greatest scientists that ever lived.




CHAPTER XIII.

WHAT AN ILLITERATE BOY MADE OF HIS LIFE.

Just seven days before Christmas, 1851, a baby was born at Mansfield,
Nottingham, England, named James Flanaghan, who was destined to have
a pretty hard time of it for several years.  The baby's father was
Patrick Flanaghan, and, as his name would suggest, was Irish by
nationality.  When he was sober, Patrick Flanaghan was a good husband
and father, but when he was drunk--which was pretty often--he acted
like a beast.  At the sound of his unsteady step on the stairs, his
wife and children prepared for the worst.  Often what little
furniture there was in the Flanaghan home would be smashed to atoms
in the fury of the man's drunken passion, and the mother and children
would be driven out into the street, to wander around until some one
had pity on them and took them in.

After a few years James went to work with his father at the task of
pipe-making in a factory.  His father was the kiln man, and was
clever in the art of giving fixity to moulds of clay by a process of
burning.  James stood at the table modelling clay into tobacco pipes.
It was hard work for the boy, and all he received was sixty cents a
week.  The father became dissatisfied with such small wages, and so
James was taken out of the factory to work in a coal mine.

A lady, in whose class James sat at Sunday school, gave him a coat
which was several sizes too large for him.  His mother wept when she
saw him; he looked so funny; but James was too young to worry over
his appearance, and he was glad to have a coat to keep him warm.

The men with whom James worked down the mine, teased him or cursed
him, according to their moods.  They were rough men and often their
language was vile.  At meal times James munched his crust of bread
and cheese, and heard tales which had been told in the saloon the
night before.

Soon he was taken, along with other lads of his age, to the saloon.
His sweet singing astonished and pleased the drunken men there.  He
sang songs which he had heard, and he attended theatres, and such was
his memory that he could reproduce whole scenes that he had
witnessed.  For all this James received a good deal of praise, and
especially from the saloon-keepers, who were glad to have any one who
could attract men to their drinking places.

Through the influence of a Sunday-school worker, named Parker, James
was induced to attend a religious service at a Methodist church.  He
sat very reverently through the service although it all seemed very
strange to him, and much of it he did not understand.  When at the
close of the service a man took him by the hand and said: "God bless
you, my brother," he was deeply touched, and his eyes filled up with
tears.  He was not accustomed to that kind of speech.  It was the
kindness of the people which led him back to that church again.  Deep
impressions for good were made on the young lad's mind, although he
could not make up his mind what to do.  He had a great many evil
companions, and he knew it would be a difficult thing for him to
break away from them; however, one Sunday morning as he sat in
church, listening to an earnest sermon, he bowed his head, and gave
himself to God.  It was the turning-point in James Flanaghan's life.

He was at this time about sixteen years of age, but he had
practically no education.  He could not write his own name, nor even
distinguish the letters of the alphabet.  He had never been to school
one day in his life, and practically all he knew was the vulgar
sayings he had heard in the mine, and in the saloons.  But he began
to improve himself at once, and, big fellow though he was, he bought
an alphabet and learned his letters thoroughly, and then he began the
simplest kind of reading.  Often when he came home from the mine,
tired though he was, he sat up until past midnight trying to make up
for lost years.

He tried hard and made good progress.  As soon as he was able to read
well enough to spell out the words, he committed to memory the One
Hundred and Third Psalm.  It took him quite a while to learn it all
for he could only commit to memory a few verses at a time, but he
succeeded, and this fine psalm filled his mind with beautiful
thoughts during the hours he spent down the mine.  Then soon
afterwards when there was need for teachers in the Sunday School he
offered his services.  He was given the beginners' class at first,
for he could neither read nor teach the lessons for older scholars,
but as he advanced in knowledge he was promoted to other classes, and
after a few years was actually made superintendent of the school.

There was a group of earnest men in that church, who, like Flanaghan,
worked hard, but who on Sundays preached either in small churches and
mission halls of the district, or in the open air.  Soon he joined
them, and although his first prayers and brief addresses in public
were halting and a source of anxiety to him, he rapidly improved, and
all the neighbouring churches were glad to have him preach in their
pulpits.  Miners who had known him for several years could not
understand how he had become educated so quickly.  They knew that he
had never been a day at public school in his life and that even at
sixteen he could neither read nor write.  Yet now he could read whole
chapters of the Bible in public, and could preach sermons that showed
he had read many other books as well.  He was still working fourteen
hours a day in the mine, and his time for reading was strictly
limited, but he never wasted a moment, and his perseverance and
earnestness, together with his excellent memory, soon enabled him to
preach as though he had attended school as other young men.

Soon after this he was asked to conduct some services at a village
named Long Clawson.  These services were so successful that he was
engaged to conduct further services in that district for a period of
six months.  Of course, this meant giving up work in the coal mine,
and moving elsewhere.  The news quickly spread throughout the little
town where he lived, and the people came to his house to wish him and
his wife and children "God speed."  His conversion, and the
marvellous progress he had made in education were widely known, and
all were deeply interested.  He stood upon a chair, and the crowd
gathered around.  He told them again of his conversion, and after a
few earnest words, bade them a tender farewell.  All were deeply
moved and there were few dry eyes.

For four years James Flanaghan did the work of an evangelist; making
visits, varying from ten days to four weeks, at many places
throughout the country.  Whenever he could spare half an hour he
spent it in reading.  He knew that he had a great deal of ground to
make up, and he never could make it up unless he worked hard.  His
careful reading soon showed in his sermons and addresses.  Not only
were his public speeches earnest, they were thoughtful, and people
who had known him in other years considered his progress nothing
short of a miracle.

Then he was appointed city missionary for the city of Nottingham.
During the time he lived there James Flanaghan became widely known
and greatly beloved.  The services he conducted at the large mission
hall were the most important gatherings he had ever addressed.  The
large building held two thousand people and quite often it was filled
to overflowing.  A brotherhood organization for men was established
with over two thousand members, and the entire city of Nottingham was
influenced for good.  When the time came for him to leave the city,
he carried away with him the good wishes of all.

In 1891, when he was forty years of age, James Flanaghan was made a
minister of the Primitive Methodist Church.  This was a somewhat
unusual thing to do, as he had never been to college, nor taken any
regular course of study, but his work had shown that he was a true
and able servant of God and he would never disgrace the ministry, for
his close study for more than twenty years had made him a
well-educated man.

His first charge after ordination was at Trinity Street Church,
London.  Here he found a large church, almost empty, yet surrounded
by a vast population of very poor people.  His first Sunday was not
an encouraging one.  There were only thirty-six people at the morning
service, and thirty-seven in the evening, but James Flanaghan had
been facing difficulties all his life, and had become used to them.
From the time when, as a baby he had been turned out into the streets
with his poor mother, up to the time he stood in the big empty church
at London, it had been a bitter, uphill struggle, but rough weather
makes good sailors, and Flanaghan's heart was strong and brave.

The more he learned about the district around his church the more he
realized the need for Christian work.  There were scores of low-class
drinking places, and the lodging-houses were little better than
haunts for animals.  There was one lodging house where thirteen
murders had been committed, but the very wretchedness of the district
made an appeal to Flanaghan's sympathy, and he worked harder than he
had ever worked in his life; if that were possible.  Soon the large
building was filled.  Fine, enthusiastic meetings were held during
the week and hundreds of boys in that neighbourhood enjoyed their
first games in the gymnasium of the church.

Soon the premises, which had seemed so large and empty at first, were
far too small to hold all the people who were eager to attend.  What
was to be done?  The people of the district certainly could not raise
money to enlarge the premises, and so it was decided that Mr.
Flanaghan should visit towns and cities outside of London during the
week, and by lecturing and preaching raise sufficient money to build
larger and better premises.  In less than two years Mr. Flanaghan had
raised the sum of twenty thousand dollars, which made it possible to
begin work on the new buildings.

By this time the name of James Flanaghan had become known throughout
England.  Just the announcement on a billboard that "James Flanaghan
is coming," was a sufficient advertisement to fill any church or
hall.  Under the magic spell of his eloquence people became generous
in their gifts for the poor.  Poor children brought their coppers to
buy a new brick in the buildings.  A man who was penniless put his
watch and chain on the collection plate, while another man brought a
hen and requested that it be sold, and the funds used as the speaker
wished.

The new hall was formally opened on January 4th, 1900, and is known
as St. George's Hall.  It is a fine, well-equipped building, and from
the day it was opened until the present time it has been a means of
blessing to thousands of people in that crowded section of London,
known as Bermondsey, where people live under conditions which,
fortunately, are almost unknown in this land.

James Flanaghan's reputation spread overseas, and in 1908 he was
invited to tour Australia and New Zealand.  He received a great
welcome in New Zealand by people of all denominations.  Arrangements
had been made for large meetings, but in most cases the churches and
halls which had been engaged were much too small.  No visitor to that
land for many years so favourably impressed the people.  Audiences
were held spellbound by his eloquence.  How few of those who so
admired his culture and lofty thought realized that they were
listening to a man who had never been to public school a day in his
life, and who up to the time of his sixteenth birthday could neither
read or write.  Lord Plunkett, the Governor of New Zealand, greatly
admired Mr. Flanaghan, and showed him much kindness.  Sir J. C. Ward,
the Prime Minister, made him an honoured guest of the Parliament, and
wherever he went his fine bearing and culture made an excellent
impression.  When he left he received the thanks of all the Christian
Churches.  A similar welcome was extended to him in Australia, and
there he was for some time the guest of Lord Chief Justice and Lady
Way.

He returned to his work in England, and found time to write several
books, which had a wide circulation and did much good.  Such were the
demands for his services that only a small percentage of the requests
could be acceded to, but he led a busy life and exerted much
influence for good.

In 1914 he was taken ill, and a year later he had to retire from
active work.  This was a great trial to one who so loved his work,
but he gradually became weaker.  He died on March 30th, 1918, and his
passing was regretted by thousands throughout the world.  Members of
the British Parliament, mayors, aldermen and councillors of London
and the provinces joined the bereaved family in the church and placed
flowers upon his grave.  All were glad to honour the memory of one
who, though he had started life under heavy handicaps, had made his
life one of blessing and usefulness to a vast number of people.




CHAPTER XIV.

A DONKEY BOY WHO BECAME A FAMOUS SCULPTOR.

A few miles from the city of Sheffield in England there is a little
village named Norton.  It was on a tiny farm, near this village, that
Francis Chantrey was born on April 7th, 1781.  He learned the
alphabet at home, and then at the age of six he went to the village
school.  The old school register is still in existence.  It shows
that he began to read in April 1787; to write in January, 1788; and
to learn arithmetic in October, 1792.  The register also shows that
Francis often missed school; often for weeks and months at a time.
Children were not compelled to attend school in those days, and as
his parents were poor, it seems likely that Francis worked around the
farm, driving cattle and working hard in the fields.

In those days the city of Sheffield was supplied with milk from the
outlying farms.  The milk was put into barrels, and two barrels were
slung across a donkey's back, one to balance the other.  The barrels
had taps and the milk was drawn off into tins for house-to-house
delivery.  Many of the small boys, who drove the donkeys, became
notorious for mischief.  Often a donkey would refuse to budge an
inch, and then the young driver would apply the whip with all his
might, while the ass would fix its forelegs into the ground and throw
up its hind legs in an effort to dislodge the driver.  Very often
there would be so much jumping around that the milk must have been
nearly churned into butter.

One morning Francis Chantrey was sauntering along with his donkey
when he came across a cat sitting on a wall.  He made friends with
pussy, and seeing a hollow place in the wall, he poured in some milk,
and watched the cat drink.  Next morning when he came to the same
place the cat was there waiting for her breakfast, and he was so
pleased that he gave her another supply.  That continued for a long
time.  Each morning--no matter what the weather was--pussy was at her
place by the hollow in the wall, and Francis never failed to pet her
and leave a supply of milk.

He called his donkey "Jock", and one day when he had delivered all
his milk in the city, he was returning with the week's supply of
groceries, when Jock stopped to drink at a pool by the side of the
road.  The donkey found the water so cool and refreshing that before
Francis Chantrey had time to prevent him, he slid down into the
water, groceries and all.  He was just about to roll over and over,
when his young master made him get up.  As it was, all the tea, sugar
and other groceries were soaked, and it was a cross boy who tried to
recover what he could from the pond with a rake.

Sometimes when Francis walked by the side of Jock to and from
Sheffield, he would amuse himself by whittling a stick with his
pocket-knife.  One day he was doing this when a gentleman met him,
and examined his work, and then asked what it was.  "It is the head
of Old Fox," said Francis, whose schoolmaster was named Fox.  The man
thought the carving was so good that he gave Francis sixpence, and
that was the first money he ever earned by his carving.

The boy loved drawing pictures, and as the floor of his humble home
was of stones, or flags as they are called in English farmhouses, he
used to draw pictures upon the floor each Saturday before his mother
scrubbed the floor.  No doubt his mother often thought the drawings
were so good that it was a shame to wash them off.

One day a gentleman came to Mr. Chantrey to do some business, and
Mrs. Chantrey brought out a large pork pie, upon the top of which
were worked cleverly in paste, a sow and several pigs.  When the man
saw it, he exclaimed: "What a shame that you should have gone to the
expense of getting such a pie for me."  When Mrs. Chantrey explained
that she had made the pie herself, and Francis had modelled the young
pigs, when the dough was soft, he was amazed at the boy's ingenuity.

Francis' father died when he was twelve years of age, and soon after
he was apprenticed to a Mr. Robert Ramsay, who had a small shop in
Sheffield where he sold pictures, plaster models, wood carvings, and
such things.  He was now in the midst of the things he loved, and he
took great delight in handling pictures and plaster models.  Nothing
pleased him better than to model soft clay with his fingers.
Sometimes a mould would be taken of a person's face, and young
Chantrey thought that he would like to try and take a mould of this
kind.  He persuaded one of Mr. Ramsay's workmen to lie face upwards
upon a table, and then he placed the soft plaster over the man's face
and throat, and waited for it to harden.  Suddenly the man rolled off
the table and madly stripped away the plaster from his throat.  Young
Chantrey did not know that a man cannot breathe unless his throat can
expand, and when this plaster began to harden it was making it
impossible for the man to breathe.

He was so eager to gain knowledge that he rented a cheap little room,
and spent his evenings and holidays drawing and making models.  The
long hours he spent in that room he never forgot, and in the year
before he died he visited that little room, and spoke to friends of
the many happy hours he had spent there.

When he was no longer an apprentice he looked around for some way in
which to earn a living.  He was severely handicapped in some ways.
When he was ten years of age his parents made the discovery that he
was quite blind in one eye.  Up to that time no one had ever
suspected such a thing.  Then again he had attended school very
little and was not by any means a good scholar.  The letters which he
wrote when he became a man show that even then he was a very poor
scholar.  His writing ran on without any punctuation; many words were
wrongly spelt, and God was written with a small "g".

Those were the days when there were no photographers, and portrait
painters could often make a fair living.  Many artists went from farm
to farm, seeking for work to do, and Francis Chantrey decided to do
this.  In 1802 he put the following advertisement in a Sheffield
newspaper:


"Francis Chantrey begs permission to inform the ladies and gentlemen
of Sheffield, and its vicinity, that, during his stay here, he wishes
to employ his time in taking of portraits in crayons, and miniatures,
at the pleasure of the person who shall do him the honour to sit.
Although a young artist, he has had the opportunity of acquiring
improvement from a strict attention to the works of Messrs. Smith,
Arnold, gentlemen of eminence.  He trusts in being happy to produce
good and satisfactory likenesses; and no exertion shall be wanting on
his part, to render his humble efforts deserving some small share of
public patronage.  Terms--from two to three guineas.  24 Paradise
Square."


Chantrey was at this time twenty-one years of age.  He worked hard at
portrait-painting, and although he did not earn a great deal, he made
a fair living.  He painted shopkeepers, farmers and artisans.  He
painted a portrait of his old schoolmaster, Mr. Fox, and another of
the vicar.  The people of Norton Village were proud of him, and
anxious to see him get a good start.  At last he moved to London, and
besides painting portraits he secured a position as a woodcarver's
assistant.  His total earnings were five shillings a day.  For some
time he had a very hard struggle.  He was quite unknown and poor.  It
was only by taking care of every penny that he managed to live at
all.  In many ways these days were the hardest he had ever known, for
he was all alone in London, and had to make his own way.  He worked
away at carving in a garret, and could only afford one candle, which
he used to wear in his cap so that the light might move with him as
he changed positions.

At this time the president of the Academy was the great painter,
Benjamin West.  Chantrey thought that if West would allow him to make
a bust of him, it would do much to bring his work before the public,
so he asked West to sit for a portrait in plaster.  West was an
unusually kind, but at the same time, a very busy man.  He was at
that time painting a great picture: "Christ Healing the Sick."  He
told Chantrey that if he were willing to catch his likeness as he
worked away at his picture, he was welcome to try.  Chantrey was
pleased with the offer and for many days he sat and moulded the
plaster, as West worked at his task.  The bust Chantrey did at this
time can now be seen at the Royal Academy in London.  Soon afterwards
he made a bust of Mr. Samuel Shore, for which he received one hundred
guineas; by far the largest sum he had ever been paid.  He gave up
painting altogether, for he was now fairly well established as a
sculptor.

At that time there was living in London a very brilliant man, named
Horn Tooke.  Chantrey made a bust in plaster of this man and sent it
to the exhibition.  It looked at first as though there would not be a
place for it there, but another sculptor, Mr. Joseph Nollekens, saw
it and was much impressed.  He was not jealous, but said: "This is a
fine, a very fine bust; let the man who made it be known.  Remove one
of my busts and put it in its place, for it well deserves it."  This
was a great thing for Chantrey, for this bust aroused a great deal of
interest, and he soon received commissions to do work which brought
him more than twelve thousand pounds.

Very soon after this something happened which helped to bring Francis
Chantrey more to the front than ever and to establish him as "The
Prince of British Sculptors".  In 1811 it was decided to erect a
statue of King George III.  Naturally there was a great deal of
excitement among sculptors; all were anxious to receive the honour of
doing it.  A committee was formed to choose a sculptor.  Fifteen of
the greatest sculptors submitted designs to the committee, and the
members decided that Chantrey's was the best, and so he was given the
important task of doing it.

As soon as it was known that the commission had been given to Francis
Chantrey, he had the news conveyed to his mother.  He knew that it
would give her great pleasure; and indeed it did, for she burst into
tears.  It seemed to her marvellous that her boy, who only a few
years before had drawn pictures on the kitchen floor, should be
chosen to design a statue of the king.  There was great stir and
excitement in the village of Norton.  The wonderful tidings spread
from cottage to cottage.  "Francis Chantrey has been chosen to make
the king's statue," was the news that everybody was repeating.

After making a statue of the king, of course, Chantrey was considered
capable of making a design for any one, as indeed he was.  The rich
and famous crowded to his studio in order to get busts made of
themselves.  It would be impossible to put here a complete list of
all for whom he made designs, but among other well-known people there
were: Sir Walter Scott, Bishop Heber, who wrote "From Greenland's Icy
Mountains" and other fine hymns; James Watt, the inventor, and many
others.

Some years later, when William IV was king, Francis Chantrey was
knighted, and so became Sir Francis Chantrey.  After that brief reign
came to an end, and George IV came to the throne, the monarch became
a great admirer of Chantrey, and was so well pleased with the statue
of himself, which the sculptor made, that he insisted on paying much
more than had been agreed upon.  This very fine statue now stands in
Trafalgar Square, London, and for it Chantrey received the sum of
nine thousand guineas.  Magnificent statues done by Francis Chantrey
may now be seen in many lands.  In Ireland, Scotland, India, United
States, and other lands his work is seen and appreciated.

His deep affection for his mother was shown in many ways.  He loved
to have her visit him at his home in London, and though she had been
a humble, hard-working woman all her life, he was always proud to
make her known to his friends.  When, on one occasion he was very
ill, he would not allow any one to acquaint his mother lest she
should worry.  The letters he wrote to his mother were full of
tenderness and scarcely a week passed in which he did not send her
some present.

He was modest to an extraordinary degree.  Many men who have risen
from lowly circumstances have become spoiled by success and made
vain.  Such was not the case with Francis Chantrey.  He became the
friend of great men and of kings, but he loved to talk of his humble
origin, and fame never made him, in the least degree, vain.

Standing in the most crowded thoroughfare of London, England; in that
square which has the Bank of England on the north, the Royal Exchange
upon the east, the Mansion House on the south, with Cheapside running
west, there stands a magnificent statue of the Duke of Wellington on
horseback.  Thousands have gazed upon that noble monument, and
admired it.  It is the work of Francis Chantrey.  No doubt many who
see it will think of a lonely little farmhouse, one hundred and fifty
miles away, where he first saw the light, and they will remember the
donkey boy who became the greatest of British sculptors.







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