"Many a farmer"s son," says Thurlow Weed, "has found the best opportunities for mental improvement in his intervals of leisure while tending "sap-bush." Such, at any rate, was my own experience. At night you had only to feed the kettles and keep up the fires, the sap having been gathered and the wood cut before dark. During the day we would always lay in a good stock of "fat-pine," by the light of which, blazing bright before the sugar-house, I pa.s.sed many a delightful night in reading. I remember in this way to have a history of the French Revolution, and to have obtained a better and more enduring knowledge of its events and horrors and of the actors in that great national tragedy than I have received from all subsequent reading. I remember, also, how happy I was in being able to borrow the books of a Mr. Keyes, after a two-mile tramp through the snow, shoeless, my feet swaddled in remnants of rag carpet."
"May I have a holiday to-morrow, father?" asked Theodore Parker one August afternoon. The poor Lexington millwright looked in surprise at his youngest son, for it was a busy time, but he saw from the boy"s earnest face that he had no ordinary object in view, and granted the request. Theodore rose very early the next morning, walked through the dust ten miles to Harvard College, and presented himself for a candidate for admission. He had been unable to attend school regularly since he was eight years old, but he had managed to go three months each winter, and had reviewed his lessons again and again as he followed the plow or worked at other tasks. All his odd moments had been h.o.a.rded, too, for reading useful books, which he borrowed. One book he could not borrow, but he felt that he must have it; so on summer mornings he rose long before the sun and picked bushel after bushel of berries, which he sent to Boston, and so got the money to buy that coveted Latin dictionary.
"Well done, my boy!" said the millwright, when his son came home late at night and told of his successful examination; "but, Theodore, I cannot afford to keep you there!" "True, father," said Theodore, "I am not going to stay there; I shall study at home, at odd times, and thus prepare myself for a final examination, which will give me a diploma."
He did this; and, by teaching school as he grew older, got money to study for two years at Harvard, where he was graduated with honor.
Years after, when, as the trusted friend and adviser of Seward, Chase, Sumner, Garrison, Horace Mann, and Wendell Phillips, his influence for good was felt in the hearts of all his countrymen, it was a pleasure for him to recall his early struggles and triumphs among the rocks and bushes of Lexington.
"The proudest moment of my life," said Elihu Burritt, "was when I had first gained the full meaning of the first fifteen lines of Homer"s Iliad." Elihu Burritt"s father died when he was sixteen, and Elihu was apprenticed to a blacksmith in his native village of New Britain, Conn.
He had to work at the forge for ten or twelve hours a day; but while blowing the bellows, he would solve mentally difficult problems in arithmetic. In a diary kept at Worcester, whither he went some ten years later to enjoy its library privileges, are such entries as these,--"Monday, June 18, headache, 40 pages Cuvier"s "Theory of the Earth," 64 pages French, 11 hours" forging. Tuesday, June 19, 60 lines Hebrew, 30 Danish, 10 lines Bohemian, 9 lines Polish, 15 names of stars, 10 hours" forging. Wednesday, June 20, 25 lines Hebrew, 8 lines Syriac, 11 hours" forging." He mastered 18 languages and 32 dialects.
He became eminent as the "Learned Blacksmith," and for his n.o.ble work in the service of humanity. Edward Everett said of the manner in which this boy with no chance acquired great learning: "It is enough to make one who has good opportunities for education hang his head in shame."
The barefoot Christine Nilsson in remote Sweden had little chance, but she won the admiration of the world for her wondrous power of song, combined with rare womanly grace.
"Let me say in regard to your adverse worldly circ.u.mstances," says Dr.
Talmage to young men, "that you are on a level now with those who are finally to succeed. Mark my words, and think of it thirty years from now. You will find that those who are then the millionaires of this country, who are the orators of the country, who are the poets of the country, who are the strong merchants of the country, who are the great philanthropists of the country,--mightiest in the church and state,--are now on a level with you, not an inch above you, and in straightened circ.u.mstances.
"No outfit, no capital to start with? Young man, go down to the library and get some books, and read of what wonderful mechanism G.o.d gave you in your hand, in your foot, in your eye, in your ear, and then ask some doctor to take you into the dissecting-room and ill.u.s.trate to you what you have read about, and never again commit the blasphemy of saying you have no capital to start with. _Equipped_? _Why, the poorest young man is equipped as only the G.o.d of the whole universe could afford to equip him_."
A newsboy is not a very promising candidate for success or honors in any line of life. A young man can"t set out in life with much less chance than when he starts his "daily" for a living. Yet the man who more than any other is responsible for the industrial regeneration of this continent started in life as a newsboy on the Grand Trunk Railway.
Thomas Alva Edison was then about fifteen years of age. He had already begun to dabble in chemistry, and had fitted up a small itinerant laboratory. One day, as he was performing some occult experiment, the train rounded a curve, and the bottle of sulphuric acid broke. There followed a series of unearthly odors and unnatural complications. The conductor, who had suffered long and patiently, promptly ejected the youthful devotee, and in the process of the scientist"s expulsion added a resounding box upon the ear.
Edison pa.s.sed through one dramatic situation after another--always mastering it--until he attained at an early age the scientific throne of the world. When recently asked the secret of his success, he said he had always been a total abstainer and singularly moderate in everything but work.
Daniel Manning who was President Cleveland"s first campaign manager and afterwards Secretary of the Treasury, started out as a newsboy with apparently the world against him. So did Thurlow Weed; so did David B.
Hill. New York seems to have been prolific in enterprising newsboys.
What nonsense for two uneducated and unknown youths who met in a cheap boarding-house in Boston to array themselves against an inst.i.tution whose roots were embedded in the very const.i.tution of our country, and which was upheld by scholars, statesmen, churches, wealth, and aristocracy, without distinction of creed or politics! What chance had they against the prejudices and sentiment of a nation? But these young men were fired by a lofty purpose, and they were thoroughly in earnest.
One of them, Benjamin Lundy, had already started in Ohio a paper called "The Genius of Universal Liberty," and had carried the entire edition home on his back from the printing-office, twenty miles, every month.
He had walked four hundred miles on his way to Tennessee to increase his subscription list. He was no ordinary young man.
With William Lloyd Garrison, he started to prosecute his work more earnestly in Baltimore. The sight of the slave-pens along the princ.i.p.al streets; of vessel-loads of unfortunates torn from home and family and sent to Southern ports; the heartrending scenes at the auction blocks, made an impression on Garrison never to be forgotten; and the young man whose mother was too poor to send him to school, although she early taught him to hate oppression, resolved to devote his life to secure the freedom of these poor wretches.
In the first issue of his paper, Garrison urged an immediate emanc.i.p.ation, and called down upon his head the wrath of the entire community. He was arrested and sent to jail. John G. Whittier, a n.o.ble friend in the North, was so touched at the news that, being too poor to furnish the money himself, he wrote to Henry Clay, begging him to release Garrison by paying the fine. After forty-nine days of imprisonment he was set free. Wendell Phillips said of him, "He was imprisoned for his opinion when he was twenty-four. He had confronted a nation in the bloom of his youth."
In Boston, with no money, friends, or influence, in a little upstairs room, Garrison started the "Liberator." Read the declaration of this poor young man with "no chance," in the very first issue: "I will be as harsh as truth, as uncompromising as justice. I am in earnest. I will not equivocate, I will not excuse; I will not retreat a single inch, and I will be heard." What audacity for a young man, with the world against him!
Hon. Robert Y. Hayne, of South Carolina, wrote to Otis, mayor of Boston, that some one had sent him a copy of the "Liberator," and asked him to ascertain the name of the publisher. Otis replied that he had found a poor young man printing "this insignificant sheet in an obscure hole, his only auxiliary a negro boy, his supporters a few persons of all colors and little influence."
But this poor young man, eating, sleeping, and printing in this "obscure hole," had set the world to thinking, and must be suppressed.
The Vigilance a.s.sociation of South Carolina offered a reward of fifteen hundred dollars for the arrest and prosecution of any one detected circulating the "Liberator." The Governors of one or two States set a price on the editor"s head. The legislature of Georgia offered a reward of five thousand dollars for his arrest and conviction.
Garrison and his coadjutors were denounced everywhere. A clergyman named Lovejoy was killed by a mob in Illinois for espousing the cause, while defending his printing-press, and in the old "Cradle of American Liberty" the wealth, power, and culture of Ma.s.sachusetts arrayed itself against the "Abolitionists" so outrageously, that a mere spectator, a young lawyer of great promise, asked to be lifted upon the high platform, and replied in such a speech as was never before heard in Faneuil Hall. "When I heard the gentleman lay down the principles which place the murderers of Lovejoy at Alton side by side with Otis and Hanc.o.c.k, with Quincy and Adams," said Wendell Phillips, pointing to their portraits on the walls. "I thought those pictured lips would have broken into voice to rebuke the recreant American, the slanderer of the dead. For the sentiments that he has uttered, on soil consecrated by the prayers of the Puritans and the blood of patriots.
the earth should have yawned and swallowed him up."
The whole nation was wrought to fever heat.
Between the Northern pioneers and Southern chivalry the struggle was long and fierce, even in far California. The drama culminated in the shock of civil war. When the war was ended, and, after thirty-five years of untiring, heroic conflict, Garrison was invited as the nation"s guest, by President Lincoln, to see the stars and stripes unfurled once more above Fort Sumter, an emanc.i.p.ated slave delivered the address of welcome, and his two daughters, no longer chattels in appreciation presented Garrison with a beautiful wreath of flowers.
About this time Richard Cobden, another powerful friend of the oppressed, died in London.
His father had died leaving nine children almost penniless. The boy earned his living by watching a neighbor"s sheep, but had no chance to attend school until he was ten years old. He was sent to a boarding-school, where he was abused, half starved, and allowed to write home only once in three months. At fifteen he entered his uncle"s store in London as a clerk. He learned French by rising early and studying while his companions slept. He was soon sent out in a gig as a commercial traveler.
He called upon John Bright to enlist his aid in fighting the terrible "Corn-Laws" which were taking bread from the poor and giving it to the rich. He found Mr. Bright in great grief, for his wife was lying dead in the house.
"There are thousands of homes in England at this moment," said Richard Cobden, "where wives, mothers, and children are dying of hunger. Now, when the first paroxysm of grief is pa.s.sed, I would advise you to come with me, and we will never rest until the Corn-Laws are repealed."
Cobden could no longer see the poor man"s bread stopped at the Custom-House and taxed for the benefit of the landlord and farmer, and he threw his whole soul into this great reform. "This is not a party question," said he, "for men of all parties are united upon it. It is a pantry question,--a question between the working millions and the aristocracy." They formed the "Anti-Corn-Law League," which, aided by the Irish famine,--for it was hunger that at last ate through those stone walls of protection,--secured the repeal of the law in 1846. Mr.
Bright said: "There is not in Great Britain a poor man"s home that has not a bigger, better, and cheaper loaf through Richard Cobden"s labors."
John Bright himself was the son of a poor working man, and in those days the doors of the higher schools were closed to such as he; but the great Quaker heart of this resolute youth was touched with pity for the millions of England"s and Ireland"s poor, starving under the Corn-Laws.
During the frightful famine, which cut off two millions of Ireland"s population in a year, John Bright was more powerful than all the n.o.bility of England. The whole aristocracy trembled before his invincible logic, his mighty eloquence, and his commanding character.
Except possibly Cobden, no other man did so much to give the laborer a shorter day, a cheaper loaf, an added shilling.
Over a stable in London lived a poor boy named Michael Faraday, who carried newspapers about the streets to loan to customers for a penny apiece. He was apprenticed for seven years to a bookbinder and bookseller. When binding the Encyclopaedia Britannica, his eyes caught the article on electricity, and he could not rest until he had read it.
He procured a gla.s.s vial, an old pan, and a few simple articles, and began to experiment. A customer became interested in the boy, and took him to hear Sir Humphry Davy lecture on chemistry. He summoned courage to write the great scientist and sent the notes he had taken of his lecture. One night, not long after, just as Michael was about to retire, Sir Humphry Davy"s carriage stopped at his humble lodging, and a servant handed him a written invitation to call upon the great lecturer the next morning. Michael could scarcely trust his eyes as he read the note. In the morning he called as requested, and was engaged to clean instruments and take them to and from the lecture-room. He watched eagerly every movement of Davy, as with a gla.s.s mask over his face, he developed his safety-lamp and experimented with dangerous explosives. Michael studied and experimented, too, and it was not long before this poor boy with no chance was invited to lecture before the great philosophical society.
He was appointed professor at the Royal Academy of Woolwich, and became the wonder of the age in science. Tyndall said of him, "He is the greatest experimental philosopher the world has ever seen." When Sir Humphry Davy was asked what was his greatest discovery, he replied "Michael Faraday."
"What has been done can be done again," said the boy with no chance, Disraeli, who become Lord Beaconsfield, England"s great Prime Minister.
"I am not a slave, I am not a captive, and by energy I can overcome greater obstacles." Jewish blood flowed in his veins and everything seemed against him, but he remembered the example of Joseph, who became Prime Minister of Egypt four thousand years before, and that of Daniel, who was Prime Minister to the greatest despot of the world five centuries before the birth of Christ. He pushed his way up through the lower cla.s.ses, up through the middle cla.s.ses, up through the upper cla.s.ses, until he stood a master, self-poised upon the topmost round of political and social power. Rebuffed, scorned, ridiculed, hissed down in the House of Commons, he simply said, "The time will come when you will hear me." The time did come, and the boy with no chance but a determined will swayed the scepter of England for a quarter of a century.
Henry Clay, the "mill-boy of the slashes," was one of seven children of a widow too poor to send him to any but a common country school, where he was drilled only in the "three R"s." But he used every spare moment to study without a teacher, and in after years he was a king among self-made men. The boy who had learned to speak in a barn, with only a cow and a horse for an audience, became one of the greatest of American orators and statesmen.
See Kepler struggling with poverty and hardship, his books burned in public by order of the state, his library locked up by the Jesuits, and himself exiled by public clamor. For seventeen years he works calmly upon the demonstration of the great principles that planets revolve in ellipses, with the sun at one focus; that a line connecting the center of the earth with the center of the sun pa.s.ses over equal s.p.a.ces in equal times, and that the squares of the times of revolution of the planets above the sun are proportioned to the cubes by their mean distances from the sun. This boy with no chance became one of the world"s greatest astronomers.
"When I found that I was black," said Alexandre Dumas, "I resolved to live as if I were white, and so force men to look below my skin."
How slender seemed the chance of James Sharples, the celebrated blacksmith artist of England! He was very poor, but he often rose at three o"clock to copy books he could not buy. He would walk eighteen miles to Manchester and back after a hard day"s work to buy a shilling"s worth of artist"s materials. He would ask for the heaviest work in the blacksmith shop, because it took a longer time to heat at the forge, and he could thus have many spare minutes to study the precious book, which he propped up against the chimney. He was a great miser of spare moments and used every one as though he might never see another. He devoted his leisure hours for five years to that wonderful production, "The Forge," copies of which are to be seen in many a home.
What chance had Galileo to win renown in physics or astronomy, when his parents compelled him to go to a medical school? Yet while Venice slept, he stood in the tower of St. Mark"s Cathedral and discovered the satellites of Jupiter and the phases of Venus, through a telescope made with his own hands. When compelled on bended knee to publicly renounce his heretical doctrine that the earth moves around the sun, all the terrors of the Inquisition could not keep this feeble man of threescore years and ten from muttering to himself, "Yet it does move." When thrown into prison, so great was his eagerness for scientific research that he proved by a straws in his cell that a hollow tube is relatively much stronger than a solid rod of the same size. Even when totally blind, he kept constantly at work.
Imagine the surprise of the Royal Society of England when the poor unknown Herschel sent in the report of his discovery of the star Georgium Sidus, its...o...b..t and rate of motion; and of the rings and satellites of Saturn. The boy with no chance, who had played the oboe for his meals, had with his own hands made the telescope through which he discovered facts unknown to the best-equipped astronomers of his day. He had ground two hundred specula before he could get one perfect.
George Stephenson was one of eight children whose parents were so poor that all lived in a single room. George had to watch cows for a neighbor, but he managed to get time to make engines of clay, with hemlock sticks for pipes. At seventeen he had charge of an engine, with his father for fireman. He could neither read nor write, but the engine was his teacher, and he a faithful student. While the other hands were playing games or loafing in liquor shops during the holidays, George was taking his machine to pieces, cleaning it, studying it, and making experiments in engines. When he had become famous as a great inventor of improvements in engines, those who had loafed and played called him lucky.
Without a charm of face or figure, Charlotte Cushman resolved to place herself in the front rank as an actress, even in such characters as Rosalind and Queen Katherine. The star actress was unable to perform, and Miss Cushman, her understudy, took her place. That night she held her audience with such grasp of intellect and iron will that it forgot the absence of mere dimpled feminine grace. Although poor, friendless, and unknown before, when the curtain fell upon her first performance at the London theater, her reputation was made. In after years, when physicians told her she had a terrible, incurable disease, she flinched not a particle, but quietly said, "I have learned to live with my trouble."
A poor colored woman in a log-cabin in the South had three boys, but could afford only one pair of trousers for the three. She was so anxious to give them an education that she sent them to school by turns. The teacher, a Northern girl, noticed that each boy came to school only one day out of three, and that all wore the same pantaloons. The poor mother educated her boys as best she could. One became a professor in a Southern college, another a physician, and the third a clergyman. What a lesson for boys who plead "no chance" as an excuse for wasted lives!
Sam Cunard, the whittling Scotch lad of Glasgow, wrought many odd inventions with brain and jack-knife, but they brought neither honor nor profit until he was consulted by Burns & McIvor, who wished to increase their facilities for carrying foreign mails. The model of a steamship which Sam whittled out for them was carefully copied for the first vessel of the great Cunard Line, and became the standard type for all the magnificent ships since constructed by the firm.
The new Testament and the speller were Cornelius Vanderbilt"s only books at school, but he learned to read, write, and cipher a little.
He wished to buy a boat, but had no money. To discourage him from following the sea, his mother told him if he would plow, harrow, and plant with corn, before the twenty-seventh day of the month, ten acres of rough, hard, stony land, the worst on his father"s farm, she would lend him the amount he wished. Before the appointed time the work was done, and well done. On his seventeenth birthday he bought the boat, but on his way home it struck a sunken wreck and sank just as he reached shallow water.
But Cornelius Vanderbilt was not the boy to give up. He at once began again, and in three years saved three thousand dollars. He often worked all night, and soon had far the largest patronage of any boatman in the harbor. During the War of 1812 he was awarded the Government contract to carry provisions to the military stations near the metropolis. He fulfilled his contract by night so that he might run his ferry-boat between New York and Brooklyn by day.
The boy who gave his parents all his day earnings and had half of what he got at night, was worth thirty thousand dollars at thirty-five, and when he died, at an advanced age, he left to his thirteen children one of the largest fortunes in America.
Lord Eldon might well have pleaded "no chance" when a boy, for he was too poor to go to school or even to buy books. But no; he had grit and determination, and was bound to make his way in the world. He rose at four o"clock in the morning and copied law books which he borrowed, the voluminous "c.o.ke upon Littleton" among others. He was so eager to study that sometimes he would keep it up until his brain refused to work, when he would tie a wet towel about his head to enable him to keep awake and to study. His first year"s practice brought him but nine shillings, yet he was bound not to give up.