Did you ever hear of John Pounds? Probably not, and yet he was one of
the world's benefactors. He was born in 1766, in Portsmouth, England.
In early life he learned the trade of a shipwright, but was so injured
by a fall that he had to abandon this. He then mastered the art of
mending shoes, and hired a little room in a weather-beaten tenement,
where for a while he lived alone, except for his birds. He loved birds
dearly, and always had a number of them flying about his room, perching
on his shoulder, or feeding from his hand.
In the course of time, a little cripple boy, his nephew, came to live
with Uncle John and the linnets and sparrows. The poor child had not the
use of his feet, which overlapped each other, and turned inward. The
kind uncle did not rest until he had gradually untwisted the feet,
strengthening them by an apparatus of old shoes and leather, and finally
taught them to walk.
Then he thought how much more pleasantly the time would pass for the boy
if he knew how to read and write, and so he began to instruct him.
Presently it occurred to him that he could teach a class as easily as he
could manage one pupil. So he invited some of the neighboring children
in, and, as the years went on, this singular picture might be seen:
In the centre of the little shop, six feet wide and about eighteen feet
long, the lame cobbler, with his jolly face and twinkling eyes, would be
seated, his last or lapstone on his knee, and his hands busily plying
the needle and thread. All around him would be faces. Dark eyes, blue
eyes, brown eyes, would shine from every corner, and the hum of young
voices and the tapping of slate-pencils were mingled with the singing of
the birds which enjoyed the buzz of the school.
Some of the pupils sat on the steps of the narrow stairway which led up
to the loft which was John's bedroom. Others were on boxes or blocks of
wood, and some sat contentedly on the floor. They learned to read,
write, and cipher as far as the Rule of Three, and besides they learned
good morals, for much homely wisdom fell from the cobbler's lips.
Hundreds of boys who had no other chance--for he gathered his scholars
from the poorest of the poor--learned all they ever knew of books from
this humble teacher. His happiest days were when some sunburned sailor
or soldier would stop in his doorway, perhaps with a parrot or a monkey
in his arms, saying, "Why, master dear, you surely have not forgotten
_me_, I hope?"
John Pounds taught his little school for more than forty years, never
asking nor accepting a cent of payment from any one.
At the age of seventy-two, on January 1, 1839, he suddenly died, while
looking with delight at a sketch of his school which had just been made
by an artist. For many days the children of the place were inconsolable,
and by twos and threes they came and stood by the closed door which in
John Pounds's time had always been open to the needy.
A life like this, so lowly yet so useful, contains lessons for us all.