THE ODOR OF OIL

It was Mr. Freese, too, who first got the young man interested in oil.

They were using sperm oil in those days, at a dollar and a half a

gallon. Somebody had found natural petroleum, thick, slimy, and

foul-smelling, in the Pennsylvania creeks, and a quantity of it had been

received in Cleveland by a next-door neighbor of the schoolmaster. The

neighbor thought it could be utilized in some way, but his experiments

were as crude as the ill-favored stuff itself. These consisted of

boiling, burning, and otherwise testing the oil, and the only result was

the incurring of the disfavor of the near-by residents. The young man

became interested at once. He, too, experimented with the black slime,

draining off the clearer portions and touching matches to it. The flames

were sickly, yellow, and malodorous.

“_There must be some way of deodorizing this oil_,” said John, “_and I

will find it_. There ought to be a good sale for it for illuminating

purposes, if the good oil can be separated from the sediment, and that

awful smell gotten rid of.”

How well the young man profited by the accidental meeting is a matter of

history. But I am digressing.

HIS FIRST LEDGER, AND THE ITEMS IN IT

While in Cleveland, slaving away at his tasks, Mr. Rockefeller was

training himself for the more busy days to come. He kept a small ledger

in which he entered all his receipts and expenditures, and I had the

privilege of examining this interesting little book, and having its

contents explained to me. It was nothing more than a small, paper-backed

memorandum book.

“When I looked this book up the other day, I thought I had but the

cover,” said Mr. Rockefeller, “but, on examination, I perceived that I

had utilized the cover to write on. In those days I was very economical,

just as I am economical now. Economy is a virtue. I hadn’t seen my

little ledger for a long time, when I found it among some old things. It

is more than forty-two years ago since I wrote what it contains. I

called it ‘Ledger A,’ and I wouldn’t exchange it now for all the ledgers

in New York city and their contents. A glance through it shows me how

carefully I kept account of my receipts and disbursements. I only wish

more young men could be induced to keep accounts like this nowadays. It

would go far toward teaching them the value of money.

“_Every young man should take care of his money. I think it is a man’s

duty to make all the money he can, keep all he can, and give away all he

can._ I have followed this principle religiously all my life, as is

evidenced in this book. It tells me just what I did with my money during

my first few years in business. Between September, 1855, and January,

1856, I received just fifty dollars. Out of this sum I paid for my

washing and my board, and managed to save a little besides. I find, in

looking through the book, that I gave a cent to Sunday school every

Sunday. It wasn’t much, but it was all that I could afford to give to

that particular object. _What I could afford to give to the_ _various

religious and charitable works, I gave regularly. It is a good habit for

a young man to get into._

“During my second year in Cleveland, I earned twenty-five dollars a

month. I was beginning to be a capitalist,” said Mr. Rockefeller, “and I

suppose I ought to have considered myself a criminal for having so much

money. I paid all my own bills at this time, and had some money to give

away. I also had the happiness of saving some. I am not sure, but I was

more independent then than now. I couldn’t buy the most fashionable cut

of clothing, but I dressed well enough. I certainly did not buy any

clothes I couldn’t pay for, as some young men do that I know of. I

didn’t make any obligations I could not meet, and _my earnest advice is

for every young man to live within his means. One of the swiftest

‘toboggan slides’ I know of, is for a young fellow just starting out

into the world to go into debt._

“During the time between November, 1855, and April, 1856, I paid out

just nine dollars and nine cents for clothing. And there is one item

that was certainly extravagant as I usually wore mittens in the winter.

This item is for fur gloves, two dollars and a half. In this same period

_I gave away five dollars and fifty-eight cents. In one month I gave to

foreign missions, ten cents, to the mite society, fifty cents, and

twelve cents to the Five Points Mission, in New York._ I wasn’t living

here then, of course, but I suppose I thought the Mission needed money.

These little contributions of mine were not large, but they brought me

into direct contact with church work, and that has been a benefit to me

all my life. It is a mistake for a man to think that he must be rich to

help others.”

TEN THOUSAND DOLLARS

_He earned and saved ten thousand dollars before he was twenty-five

years old._

Before he attained his majority, Rockefeller formed a partnership with

another young man named Hewett, and began a warehouse and produce

business. This was the natural outgrowth of his freight clerkship on the

docks. _In five years, he had amassed about ten thousand dollars_

besides earning a reputation for business capacity and probity.

HE REMEMBERED THE OIL

He never forgot those experiments with the crude oil. Discoveries became

more and more frequent in the Pennsylvania oil territory. There was a

rush of speculators to the new land of fortune. Men owning impoverished

farms suddenly found themselves rich. Thousands of excited men bid

wildly against each other for newly-shot wells, paying fabulous sums

occasionally for dry holes.

KEEPING HIS HEAD

John D. Rockefeller looked the entire field over carefully and calmly.

Never for a moment did he lose his head. His Cleveland bankers and

business friends had asked him to purchase some wells, if he saw fit,

offering to back him up with $75,000 for his own investment [he was

worth about $10,000 at the time], and to put in $400,000 more on his

report.

_The business judgment of this young man at twenty-five was so good,

that his neighbors were willing to invest half a million dollars at his

bidding._

He returned to Cleveland without investing a dollar. Instead of joining

the mad crowd of producers, he sagaciously determined to begin at the

other end of the business,—the refining of the product.

THERE WAS MORE MONEY IN A REFINERY

The use of petroleum was dangerous at that time, on account of the

highly inflammable gases it contained. Many persons stuck to candles and

sperm oil through fear of an explosion if they used the new illuminant.

The process of removing these superfluous gases by refining, or

distilling, as it was then called, was in its infancy. There were few

men who knew anything about it.

Among Rockefeller’s acquaintances in Cleveland was one of these men. His

name was Samuel Andrews. He had worked in a distillery, and was familiar

with the process. He believed that there was a great business to be

built up by removing the gases from the crude oil and making it safe for

household use. Rockefeller listened to him, and became convinced that he

was right. Here was a field as wide as the world, limited only by the

production of crude oil. It was a proposition on which he could figure

and make sure of the result. It was just the thing Rockefeller had been

looking for. He decided to leave the production of oil to others, and to

devote his attention to preparing it for market.

Andrews was a brother commission merchant. The two started a refinery,

each closing out his former business connection. In two weeks it was

running night and day to fill orders. So great was the demand, and so

great was the judgment of young Rockefeller,—seeing what no one else had

seen.

A second refinery had to be built at once, and in two years their plants

were turning out two thousand barrels of refined petroleum per day.

Henry M. Flagler, already wealthy, came into the firm, the name of which

then became Rockefeller, Flagler and Andrews. More refineries were

built, not only at Cleveland, but also at other advantageous points.

Competing refineries were bought or rendered ineffective by the cutting

of prices.

It is related that Mr. Andrews became one day dissatisfied, and he was

asked,—“What will you take for your interest?” Andrews wrote carelessly

on a piece of paper,—“One million dollars.” Within twenty-four hours he

was handed that amount; Mr. Rockefeller saying,—“Cheaper at one million

than ten.” In building up the refinery business Rockefeller was the

head; the others were the hands. He was always the general commanding,

the tactician. He made the plans and his associates carried them out.

Here was the post for which he had fitted himself, and in which his

genius for planning had full sway. In the conduct of the refinery

affairs, as in every enterprise in which he has taken part, he

exemplified another rule to which he had adhered from his boyhood days.

He was the leader in whatever he undertook. In going into any

undertaking, John D. Rockefeller has made it his rule to have the chief

authority in his own hands or to have nothing to do with the matter.

STANDARD OIL

In 1870, when Mr. Rockefeller was thirty-two years old, the business was

merged into the Standard Oil Company, starting with a capital of one

million dollars. Other pens have written the later story of that great

corporation; how it started pipe lines to carry the oil to the seaboard;

how it earned millions in by-products which had formerly run to waste;

how it covered the markets of the world in its keen search for trade,

distancing all competition, and cheapening its own processes so that its

dividends in one year, 1899, amounted to $23,000,000 in excess of the

fixed dividend upon the whole capital stock. This is the outcome of

thirty years’ development. The corporation is now the greatest business

combination of modern times, or of any age of the world. Mr.

Rockefeller’s annual income from his holdings of Standard Oil stock is

estimated at about sixteen millions of dollars.

MR. ROCKEFELLER’S PERSONALITY

The brains of all this, the owner of the largest percentage of the stock

in the parent corporation, and in most of the lesser ones, is now

sixty-two years old. His personality is simple and unaffected, his

tastes domestic, and the trend of his thoughts decidedly religious. His

Cleveland residential estate is superb, covering a large tract of

park-like land,—but even there he has shown his unselfishness by

donating a large portion of his land to the city for park purposes. His

New York home is not a pretentious place,—solid, but by no means elegant

in outward appearance. Between the two homes he divides his time with

his wife and children. He is an earnest and hardworking member of the

Fifth Avenue Baptist Church, in New York, and does much to promote the

good work carried on by that organization. He is particularly interested

in the Sunday-school work.

AT THE OFFICE

He arises early in the morning, at his home, and, after a light

breakfast, attends to some of his personal affairs there. He is always

early on hand at the great Standard Oil building on lower Broadway, New

York, and, during the day, he transacts business connected with the

management of that vast corporation. There is hardly one of our business

men of whom the public at large knows so little. He avoids publicity as

most men would the plague. The result is that he is the only one of our

very wealthy men who maintains the reputation of being different from

the ordinary run of mortals. To most newspaper readers, he is a man of

mystery, a sort of financial wizard who sits in his office and heaps up

wealth after the fashion of Aladdin and other fairy-tale heroes.

All this is wide of the mark. It would be hard to find a more

commonplace, matter-of-fact man than John D. Rockefeller. His tall form,

with the suggestion of a stoop in it, his pale, thoughtful face and

reserved manner, suggest the scholar or professional man rather than an

industrial Hercules or a Napoleon of finance. He speaks in a slow,

deliberate manner, weighing each word. There is nothing impulsive or

bombastic about him. But his conversation impresses one as consisting of

about one hundred per cent. of cold, compact, boiled-down common sense.

Here is to be noted one characteristic of the great oil magnate which

has helped to make him what he is. The popular idea of a

multi-millionaire is a man who has taken big risks, and has come out

luckily. He is a living refutation of this conception. He is careful and

cautious by nature, and he has made these traits habitual for a

lifetime; he conducts all his affairs on the strictest business

principles.

FORESIGHT

The qualities which have made him so successful are largely those which

go to the making of any successful business man,—industry, thrift,

perseverance, and foresight. Three of these qualities would have made

him a rich man; the last has distinguished him as the richest man. One

of his business associates said of him, the other day:—

“I believe the secret of his success, so far as there is any secret,

lies in power of foresight, which often seems to his associates to be

wonderful. It comes simply from his habit of looking at every side of a

question, of weighing the favorable and unfavorable features of a

situation, and of sifting out the inevitable result through his

unfailing good judgment.”

This is his own personal statement, put into other words, so it may be

accepted as true. The encouraging part of it is that, while such

foresight as Rockefeller displays may be ascribed partly to natural

endowment, both he and his friend say that it is more largely a matter

of habit, made effective by continual practice.

HYGIENE

At noon he takes a very simple lunch at his club, or at some downtown

restaurant. The lunch usually consists of a bowl of bread and milk. He

remains at the office until late in the afternoon, and before dinner he

takes some exercise. _In winter, he skates when possible._ And at other

seasons of the year he nearly always drives in the park or on the

avenues. Mr. Rockefeller has great faith in fresh air as a tonic.

AT HOME

The evenings are nearly always spent at home, for neither Mr.

Rockefeller nor any of the children are fond of “society,” as the word

is understood in New York. The children seem to have inherited many of

their father’s sensible ideas, and John D. Rockefeller, Jr., has

apparently escaped the fate of most rich men’s sons. He has a deep sense

of responsibility as the heir-apparent to so much wealth; and, since his

graduation from college, he has devoted himself to a business career,

starting at the bottom and working upward, step by step. It is now

generally known that he has been very successful in his business

ventures, and he bids fair to become a worthy successor to his father.

He is now actively engaged in important philanthropic enterprises in New

York. Miss Bessie became the wife of a poor clergyman of the Baptist

Church in Cleveland; while Miss Alta is married to a prominent young

business man in Chicago.

PHILANTHROPY

Mr. Rockefeller has during many years turned over to his children a

great many letters from needy people, asking them to exercise their own

judgment in distributing charities.

While he has himself given away millions for education and charity, he

would have given more were it not for his dread of seeming ostentatious.

But he never gives indiscriminately, nor out of hand. When a charity

appeals to him, he investigates it thoroughly, just as he would a

business scheme. If he decides that its object is worthy, he gives

liberally; otherwise, not a cent can be got out of him.

It may be imagined that such a man is busy to the full limit of his

working capacity. This is true. He is too busy for any of the pastimes

and pleasures in which most wealthy men seek diversion. He is thoroughly

devoted to his home and family, and spends as much as possible of his

time with them. He is a man who views life seriously, but in his quiet

way he can get as much enjoyment out of a good story or a meeting with

an old friend as can any other man.

PERSEVERANCE

When I asked Mr. Rockefeller what he considers has most helped him in

obtaining success in business, he answered: “It was early training, and

the fact that I was willing to persevere. I do not think there is any

other quality so essential to success of any kind as the quality of

perseverance. It overcomes almost everything, even nature.”

It is to be said of his business enterprises, looking at them in a large

way, that he has given to the world good honest oil, of standard

quality; that his employees are always well paid; that he has given away

more money in benevolence than any other business man in America. And

everything about the man indicates that he is likely to “persevere” in

the course he has so long pursued, turning his vast wealth into

institutes for public service.

A GENIUS FOR MONEY MAKING

“There are men born with a genius for money-making,” says Mathews. “They

have the instinct of accumulation. The talent and the inclination to

convert dollars into doubloons by bargains or shrewd investments are in

them just as strongly marked and as uncontrollable as were the ability

and the inclination of Shakespeare to produce Hamlet and Othello, of

Raphael to paint his cartoons, of Beethoven to compose his symphonies,

or Morse to invent an electric telegraph. As it would have been a gross

dereliction of duty, a shameful perversion of gifts, had these latter

disregarded the instincts of their genius and engaged in the scramble

for wealth, so would a Rothschild, an Astor, and a Peabody have sinned

had they done violence to their natures, and thrown their energies into

channels where they would have proved dwarfs and not giants.”

The opportunity which came to young Rockefeller does not occur many

times in many ages: and in a generous interpretation of his opportunity

he has already invested a great deal of his earnings in permanently

useful philanthropies.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

XIII

The Author of the Battle Hymn of the Republic—Her Views of Education for

Young Women

A POET, author, lecturer, wit and conversationalist, Mrs. Julia Ward

Howe unites with the attributes of a tender, womanly nature—which has

made her the idol of her husband and children—the sterner virtues of a

reformer; the unflinching courage which dares to stand with a small

minority in the cause of right; the indomitable perseverance and force

of character which persist in the demand for justice in face of the

determined opposition of narrow prejudice and old-time conservatism.

Although more Bostonian than the Bostonians themselves, Mrs. Howe first

saw the light in New York, and has spent much of her later life at

Newport. Born in 1819, in a stately mansion near the Bowling Green, then

the most fashionable quarter of New York, she was the fourth child of

Samuel Ward and Julia Cutler Ward, people of unusual culture,

refinement, and high ideals. Mr. Ward was a man of spotless honor and

business integrity; and, although not wealthy as compared with the

millionaires of to-day, his fortune was ample enough to surround his

wife and children with all the luxuries and refinements that the most

fastidious nature could crave. Mrs. Ward possessed a rare combination of

personal charms and mental gifts, which endeared her to all who had the

privilege of knowing her. All too soon, the death angel came and bore

away the lovely young wife and mother, then in her twenty-eighth year.

Rousing himself, with a great effort, from the grief into which the

death of his wife had plunged him, Mr. Ward devoted himself to the

training, and education of his children. Far in advance of his age in

the matter of higher education for women he selected as the tutor of his

daughters the learned Doctor Joseph Green Cogswell, with instruction to

teach them the full curriculum of Harvard college.

“LITTLE MISS WARD”

The scholarly and refined atmosphere of her father’s home, which was the

resort of the most distinguished men of letters of the day, was an

admirable school for the development of the literary and philosophic

mind of the “little Miss Ward,” as Mr. Ward’s eldest daughter had been

called from childhood.

Learned even beyond advanced college graduates of to-day, an

accomplished linguist, a musical amateur of great promise, the young and

beautiful Miss Julia Ward, of Bond street, soon became a leader of the

cultured and fashionable circle in which she moved. In the series,

“Authors at Home,” by M. C. Sherwood, we get a glimpse of her, about

that time, in a whimsical entry from the diary of a Miss Hamilton,

written at the time of the return of Doctor Howe, from Greece, whither

he had gone to fight the Turks:—

“I walked down Broadway with all the fashion and met the pretty blue

stocking, Miss Julia Ward, with her admirer, Doctor Howe, just home from

Europe. She had on a blue satin cloak and a white muslin dress. I looked

to see if she had on blue stockings, but I think not. I suspect that her

stockings were pink, and she wore low slippers, as grandmamma does. They

say she dreams in Italian and quotes French verses. She sang very

prettily at a party last evening. I noticed how white her hands were.

Still, though attractive, the muse is not handsome.”

SHE MARRIED A REFORMER

Soon after the loss of her father, in 1839, Miss Ward paid the first of

a series of visits to Boston, where she met, among other distinguished

people who became life-long friends, Sarah Margaret Fuller, Horace Mann,

Charles Sumner, and Ralph Waldo Emerson. In 1843 she was married to the

director of the institute for the blind, in South Boston, the physician

and reformer, Doctor Samuel G. Howe, of whom Sydney Smith

spoke—referring to the remarkable results attained in his education of

Laura Bridgman,—as “a modern Pygmalion who has put life into a statue.”

Immediately after their marriage, Doctor and Mrs. Howe sailed for

Europe, making London their first stopping place. There they met many

famous men and women, among them Charles Dickens, Thomas Carlyle, Sydney

Smith, Thomas Moore, the Duchess of Sutherland, John Forster, Samuel

Rogers, Richard Monckton Milnes, and many others. After an extensive

continental tour, including the Netherlands, Switzerland, Germany,

France, and Italy, Doctor and Mrs. Howe returned home and took up their

residence in South Boston.

One of her friends has said: “Mrs. Howe wrote leading articles from her

cradle;” and it is true that at seventeen, at least, she was an

anonymous but valued contributor to the _New York Magazine_, then a

prominent periodical. In 1854, her first volume of poems was published.

She named it “Passion Flowers,” and the Boston world of letters hailed

her as a new poet. Though published anonymously, the volume at once

revealed its author; and Mrs. Howe was welcomed into the poetic

fraternity by such shining lights as Emerson, Whittier, Longfellow,

Bryant, and Holmes. The poem by which the author will be forever

enshrined in her country’s memory is, _par excellence_, “The Battle Hymn

of the Republic,” which, like Kipling’s “Recessional,” sang itself at

once into the heart of the nation. As any sketch of Mrs. Howe would be

incomplete without the story of the birth of this great song of America,

it is here given in brief.

STORY OF THE “BATTLE HYMN OF THE REPUBLIC”

It was in the first year of our Civil War that Mrs. Howe, in company

with her husband and friends, visited Washington. During their stay in

that city, the party went to see a review of troops, which, however, was

interrupted by a movement of the enemy, and had to be put off for the

day. The carriage in which Mrs. Howe was seated with her friends was

surrounded by armed men; and, as they rode along, she began to sing, to

the great delight of the soldiers, “John Brown.” “Good for you!” shouted

the boys in blue, who, with a will, took up the refrain. Mrs. Howe then

began conversing with her friends on the momentous events of the hour,

and expressed the strong desire she felt to write some words which might

be sung to this stirring tune, adding that she feared she would never be

able to do so. “She went to sleep,” says her daughter, Maude Howe Eliot,

“full of thoughts of battle, and awoke before dawn the next morning to

find the desired verses immediately present to her mind. She sprang from

her bed, and in the dim gray light found a pen, and paper, whereon she

wrote, scarcely seeing them, the lines of the poem. Returning to her

couch, she was soon asleep, but not until she had said to herself, ‘I

like this better than anything I have ever written before.’”

“EIGHTY YEARS YOUNG”

Of Mrs. Howe it may very fittingly be said that she is eighty years

young. Her blue eye retains its brightness, and her dignified carriage

betokens none of the feebleness of age. Above all, her mind seems to

hold, in a marvelous degree, its youthful vigor and elasticity; a fact

that especially impressed me as the author of “The Battle Hymn of the

Republic” expressed her views on the desirability of a college training

for girls.

“The girls who go to college,” said Mrs. Howe, “are very much in

request, I should say for everything,—certainly for teaching. Then,

naturally, if they wish to follow literature, they have a very great

advantage over those who have not had the benefit of a college course,

having a liberal education to begin with.”

“Which is the greater advantage to a girl, to have talent or great

perseverance?”

“In order to accomplish anything really worth doing, I think great

perseverance is of the first importance. On the other hand, one cannot

do a great deal without talent, while special talent without

perseverance never amounts to much. I once heard Mr. Emerson say,

‘Genius without character is mere friskiness;’ and we all know of highly

gifted people, who, because lacking the essential quality of

perseverance, accomplish very little in the world.”

“Do you think the college girl will exercise a greater influence on

modern progress and the civilization of the future than her untrained

sister?”

“Oh, very much greater,” was the quick, emphatic reply. “In the first

place, I think that college-bred girls are quite as likely to marry as

others, and when a college girl marries, then the whole family is lifted

to a higher plane, the natural result of the well-trained, cultivated

mind. Mothers of old, you know, were very ignorant. Indeed, it is sad to

think what few advantages they had. Of course, some of them had

opportunities to study alone, but this solitary study could not

accomplish for them what the colleges, with their corps of specialists

and trained professors, are doing for the young women of to-day.”

THE IDEAL COLLEGE

Speaking of the advantages and disadvantages of coeducational

institutions, Mrs. Howe said:—

“While there are many advantages in coeducation, there are also some

dangers. The great advantage consists in the mingling of both sorts of

mind, the masculine and the feminine. This gives a completeness that

cannot otherwise be obtained. I have observed that when committees are

made up of both men and women, we get a roundness and completeness that

are lacking when the membership is composed of either sex alone; and so

in college recitations, where the boys present their side and the girls

theirs, we get better results. This, of course, is natural. Fortunately,

so far, scandals have been very rare, if found at all, in coeducation at

colleges. Many people, however, would not care to trust their children,

nor would we send every girl, to such colleges; and, for this reason, I

am glad that we have women’s colleges. I think, however, that, if the

students are at all earnest, and have high ideals set before them, the

coeducational is the ideal college; for the course in these colleges is

like a great intellectual race, which arouses and stimulates all the

nobler faculties.”

“What influence do you think environment has on one’s career,—on success

in life?”

“What do you mean by environment?”

“Well, I mean especially the sort of people with whom one is associated;

their order of mind?”

“I think it has a very important effect. If we are kept perpetually

under lowering influences—lowering both morally and æsthetically,—the

tendency will inevitably be to drag us down. I say æsthetically, because

I think in that sense good taste is a part of good morals. You can, of

course, have good taste without good morals; but with morality there is

a certain feeling or measure of reserve and nicety which does not

accompany good taste without good morals. You know St. Paul says: ‘Evil

communications corrupt good manners.’ That is as true to-day as it ever

was. We can’t always be with our equals or our superiors, however; we

must take people as we find them. But we should try to be with people

who stand for high things, morally and intellectually. Then, when we

have to be among people of a lower grade, we can help them, because I

think human nature, on the whole, desires to be elevated rather than

lowered.”

“Do you think it is necessary to success in life to have a special aim?”

“I think it is a great thing to have a special aim or talent, and it is

better to make one thing the leading interest in life than to run after

half-a-dozen.”

------------------------------------------------------------------------

XIV

A TALK WITH EDISON

DRAMATIC INCIDENTS IN HIS EARLY LIFE

TO discover the opinion of Thomas A. Edison concerning what makes and

constitutes success in life is an easy matter—if one can first discover

Mr. Edison. I camped three weeks in the vicinity of Orange, N.J.,

awaiting the opportunity to come upon the great inventor and voice my

questions. It seemed a rather hopeless and discouraging affair until he

was really before me; but, truth to say, he is one of the most

accessible of men, and only reluctantly allows himself to be hedged in

by pressure of endless affairs.

“Mr. Edison is always glad to see any visitor,” said a gentleman who is

continually with him, “except when he is hot on the trail of something

he has been working for, and then it is as much as a man’s head is worth

to come in on him.”

He certainly was not hot on the trail of anything on the morning when,

for the tenth time, I rang at the gate in the fence which surrounds the

laboratory on Valley Road, Orange. A young man appeared, who conducted

me up the walk to the Edison laboratory office.

THE LIBRARY

is a place not to be passed through without thought, for, with a further

store of volumes in his home, it contains one of the most costly and

well-equipped scientific libraries in the world; the collection of

writings on patent laws and patents, for instance, is absolutely

exhaustive. It gives, at a glance, an idea of the breadth of thought and

sympathy of this man who grew up with scarcely a common school

education.

On the second floor, in one of the offices of the machine shop, I was

asked to wait, while a grimy youth disappeared with my card, which he

said he would “slip under the door of Mr. Edison’s office.”

“Curious,” I thought; “what a lord this man must be if they dare not

even knock at his door!”

Thinking of this and gazing out the window, I waited until a working

man, who had entered softly, came up beside me. He looked with a sort of

“Well, what is it?” in his eyes, and quickly it began to come to me that

the man in the sooty, oil-stained clothes was Edison himself. The

working garb seemed rather incongruous, but there was no mistaking the

broad forehead, with its shock of blackish hair streaked with gray. The

gray eyes, too, were revelations in the way of alert comprehensiveness.

“Oh!” was all I could get out at the time.

“Want to see me?” he said, smiling in the most youthful and genial way.

“Why,—yes, certainly, to be sure,” I stammered.

He looked at me blankly.

“You’ll have to talk louder,” said an assistant who worked in another

portion of the room; “he don’t hear well.”

This fact was new to me, but I raised my voice with celerity, and piped

thereafter in an exceedingly shrill key. After the usual humdrum opening

remarks, in which he acknowledged his age as fifty-two years, and that

he was born in Erie county, O., of Dutch parentage, the family having

emigrated to America in 1730, the particulars began to grow more

interesting.

His great-grandfather, I learned, was a banker of high standing in New

York; and, when Thomas was but a child of seven years, the family

fortune suffered reverses so serious as to make it necessary that he

should become a wage-earner at an unusually early age, and that the

family should move from his birth-place to Michigan.

“Did you enjoy mathematics as a boy?” I asked.

“Not much,” he replied. “I tried to read Newton’s ‘Principia,’ at the

age of eleven. That disgusted me with pure mathematics, and I don’t

wonder now. I should not have been allowed to take up such serious

work.”

“You were anxious to learn?”

“Yes, indeed, _I attempted to read through the entire Free Library at

Detroit_, but other things interfered before I had done.”

A CHEMICAL NEWSBOY

“Were you a book-worm and dreamer?” I questioned.

“Not at all,” he answered, using a short, jerky method, as though he

were unconsciously checking himself up. “I became a newsboy, and liked

the work. Made my first coup as a newsboy in 1869.”

“What was it?” I ventured.

“I bought up on ‘futures’ a thousand copies of the _Detroit Free Press_

containing important war news,—gained a little time on my rivals, and

sold the entire batch like hot cakes. The price reached twenty-five

cents a paper before the end of the route,” and he laughed. “I ran the

_Grand Trunk Herald_, too, at that time—a little paper I issued from the

train.”

“When did you begin to be interested in invention?” I questioned.

“Well,” he said, “I began to dabble in chemistry at that time. I fitted

up a small laboratory on the train.”

In reference to this, Mr. Edison subsequently admitted that, during the

progress of some occult experiments in this workshop, certain

complications ensued in which a jolted and broken bottle of sulphuric

acid attracted the attention of the conductor. He, who had been long

suffering in the matter of unearthly odors, promptly ejected the young

devotee and all his works. This incident would have been only amusing

but for its relation to, and explanation of, his deafness. A box on the

ear, administered by the irate conductor, caused the lasting deafness.

TELEGRAPHY

“What was your first work in a practical line?” I went on.

“A telegraph line between my home and another boy’s, I made with the

help of an old river cable, some stove-pipe wire, and glass-bottle

insulators. I had my laboratory in the cellar and studied telegraphy

outside.”

“What was the first really important thing you did?”

“I saved a boy’s life.”

“How?”

“The boy was playing on the track near the depot. I saw he was in danger

and caught him, getting out of the way just in time. His father was

station-master, and taught me telegraphy in return.”

Dramatic situations appear at every turn of this man’s life. He seems to

have been continually arriving on the scene at critical moments, and

always with the good sense to take things in his own hands. The chance

of learning telegraphy only gave him a chance to show how apt a pupil he

was, and the railroad company soon gave him regular employment. At

seventeen, he had become one of the most expert operators on the road.

“Did you make much use of your inventive talent at this time?” I

questioned.

“Yes,” he answered. “I invented an automatic attachment for my telegraph

instrument which would send in the signal to show I was awake at my

post, when I was comfortably snoring in a corner. I didn’t do much of

that, though,” he went on; “for some such boyish trick sent me in

disgrace over the line into Canada.”

“Were you there long?”

“Only a winter. If it’s incident you want, I can tell you one of that

time. The place where I was and Sarnier, the American town, were cut off

from telegraphic and other means of communication by the storms, until I

got at a locomotive whistle and tooted a telegraphic message. I had to

do it again and again, but eventually they understood over the water and

answered in the same way.”

According to his own and various recorded accounts, Edison was

successively in charge of important wires in Memphis, Cincinnati, New

Orleans, and Louisville. He lived in the free-and-easy atmosphere of the

tramp operators—a boon companion with them, yet absolutely refusing to

join in the dissipations to which they were addicted. So highly esteemed

was he for his honesty, that it was the custom of his colleagues, when a

spree was on hand, to make him the custodian of those funds which they

felt obliged to save. On a more than usually hilarious occasion, one of

them returned rather the worse for wear, and knocked the treasurer down

on his refusal to deliver the trust money; the other depositors, we may

be glad to note, gave the ungentlemanly tippler a sound thrashing.

HIS USE OF MONEY

“Were you good at saving your own money?” I asked.

“No,” he said, smiling. “I never was much for saving money, as money. I

devoted every cent, regardless of future needs, to scientific books and

materials for experiments.”

“You believe that an excellent way to succeed?”

“Well, it helped me greatly to future success.”

INVENTIONS

“What was your next invention?” I inquired.

“An automatic telegraph recorder—a machine which enabled me to record

dispatches at leisure, and send them off as fast as needed.”

“How did you come to hit upon that?”

“Well, at the time, I was in such straits that I had to walk from

Memphis to Louisville. At the Louisville station they offered me a

place. I had perfected a style of handwriting which would allow me to

take legibly from the wire, long hand, forty-seven and even fifty-four

words a minute, but I was only a moderately rapid sender. I had to do

something to help me on that side, and so I thought out that little

device.”

Later I discovered an article by one of his biographers, in which a

paragraph referring to this Louisville period, says:—

“True to his dominant instincts, he was not long in gathering around him

a laboratory, printing-office, and machine shop. He took press reports

during his whole stay, including on one occasion, the Presidential

message, by Andrew Johnson, and this at one sitting, from 3.30 P.M. to

4.30 A.M.

“He then paragraphed the matter he had received over the wires, so that

printers had exactly three lines each, thus enabling them to set up a

column in two or three minutes’ time. For this, he was allowed all the

exchanges he desired, and the Louisville press gave him a dinner.”

“How did you manage to attract public attention to your ability?” I

questioned.

“I didn’t manage,” said the Wizard. “Some things I did created comment.

A device that I invented in 1868, which utilized one sub-marine cable

for two circuits, caused considerable talk, and the Franklin telegraph

office of Boston gave me a position.”

It is related of this, Mr. Edison’s first trip East, that he came with

no ready money and in a rather dilapidated condition. His colleagues

were tempted by his “hayseed” appearance to “salt” him, as professional

slang terms the process of giving a receiver matter faster than he can

record it. For this purpose, the new man was assigned to a wire

manipulated by a New York operator famous for his speed. But there was

no fun at all. Notwithstanding the fact that the New Yorker was in the

game and was doing his most speedy clip, Edison wrote out the long

message accurately, and, when he realized the situation, was soon firing

taunts over the wire at the sender’s slowness.

“Had you patented many things up to the time of your coming East?” I

queried.

“Nothing,” said the inventor, ruminatively. “I received my first patent

in 1869.”

“For what?”

“A machine for recording votes, and designed to be used in the State

Legislature.”

“I didn’t know such machines were in use,” I ventured.

“They ar’n’t,” he answered, with a merry twinkle. “The better it worked,

the more impossible it was; the sacred right of the minority, you

know,—couldn’t filibuster if they used it,—didn’t use it.”

“Oh!”

“Yes, it was an ingenious thing. Votes were clearly pointed and shown on

a roll of paper, by a small machine attached to the desk of each member.

I was made to learn that such an innovation was out of the question, but

it taught me something.”

“And that was?”

“To be sure of the practical need of, and demand for, a machine, before

expending time and energy on it.”

“Is that one of your maxims of success?”

“It is. It is a good rule to give people something they want, and they

will pay money to get it.”

HIS ARRIVAL AT THE METROPOLIS

In this same year, Edison removed from Boston to New York, friendless

and in debt on account of the expenses of his experiment. For several

weeks he wandered about the town with actual hunger staring him in the

face. It was a time of great financial excitement, and with that strange

quality of Fortunism, which seems to be his chief characteristic, he

entered the establishment of the Law Gold Reporting Company just as

their entire plant had shut down on account of an accident in the

machinery that could not be located. The heads of the firm were anxious

and excited to the last degree, and a crowd of the Wall street

fraternity waited about for the news which came not. The shabby stranger

put his finger on the difficulty at once, and was given lucrative

employment. In the rush of the metropolis, a man finds his true level

without delay especially when his talents are of so practical and

brilliant a nature as were this young telegrapher’s. It would be an

absurdity to imagine an Edison hidden in New York. Within a short time,

he was presented with a check for $40,000, as his share of a single

invention—an improved stock printer. From this time, a national

reputation was assured him. He was, too, now engaged upon the duplex and

quadruplex systems—systems for sending two and four messages at the same

time over a single wire,—which were to inaugurate almost a new era in

telegraphy.

MENTAL CONCENTRATION

Recalling the incident of the Law Gold Reporting Company, I inquired:

“Do you believe want urges a man to greater efforts, and so to greater

success?”

“It certainly makes him keep a sharp look-out. I think it does push a

man along.”

“Do you believe that invention is a gift, or an acquired ability?”

“I think it’s born in a man.”

“And don’t you believe that familiarity with certain mechanical

conditions and defects naturally suggests improvements to any one?”

“No. Some people may be perfectly familiar with a machine all their

days, knowing it inefficient, and never see a way to improve it.”

“What do you think is the first requisite for success in your field, or

any other?”

“_The ability to apply your physical and mental energies to one problem

incessantly without growing weary._”

TWENTY HOURS A DAY

“Do you have regular hours, Mr. Edison?” I asked.

“Oh,” he said, “I do not work hard now. I come to the laboratory about

eight o’clock every day and go home to tea at six, and then I study or

work on some problem until eleven, which is my hour for bed.”

“Fourteen of fifteen hours a day can scarcely be called loafing,” I

suggested.

“Well,” he replied, “for fifteen years I have worked on an average of

twenty hours a day.”

When he was forty-seven years old, he estimated his true age at

eighty-two, since working only eight hours a day would have taken till

that time.

Mr. Edison has sometimes worked sixty consecutive hours upon one

problem. Then after a long sleep, he was perfectly refreshed and ready

for another.

A RUN FOR BREAKFAST

Mr. Dickson, a neighbor and familiar, gives an anecdote told by Edison

which well illustrates his untiring energy and phenomenal endurance. In

describing his Boston experience, Edison said he bought Faraday’s works

on electricity, commenced to read them at three o’clock in the morning

and continued until his room-mate arose, when they started on their long

walk to get breakfast. That object was entirely subordinated in Edison’s

mind to Faraday, and he suddenly remarked to his friend: “‘Adams, I have

got so much to do, and life is so short, that I have got to hustle,’ and

with that I started off on a dead run for my breakfast.”

“I’ve known Edison since he was a boy of fourteen,” said another friend;

“and of my own knowledge I can say he never spent an idle day in his

life. Often, when he should have been asleep, I have known him to sit up

half the night reading. He did not take to novels or wild Western

adventures, but read works on mechanics, chemistry, and electricity; and

he mastered them too. But in addition to his reading, which he could

only indulge in at odd hours, he carefully cultivated his wonderful

powers of observation, till at length, when he was not actually asleep,

it may be said he was learning all the time.”

NOT BY ACCIDENT AND NOT FOR FUN

“Are your discoveries often brilliant intuitions? Do they come to you

while you are lying awake nights?” I asked him.

“I never did anything worth doing by accident,” he replied, “nor did any

of my inventions come indirectly through accident, except the

phonograph.[4] No, when I have fully decided that a result is worth

getting, I go about it, and make trial after trial, until it comes.”

Footnote 4:

“I was singing to the mouthpiece of a telephone,” said Edison, “when

the vibrations of my voice caused a fine steel point to pierce one of

my fingers held just behind it. That set me to thinking. If I could

record the motions of the point and send it over the same surface

afterward, I saw no reason why the thing would not talk. I determined

to make a machine that would work accurately, and gave my assistants

the necessary instructions, telling them what I had discovered. That’s

the whole story. The phonograph is the result of the pricking of a

finger.”

“I have always kept,” continued Mr. Edison, “strictly within the lines

of commercially useful inventions. I have never had any time to put on

electrical wonders, valuable only as novelties to catch the popular

fancy.”

“I LIKE IT—I HATE IT”

“What makes you work?” I asked with real curiosity. “What impels you to

this constant, tireless struggle? You have shown that you care

comparatively nothing for the money it makes you, and you have no

particular enthusiasm for the attending fame. What is it?”

“I like it,” he answered, after a moment of puzzled expression. “I don’t

know any other reason. Anything I have begun is always on my mind, and I

am not easy while away from it, until it is finished; and then I hate

it.”

“Hate it?” I said.

“Yes,” he affirmed, “when it is all done and is a success, I can’t bear

the sight of it. I haven’t used a telephone in ten years, and I would go

out of my way any day to miss an incandescent light.”[5]

Footnote 5:

“After I have completed an invention,” remarked Edison, upon another

occasion, “I seem to lose interest in it. One might think that the

money value of an invention constitutes its reward to the man who

loves his work. But, speaking for myself, I can honestly say this is

not so. Life was never more full of joy to me, than when, a poor boy,

I began to think out improvements in telegraphy, and to experiment

with the cheapest and crudest appliances. But now that I have all the

appliances I need, and am my own master, I continue to find my

greatest pleasure, and so my reward, in the work that precedes what

the world calls success.”

DOING ONE THING EIGHTEEN HOURS IS THE SECRET

“You lay down rather severe rules for one who wishes to succeed in

life,” I ventured, “working eighteen hours a day.”

“Not at all,” he said. “You do something all day long, don’t you? Every

one does. If you get up at seven o’clock and go to bed at eleven, you

have put in sixteen good hours, and it is certain with most men, that

they have been doing something all the time. They have been either

walking, or reading, or writing, or thinking. The only trouble is that

they do it about a great many things and I do it about one. If they took

the time in question and applied it in one direction, to one object,

they would succeed. Success is sure to follow such application. The

trouble lies in the fact that people do not have an object—one thing to

which they stick, letting all else go. Success is the product of the

severest kind of mental and physical application.”

POSSIBILITIES IN THE ELECTRICAL FIELD

“You believe, of course,” I suggested, “that much remains to be

discovered in the realm of electricity?”

“It is the field of fields,” he answered. “We can’t talk of that, but it

holds the secrets which will reorganize the life of the world.”

“You have discovered much about it,” I said, smiling.

“Yes,” he said, “and yet very little in comparison with the

possibilities that appear.”

ONLY SIX HUNDRED INVENTIONS

“How many inventions have you patented?”

“Only six hundred,” he answered, “but I have made application for some

three hundred more.”

“And do you expect to retire soon, after all this?”

“I hope not,” he said, almost pathetically. “I hope I will be able to

work right on to the close. I shouldn’t care to loaf.”

HIS COURTSHIP AND HIS HOME

The idea of the great electrician’s marrying was first suggested by an

intimate friend, who told him that his large house and numerous servants

ought to have a mistress. Although a very shy man, he seemed pleased

with the proposition, and timidly inquired whom he should marry. The

friend, annoyed at his apparent want of sentiment, somewhat testily

replied,—“Anyone.” But Edison was not without sentiment when the time

came. One day, as he stood behind the chair of a Miss Stillwell, a

telegraph operator in his employ, he was not a little surprised when she

suddenly turned round and said:

“Mr. Edison, I can always tell when you are behind me or near me.”

It was now Miss Stillwell’s turn to be surprised, for, with

characteristic bluntness and ardor, Edison fronted the young lady, and,

looking her full in the face, said:

“I’ve been thinking considerably about you of late, and, if you are

willing to marry me, I would like to marry you.”

The young lady said she would consider the matter, and talk it over with

her mother. The result was that they were married a month later, and the

union proved a very happy one.

It was in fact no more an accident than other experiments in the Edison

laboratory—his bride having been long the subject of the Wizzard’s

observation—her mental capacity, her temper and temperament, her

aptitude for home-making being duly tested and noted.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Illustration:

_General Lew Wallace in his study._

(_See page 241._)]

XV

A FASCINATING STORY

BY GENERAL LEW WALLACE

IN his study, a curiously-shaped building lighted from the top, and

combining in equal portions the Byzantine, Romanesque and Doric styles

of architecture, the gray-haired author of “Ben-Hur,” surrounded by his

pictures, books, and military trophies, is spending, in serene and

comfortable retirement, the evening of his life. As I sat beside him,

the other day, and listened to the recital of his earlier struggles and

later achievements, I could not help contrasting his dignified bearing,

careful expression, and gentle demeanor, with another occasion in his

life, when, as a vigorous, black-haired young military officer, in the

spring of 1861, he appeared, with flashing eye and uplifted sword, at

the head of his regiment, the gallant and historic Eleventh Indiana

Volunteers.

General Wallace never repels a visitor, and his greeting is cordial and

ingenuous.

“If I could say anything to stimulate or encourage the young men of

to-day,” he said, “I would gladly do so, but I fear that the story of my

early days would be of very little interest or value to others. So far

as school education is concerned, it may be truthfully said that I had

but little, if any; and if, in spite of that deficiency, I ever arrived

at proficiency, I reached it, I presume, as Topsy attained her

stature,—‘just growed into it.’”

A BOYHOOD OF WASTED OPPORTUNITIES

“Were you denied early school advantages?” I asked.

“Not in the least. On the contrary, I had most abundant opportunity in

that respect.

“My father was a lawyer, enjoying a lucrative practice in Brookville,

Indiana,—a small town which bears the distinction of having given to the

world more prominent men than any other place in the Hoosier State. Not

long after my birth, he was elected lieutenant-governor, and, finally,

governor of the state. He, himself, was an educated man, having been

graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point, and

having served as instructor in mathematics there. He was not only an

educated man, but a man of advanced ideas generally, as shown by the

fact that _he failed of a re-election to congress in 1840, because, as a

member of the committee on commerce, he gave the casting vote in favor

of an appropriation to develop Morse’s magnetic telegraph_.

“Of course, he believed in the value, and tried to impress upon me the

necessity of a thorough school training. But, in the face of all the

solicitude and encouragement which an indulgent father could waste on an

unappreciative son, I remained vexatiously indifferent. I presume I was

like some man in history,—it was Lincoln, I believe,—who said that his

father taught him to work, but he never quite succeeded in teaching him

to love it.

“My father sent me to school, and regularly paid tuition,—for in those

days there were no free schools; but, much to my discredit, he failed to

secure anything like regular attendance at recitations, or even a decent

attempt to master my lessons at any time. In fact, much of the time that

should have been given to school was spent in fishing, hunting, and

roaming through the woods.”

HIS BOYHOOD LOVE FOR HISTORY AND LITERATURE

“But were you thus indifferent to all forms of education?”

“No, my case was not quite so hopeless as that. I did not desert the

schools entirely, but my attendance was so provokingly irregular and my

indifference so supreme, I wonder now that I was tolerated at all. But I

had one mainstay; I loved to read. I was a most inordinate reader. In

some lines of literature, especially history and some kinds of fiction,

my appetite was insatiate, and many a day, while my companions were

clustered together in the old red brick schoolhouse, struggling with

their problems in fractions or percentage, I was carefully hidden in the

woods near by, lying upon my elbows, munching an apple, and reveling in

the beauties of Plutarch, Byron or Goldsmith.”

“Did you not attend college, or the higher grade of schools?”

“Yes, for a brief period. My brother was a student in Wabash

College,—here in Crawfordsville,—and hither I also was sent; but within

six weeks I had tired of the routine, was satiated with discipline, and

made my exit from the institution.

“I shall never forget what my father did when I returned home. He called

me into his office, and, reaching into one of the pigeon-holes above his

desk, withdrew therefrom a package of papers neatly folded and tied with

the conventional red tape. He was a very systematic man, due, perhaps,

to his West Point training, and these papers proved to be the receipts

for my tuition, which he had carefully preserved. He called off the

items, and asked me to add them together. The total, I confess,

staggered me.”

A FATHER’S FRUITFUL WARNING

“‘That sum, my son,’ he said, with a tone of regret in his voice,

‘represents what I have expended in these many years past to provide you

with a good education. How successful I have been, you know better than

anyone else.’

“‘After mature reflection, I have come to the conclusion that I have

done for you in that direction all that can reasonably be expected of

any parent; and I have, therefore, called you in to tell you that you

have now reached an age when you must take up the lines yourself. If you

have failed to profit by the advantages with which I have tried so hard

to surround you, the responsibility must be yours. I shall not upbraid

you for your neglect, but rather pity you for the indifference which you

have shown to the golden opportunities you have, through my indulgence,

been enabled to enjoy.’”

A MANHOOD OF SPLENDID EFFORT

“What effect did his admonition have on you? Did it awaken or arouse

you?”

“It aroused me, most assuredly. It set me to thinking as nothing before

had done. The next day, I set out with a determination to accomplish

something for myself. My father’s injunction rang in my ears. New

responsibilities rested on my shoulders, as I was, for the first time in

my life, my own master. I felt that I must get work on my own account.

“After much effort, I finally obtained employment from the man with whom

I had passed so many afternoons strolling up and down the little streams

in the neighborhood, trying to fish. He was the county clerk, and he

hired me to copy what was known as the complete record of one of the

courts. I worked for months in a dingy, half-lighted room, receiving for

my pay something like ten cents per hundred words. The tediousness and

THE REGULARITY OF THE WORK WAS A SPLENDID DRILL FOR ME,

and taught me the virtue of persistence as one of the avenues of

success. It was at this time I began to realize _the deficiency in my

education_, especially as I had an ambition to become a lawyer. Being

deficient in both mathematics and grammar, _I was forced to study

evenings_. Of course, the latter was a very exacting study, after a full

day’s hard work; but I was made to realize that _the time I had spent

with such lavish prodigality could not be recovered_, and that I must

extract every possible good out of the golden moments then flying by all

too fast.”

SELF-EDUCATION BY READING AND LITERARY COMPOSITION

“Had you a distinct literary ambition at that time?”

“Well, I had always had a sort of literary bent or inclination. I read

all the literature of the day, besides the standard authors, and finally

began to devote my odd moments to a book of my own,—a tale based on the

days of the crusades. When completed, it covered about three hundred and

fifty pages, and bore the rather high-sounding title, ‘The Man-at-Arms.’

I read a good portion of it before a literary society to which I

belonged; the members applauded it, and I was frequently urged to have

it published.

“The Mexican War soon followed, however, and I took the manuscript with

me when I enlisted. But before the close of my service it was lost, and

my production, therefore, never reached the public eye.”

“But did not the approval which the book received from the few persons

who read it encourage you to continue writing?”

“Fully fifty years have elapsed since then, and it is, therefore, rather

difficult, at this late day, to recall just how such things affected me.

I suppose I was encouraged thereby, for, in due course of time, another

book which turned out to be

“THE FAIR GOD”

my first book to reach the public,—began to shape itself in my mind. The

composition of this work was not, as the theatrical people would say, a

continuous performance, for there were many and singular interruptions;

and it would be safe to say that months, and, in one case, years,

intervened between certain chapters. A few years after the war, I

finished the composition, strung the chapters into a continuous

narrative, leveled up the uneven places, and started East with the

manuscript. A letter from Whitelaw Reid, then editor of the New York

_Tribune_, introduced me to the head of one of the leading publishing

houses in Boston. There I was kindly received, and delivered my

manuscript, which was referred to a professional reader, to determine

its literary, and also, I presume, its commercial value.

“It would be neither a new nor an interesting story to acquaint the

public with the degree of anxious suspense that pervaded my mind when I

withdrew to await the reader’s judgment. Every other writer has, I

assume, at one time or another, undergone much the same experience. It

was not long until I learned from the publisher that the reader reported

in favor of my production. Publication soon followed, and for the first

time, in a literary sense, I found myself before the public, and my book

before the critics.”

THE ORIGIN OF “BEN-HUR”

“How long after this did ‘Ben-Hur’ appear, and what led you to write

it?”

“I began ‘Ben-Hur’ about 1876, and it was published in 1880. The

purpose, at first, was a short serial for one of the magazines,

descriptive of the visit of the wise men to Jerusalem as mentioned in

the first two verses of the second chapter of Matthew. It will be

recognized in ‘Book First’ of the work as now published. For certain

reasons, however, the serial idea was abandoned, and the narrative,

instead of ending with the birth of the Saviour, expanded into a more

pretentious novel and only ended with the death scene on Calvary. The

last ten chapters were written in the old adobe palace at Santa Fé, New

Mexico, where I was serving as governor.

“It is difficult to answer the question, ‘what led me to write the

book;’ or why I chose a piece of fiction which used Christ as its

leading character. In explanation, it is proper to state that I had

reached an age in life when men usually begin to study themselves with

reference to their fellowmen, and reflect on the good they may have done

in the world. _Up to that time, never having read the Bible_, I knew

nothing about sacred history; and, in matters of a religious nature,

although I was not in every respect an infidel, I was persistently and

notoriously indifferent. _I did not know, and therefore, did not care._

I resolved to begin the study of the good book in earnest.

INFLUENCE OF THE STORY OF THE CHRIST UPON THE AUTHOR

“I was in quest of knowledge, but I had no faith to sustain, no creed to

bolster up. The result was that the whole field of religious and

biblical history opened up before me; and, my vision not being clouded

by previously formed opinions, I was enabled to survey it without the

aid of lenses. I believe I was thorough and persistent. I know I was

conscientious in my search for the truth. I weighed, I analyzed, I

counted and compared. The evolution from conjecture into knowledge,

through opinion and belief, was gradual but irresistible; and at length

I stood firmly and defiantly on the solid rock.

“Upward of seven hundred thousand copies of ‘Ben-Hur’ have been

published, and it has been translated into all languages from French to

Arabic. But, whether it has ever influenced the mind of a single reader

or not, I am sure its conception and preparation—if it has done nothing

more—have convinced its author of the divinity of the lowly Nazarene who

walked and talked with God.”

------------------------------------------------------------------------

XVI

Carnegie as a Metal Worker

“THERE is no doubt,” said Mr. Carnegie, in reply to a question from me,

“that it is becoming harder and harder, as business gravitates more and

more to immense concerns, for a young man without capital to get a start

for himself, and in the large cities it is especially so, where large

capital is essential. Still it can be honestly said that there is no

other country in the world, where able and energetic young men and women

can so readily rise as in this. A president of a business college

informed me, recently, that he has never been able to supply the demand

for capable, first-class [Mark the adjective.] bookkeepers, and his

college has over nine hundred students. In America, young men of ability

rise with most astonishing rapidity.”

“As quickly as when you were a boy?”

“Much more so. When I was a boy, there were but very few important

positions that a boy could aspire to. Every position had to be made. Now

a boy doesn’t need to make the place,—all he has to do is to fit himself

to take it.”

EARLY WORK AND WAGES

“Where did you begin life?”

“In Dunfermline, Scotland, during my earliest years. The service of my

life has all been in this country.”

“In Pittsburg?”

“Largely so. My father settled in Allegheny City, when I was only ten

years old, and I began to earn my way in Pittsburg.”

“Do you mind telling me what your first service was?”

“Not at all. I was a bobbin boy in a cotton factory, then an engine-man

or boy in the same place, and later still I was a messenger boy for a

telegraph company.”

“At small wages, I suppose?”

“One dollar and twenty cents a week was what I received as a bobbin boy,

and I considered it pretty good, at that. When I was thirteen, I had

learned to run a steam engine, and for that I received a dollar and

eighty cents a week.”

“You had no early schooling, then?”

“None except such as I gave myself.”

COLONEL ANDERSON’S BOOKS

“There were no fine libraries then, but in Allegheny City, where I

lived, there was a certain Colonel Anderson, who was well to do and of a

philanthropic turn. He announced, about the time I first began to work,

that he would be in his library at home, every Saturday, ready to lend

books to working boys and men. He had only about four hundred volumes,

but I doubt if ever so few books were put to better use. Only he who has

longed, as I did for Saturday to come, that the spring of knowledge

might be opened anew to him, can understand what Colonel Anderson did

for me and others of the boys of Allegheny. Quite a number of them have

risen to eminence, and I think their rise can be easily traced to this

splendid opportunity.”[6]

Footnote 6:

It was Colonel Anderson’s kindness that led Carnegie to bestow his

wealth so generously for founding libraries, as he is now doing every

year.

HIS FIRST GLIMPSE OF PARADISE

“How long did you remain an engine-boy?”

“Not very long,” Mr. Carnegie replied; “perhaps a year.”

“And then?”

“I entered a telegraph office as a messenger boy.”

Although Mr. Carnegie did not dwell much on this period, he once

described it at a dinner given in honor of the American Consul at

Dunfermline, Scotland, when he said:—

“I awake from a dream that has carried me away back to the days of my

boyhood, the day when the little white-haired Scottish laddie, dressed

in a blue jacket, walked with his father into the telegraph office in

Pittsburg to undergo examination as an applicant for a position as

messenger boy.

“Well I remember when my uncle spoke to my parents about it, and my

father objected, because I was then getting one dollar and eighty cents

per week for running the small engine in a cellar in Allegheny City, but

my uncle said a messenger’s wages would be two dollars and fifty

cents.... If you want an idea as to heaven on earth, imagine what it is

to be taken from a dark cellar, where I fired the boiler from morning

until night, and dropped into an office, where light shone from all

sides, with books, papers, and pencils in profusion around me, and oh,

the tick of those mysterious brass instruments on the desk, annihilating

space and conveying intelligence to the world. This was my first glimpse

of paradise, and I walked on air.”

“How did you manage to rise from this position?”

“I learned how to operate a telegraph instrument, and then waited an

opportunity to show that I was fit to be an operator. Eventually my

chance came.”

The truth is that James D. Reid, the superintendent of the office, and

himself a Scotchman, favored the ambitious lad. In his “History of the

Telegraph,” he says of him:—

“I liked the boy’s looks, and it was easy to see that, though he was

little, he was full of spirit. He had not been with me a month when he

asked me to teach him to telegraph. He spent all his spare time in

practice, sending and receiving by sound and not by tape, as was the

custom in those days. Pretty soon he could do as well as I could at the

key.”

INTRODUCED TO A BROOM

“As you look back upon it,” I said to Mr. Carnegie, “do you consider

that so lowly a beginning is better than one a little less trying?”

“For young men starting upon their life work, it is much the best to

begin as I did, at the beginning, and occupy the most subordinate

positions. Many of the present-day leading men of Pittsburg, had serious

responsibility thrust upon them at the very threshold of their careers.

They were introduced to the broom, and spent the first hours of their

business life sweeping out the office. I notice we have janitors and

janitresses now in offices, and our young men, unfortunately, miss that

salutary branch of early education. It does not hurt the newest comer to

sweep out the office.”

“Did you?”

“Many’s the time. And who do you suppose were my fellow sweepers? David

McBargo, afterwards superintendent of the Allegheny Valley Railroad;

Robert Pitcairn, afterwards superintendent of the Pennsylvania Railroad;

and Mr. Mooreland, subsequently City Attorney of Pittsburg. We all took

turns, two each morning doing the sweeping; and now I remember Davie was

so proud of his clean shirt bosom that he used to spread over it an old

silk handkerchief which he kept for the purpose, and we other boys

thought he was putting on airs. So he was. None of us had a silk

handkerchief.”

“After you had learned to telegraph, did you consider that you had

reached high enough?”

“Just at that time my father died, and the burden of the support of the

family fell upon me. I earned as an operator twenty-five dollars a

month, and a little additional money by copying telegraphic messages for

the newspapers, and managed to keep the family independent.”

AN EXPERT TELEGRAPHER

More light on this period of Mr. Carnegie’s career is given by the

“_Electric Age_,” which says:—“As a telegraph operator he was abreast of

older and experienced men; and, although receiving messages by sound

was, at that time, forbidden by authority as being unsafe, young

Carnegie quickly acquired the art, and he can still stand behind the

ticker and understand its language. As an operator, he delighted in full

employment and the prompt discharge of business, and a big day’s work

was his chief pleasure.”

“How long did you remain with the telegraph company?”

“Until I was given a place by the Pennsylvania Railroad Company.”

“As an operator?”

“At first,—until I showed how the telegraph could minister to railroad

safety and success; then I was made secretary to Thomas A. Scott, the

superintendent; and not long afterwards, when Colonel Scott became

vice-president, I was made superintendent of the western division.”

Colonel Scott’s attention was drawn to Carnegie by the operator’s

devising a plan for running trains by telegraph, so making the most of a

single track. Up to this time no one had ever dreamed of running trains

in opposite directions, towards each other, directing them by telegraph,

one train being sidetracked while the other passed. The boy studied out

a train-despatching system which was afterwards used on every

single-track railroad in the country. Nobody had ever thought of this

before, and the officials were so pleased with the ingenious lad, that

they placed him in charge of a division office, and before he was twenty

made him superintendent of the western division of the road.

WHAT EMPLOYERS THINK OF YOUNG MEN

Concerning this period of his life, I asked Mr. Carnegie if his

promotion was not a matter of chance, and whether he did not, at the

time, feel it to be so. His answer was emphatic.

“Never. Young men give all kinds of reasons why, in their cases, failure

is attributable to exceptional circumstances, which rendered success

impossible. Some never had a chance, according to their own story. This

is simply nonsense. No young man ever lived who had not a chance, and a

splendid chance, too, if he was ever employed at all. He is assayed in

the mind of his immediate superior, from the day he begins work, and,

after a time, if he has merit, he is assayed in the council chambers of

the firm. His ability, honesty, habits, associations, temper,

disposition,—all these are weighed and analyzed. The young man who never

had a chance is the same young man who has been canvassed over and over

again by his superiors, and found destitute of necessary qualifications,

or is deemed unworthy of closer relations with the firm, owing to some

objectionable act, habit or association, of which he thought his

employers ignorant.”

“It sounds true.”

“It is.”

THE RIGHT MEN IN DEMAND

“Another class of young men attributes failure to rise to employers

having near relatives or favorites whom they advance unfairly. They also

insist that their employers dislike brighter intelligences than their

own, and are disposed to discourage aspiring genius, and delighted in

keeping young men down. There is nothing in this. On the contrary, there

is no one suffering more for lack of the right man in the right place as

the average employer, nor anyone more anxious to find him.”

“Was this your theory on the subject when you began working for the

railroad company?”

“I had no theory then, although I have formulated one since. It lies

mainly in this: Instead of the question, ‘What must I do for my

employer?’ substitute, ‘What can I do?’ Faithful and conscientious

discharge of duties assigned you is all very well, but the verdict in

such cases generally is that you perform your present duties so well,

that you would better continue performing them. Now, this will not do.

It will not do for the coming partners. There must be something beyond

this. We make clerks, bookkeepers, treasurers, bank tellers of this

class, and there they remain to the end of the chapter. _The rising man

must do something exceptional, and beyond the range of his special

department. He must attract attention._”

HOW TO ATTRACT ATTENTION

“How can he do that?”

“Well, if he is a shipping clerk, he may do so by discovering in an

invoice an error with which he has nothing to do and which has escaped

the attention of the proper party. If a weighing clerk, he may save for

the firm in questioning the adjustment of the scales, and having them

corrected, even if this be the province of the master mechanic. If a

messenger boy, he can lay the seed of promotion by going beyond the

letter of his instructions in order to secure the desired reply. There

is no service so low and simple, neither any so high, in which the young

man of ability and willing disposition cannot readily and almost daily

prove himself capable of greater trust and usefulness, and, what is

equally important, show his invincible determination to rise.”

“In what manner did you reach out to establish your present great

fortune?” I asked.

“By saving my money. I put a little money aside, and it served me later

as a matter of credit. Also, I invested in a sleeping-car industry,

which paid me well.”

SLEEPING-CAR INVENTION

Although I tried earnestly to get the great iron-king to talk of this,

he said little, because the matter has been fully dealt with by him in

his “Triumphant Democracy.” From his own story there, it appears that

one day at this time, when Mr. Carnegie still had his fortune to make,

he was on a train examining the line from a rear window of a car, when a

tall, spare man, accosted him and asked him to look at an invention he

had made. He drew from a green bag a small model of a sleeping-berth for

railway cars, and proceeded to point out its advantages. It was Mr. T.

T. Woodruff, the inventor of the sleeping-car. As Mr. Carnegie tells the

story:—

“He had not spoken a moment before, like a flash, the whole range of the

discovery burst upon me. ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘that is something which this

continent must have,’

“Upon my return, I laid it before Mr. Scott, declaring that it was one

of the inventions of the age. He remarked: ‘You are enthusiastic, young

man, but you may ask the inventor to come and let me see it.’ I did so,

and arrangements were made to build two trial cars, and run them on the

Pennsylvania Railroad. I was offered an interest in the venture, which I

gladly accepted.

“The notice came that my share of the first payment was $217.50. How

well I remember the exact sum. But two hundred and seventeen dollars and

a half were as far beyond my means as if it had been millions. I was

earning fifty dollars per month, however, and had prospects, or at least

I always felt that I had. I decided to call on the local banker and

boldly ask him to advance the sum upon my interest in the affair. He put

his hand on my shoulder and said: ‘Why, of course, Andie; you are all

right. Go ahead. Here is the money.’

“It is a proud day for a man when he pays his last note, but not to be

named in comparison with the day in which he makes his first one, and

gets a banker to take it. I have tried both, and I know. The cars

furnished the subsequent payments by their earnings. I paid my first

note from my savings, so much per month, and thus I got my foot upon

fortune’s ladder. It was easy to climb after that.”

THE MARK OF A MILLIONAIRE

“I would like some expression from you,” I said to Mr. Carnegie, “in

reference to the importance of laying aside money from one’s earnings,

as a young man.”

“You can have it. There is one sure mark of the coming partner, the

future millionaire; his revenues always exceed his expenditures. He

begins to save early, almost as soon as he begins to earn. I should say

to young men, no matter how little it may be possible to save, save that

little. Invest it securely, not necessarily in bonds, but in anything

which you have good reason to believe will be profitable. Some rare

chance will soon present itself for investment. The little you have

saved will prove the basis for an amount of credit utterly surprising to

you. Capitalists trust the saving man. For every hundred dollars you can

produce as the result of hard-won savings, Midas, in search of a

partner, will lend or credit a thousand; for every thousand, fifty

thousand. _It is not capital that your seniors require, it is the man

who has proved that he has the business habits which create capital. So

it is the first hundred dollars that tell._”

AN OIL FARM

“What,” I asked Mr. Carnegie, “was the next enterprise with which you

identified yourself?”

“In company with several others, I purchased the now famous Storey farm,

on Oil Creek, Pennsylvania, where a well had been bored and natural oil

struck the year before. This proved a very profitable investment.”

In “Triumphant Democracy,” Mr. Carnegie has expatiated most fully on

this venture, which is so important. “When I first visited this famous

well,” he says, “the oil was running into the creek, where a few

flat-bottomed scows lay filled with it, ready to be floated down the

Alleghany River, on an agreed-upon day each week, when the creek was

flooded by means of a temporary dam. This was the beginning of the

natural-oil business. We purchased the farm for $40,000, and so small

was our faith in the ability of the earth to yield for any considerable

time the hundred barrels per day, which the property was then producing,

that we decided to make a pond capable of holding one hundred thousand

barrels of oil, which, we estimated, would be worth, when the supply

ceased, $1,000,000.

“Unfortunately for us, the pond leaked fearfully; evaporation also

caused much loss, but we continued to run oil in to make the losses good

day after day, until several hundred thousand barrels had gone in this

fashion. Our experience with the farm is worth reciting: its value rose

to $5,000,000; that is—the shares of the company sold in the market upon

this basis; and one year it paid cash dividends of $1,000,000—upon an

investment of $40,000.”

IRON BRIDGES

“Were you satisfied to rest with these enterprises in your hands?” I

asked.

“No. Railway bridges were then built almost exclusively of wood, but the

Pennsylvania Railroad had begun to experiment with cast-iron. It struck

me that the bridge of the future must be of iron; and I organized, in

Pittsburg, a company for the construction of iron bridges. That was the

Keystone Bridge Works. We built the first iron bridge across the Ohio.”

His entrance of the realm of steel was much too long for Mr. Carnegie to

discuss, although he was not unwilling to give information relating to

the subject. It appears that he realized the immensity of the steel

manufacturing business at once. The Union Iron Mills soon followed as

one of the enterprises, and, later, the famous Edgar Thompson Steel Rail

Mill. The last was the outcome of a visit to England, in 1868, when

Carnegie noticed that English railways were discarding iron for steel

rails. The Bessemer process had been then perfected, and was making its

way in all the iron-producing countries. Carnegie, recognizing that it

was destined to revolutionize the iron business, introduced it into his

mills and made steel rails with which he was enabled to compete with

English manufacturers.

HOMESTEAD STEEL WORKS

His next enterprise was the purchase of the Homestead Steel Works,—his

great rival in Pittsburg. In 1888, he had built or acquired seven

distinct iron and steel works, all of which are now included in the

Carnegie Steel Company, Limited. All the plants of this great firm are

within a radius of five miles of Pittsburg. Probably in no other part of

the world can be found such an aggregation of splendidly equipped steel

works as those controlled by this association. It now comprises the

Homestead Steel Works, the Edgar Thompson Steel Works and Furnaces, the

Duquesne Steel Works and Furnaces, all within two miles of one another;

the Lucy Furnaces, the Keystone Bridge Works, the Upper Union Rolling

Mills, and the Lower Union Rolling Mills.

In all branches, including the great coke works, mines, etc., there are

employed twenty-five thousand men. The monthly pay roll exceeds one

million, one hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars, or nearly fifty

thousand dollars for each working day. Including the Frick Coke Company,

the united capital of the Carnegie Steel Company exceeds sixty million

dollars.

A STRENGTHENING POLICY

“You believe in taking active measures,” I said, “to make men

successful.”

[Illustration:

_Partial view of the Homestead Steel Works._]

“I believe in anything which will help men to help themselves. To induce

them to save, every workman in our company is allowed to deposit part of

his earnings, not exceeding two thousand dollars, with the firm, on

which the high interest rate of six per cent. is allowed. The firm also

lends to any of its workmen to buy a lot, or to build a house, taking

its pay by installments.”

“Has this contributed to the success of your company?”

“I think so. The policy of giving a personal interest to the men who

render exceptional service is strengthening. With us there are many

such, and every year several more are added as partners. It is the

policy of the concern to interest every superintendent in the works,

every head of a department, every exceptional young man. Promotion

follows exceptional service, and there is no favoritism.”

PHILANTHROPY

“All you have said so far, merely gives the idea of getting money,

without any suggestion as to the proper use of great wealth. Will you

say something on that score?”

“My views are rather well known, I think. What a man owns is already

subordinate, in America, to what he knows; but in the final aristocracy,

the question will not be either of these, but what has he done for his

fellows? Where has he shown generosity and self-abnegation? Where has he

been a father to the fatherless? And the cause of the poor, where has he

searched that out?”

That Mr. Carnegie has lived up in the past, and is still living up to

this radical declaration of independence from the practice of men who

have amassed fortunes around him, will be best shown by a brief

enumeration of some of his almost unexampled philanthropies. His largest

gift has been to the city of Pittsburg, the scene of his early trials

and later triumphs. There he has built, at a cost of more than a million

dollars, a magnificent library, museum, concert hall and picture

gallery, all under one roof, and endowed it with a fund of another

million, the interest of which (fifty thousand dollars per annum) is

being devoted to the purchase of the best works of American art. Other

libraries, to be connected with this largest as a center, are now being

constructed, which will make the city of Pittsburg and its environs a

beneficiary of his generosity to the extent of five million dollars.

While thus endowing the city where his fortune was made, he has not

forgotten other places endeared to him by association or by interest. To

the Allegheny Free Library he has given $375,000; to the Braddock Free

Library, $250,000; to the Johnstown Free Library, $50,000; and to the

Fairfield (Iowa) Library, $40,000. To the Cooper Institute, New York, he

has given $300,000. To his native land he has been scarcely less

generous. To the Edinburgh Free Library he has given $250,000, and to

his native town of Dunfermline, $90,000. Other Scottish towns to the

number of ten have received helpful donations of amounts not quite so

large. He has given $50,000 to aid poor young men and women to gain a

musical education at the Royal College of Music in London.

“THE MISFORTUNE OF BEING RICH MEN’S SONS”

“I should like to cause you to say some other important things for young

men to learn and benefit by.”

“Our young partners in the Carnegie company have all won their spurs by

_showing that we did not know half as well what was wanted as they did_.

Some of them have acted upon occasions with me as if they owned the firm

and I was but some airy New Yorker, presuming to _advise upon what I

knew very little about_. Well, they are not now interfered with. _They

were the true bosses,—the very men we were looking for._”

“Is this all for the poor boy?”

“Every word. Those who have the misfortune to be rich men’s sons are

heavily weighted in the race. A basketful of bonds is the heaviest

basket a young man ever had to carry. He generally gets to staggering

under it. The vast majority of rich men’s sons are unable to resist the

temptations to which wealth subjects them, and they sink to unworthy

lives. It is not from this class that the poor beginner has rivalry to

fear. The partner’s sons will never trouble you much, but look out that

some boys poorer, much poorer, than yourselves, whose parents cannot

afford to give them any schooling, do not challenge you at the post and

pass you at the grand stand. Look out for the boy who has to plunge into

work direct from the common school, and begins by sweeping out the

office. He is the probable dark horse that will take all the money and

win all the applause.”[7]

Footnote 7:

Mr. Carnegie’s recent retirement from business, and the sale of his

vast properties to the Morgan Syndicate, marks a new era in his

remarkable career; and it gives him the more leisure to consider

carefully every dollar he bestows in the series of magnificent

charities that he has inaugurated.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

XVII

Herreshoff, the Yacht Builder

I

THE VOYAGE OF LIFE

Total eclipse; no sun, no moon;

Darkness amid the blaze of noon!—MILTON

AMID the ranks of the blind, we often find men and women of culture and

general ability, but we do not look for world-renowned specialists. No

one is surprised at a display of enterprise in a “booming” western town,

where everybody is “hustling;” but in a place which has once ranked as

the third seaport in America, but has seen its maritime glory decline, a

man who can establish a marine industry on a higher plane than was ever

before known, and attract to his work such world-wide attention as to

restore the vanished fame of his town, is no ordinary person. Moreover,

if such a man has laid his plans and done his work in the disheartening

eclipse of total blindness, he must possess qualities of the highest

order.

The office of the Herreshoff Manufacturing Company, at Bristol, Rhode

Island, is in a building that formerly belonged to the Burnside Rifle

Company. It is substantial, but unpretentious, and is entered by a short

stairway on one side. The furniture throughout is also plain, but has

been selected with excellent taste, and is suggestive of the most

effective adaptation of means to ends in every detail. On the mantel and

on the walls are numerous pictures, most of them of vessels, but very

few relating directly to any of the great races for the “America’s” cup.

The first picture to arrest one’s attention, indeed, is an excellent

portrait of the late General Ambrose E. Burnside, who lived in Bristol,

and was an intimate friend of John B. Herreshoff.

Previous inquiry had elicited the information that the members of the

firm are very busy with various large orders, in addition to the rush of

work on Cup Defenders; so it was a very agreeable surprise when I was

invited into the tasteful private office, where the blind president sat,

having just concluded a short conversation with an attorney.

“LET THE WORK SHOW”

“Well, sir,” said he, rising and grasping my hand cordially, “what do

you wish?”

“I realize how very busy you must be, Mr. Herreshoff,” I replied, “and

will try to be as brief as possible; but I venture to ask a few minutes

of your time, to obtain suggestions and advice from you to young

people.”

“But why select me, in particular, as an adviser?”

This was “a poser,” at first, especially when he added, noting my

hesitation:—

“We are frequently requested to give interviews in regard to our

manufacturing business; but, since as it is the settled policy of our

house to do our work just as well as we possibly can and then leave it

to speak for itself, we have felt obliged to decline all these requests.

It would be repugnant to our sense of propriety to talk in public about

our special industry. ‘Let the work show!’ seems to us a good motto.”

THE VOYAGE OF LIFE

“True,” said I. “But the readers of my books may not care to read of

cutters or ‘skimming dishes,’ center-boards or fin keels, or copper

coils _versus_ steel tubes for boilers. They leave the choice in such

matters to you, realizing that you have always proved equal to the

situation. What I want now is advice in regard to the race of life,—the

voyage in which each youth must be his own captain, but in which the

words of others who have successfully sailed the sea before will help to

avoid rocks and shoals, and to profit by favoring currents and trade

winds. You have been handicapped in an unusual degree, sailing in total

darkness and beset by many other difficulties, but have, nevertheless,

made a very prosperous voyage. In overcoming such serious obstacles, you

must have learned much of the true philosophy of both success and

failure, and I think you will be willing to help the young with

suggestions drawn from your experience.”

“I always want to help young people, or old people, either, for that

matter, if anything I can say will do so. But what can I say?”

A MOTHER’S MIGHTY INFLUENCE

“What do you call the prime requisite of success?”

“I shall have to answer that by a somewhat humorous but very shrewd

suggestion of another,—select a good mother. Especially for boys, I

consider an intelligent, affectionate but considerate mother an almost

indispensable requisite to the highest success. If you would improve the

rising generation to the utmost, appeal first to the mothers.”

“In what way?”

“_Above all things else, show them that reasonable self-denial is a

thousandfold better for a boy than to have his every wish gratified.

Teach them to encourage industry, economy, concentration of attention

and purpose, and indomitable persistence._”

“But most mothers try to do this, don’t they?”