Thus did Howe modestly tell the story of his terrible trials and suffering. After long litigation Mr. Howe's claim to have been the original inventor was legally and irreversibly established, the judge deciding, "that there was no evidence which left a shadow of doubt that for all the benefit conferred upon the public by the introduction of the sewing-machine the public are indebted to Mr. Howe." Therefore to him all inventors or improvers had to pay a royalty on each machine they made. From being a poor man, living in a garret, Howe became one of the most noted millionaires in America.

Doubtless many of our readers would be interested in the principles involved in Mr. Howe's machine; which seem to be essential in all two-threaded machines. We find that two threads are employed, one of which is carried through the cloth by means of a curved pointed needle; the needle used has the eye that is to receive the thread, about an eighth of an inch from the pointed end. When the thread is carried through the cloth, which may be done to the distance of about three-fourths of an inch the thread will be stretched above the curved needle, something like a bowstring, leaving a small open space between the two. A small shuttle, carrying a bobbin, filled with thread, is then made to pass entirely through this open space, between the needle and the thread which it carries; and when the shuttle is returned the thread which was carried in by the needle is surrounded by that received from the shuttle; as the needle is drawn out, it forces that which was received from the shuttle into the body of the cloth giving the seam formed the same appearance on each side of the cloth.

Thus, according to this arrangement, a stitch is made at every back and forth movement of the shuttle. The two thicknesses of cloth that are to be sewed, are held upon pointed wires which project out from a metallic plate, like the teeth of a comb, but at a considerable distance from each other, these pointed wires sustaining the cloth, and answering the purpose of ordinary basting. The metallic plate, from which these wires project, has numerous holes through it, which answer the purpose of rack teeth in enabling the plate to move forward, by means of a pinion, as the stitches are taken. The distance to which the plate is moved, and, consequently, the length of the stitches may be regulated at pleasure.

He opened a manufactory for his machines where he could carry on the business in a small way. From this small beginning his business grew until, with the royalties he received, his income reached $200,000 annually. Notwithstanding his wealth, he enlisted in the war as a private, and his principles and sympathy were displayed at one time when, seeing the men needy, the government having been unable to pay promptly, he himself advanced enough money to pay the entire regiment. In the month of October, 1867, at the early age of forty-eight he died.

But he had lived long enough to see his machine adopted and appreciated as one of the greatest labor-saving devices in the world. It is estimated that to-day the sewing-machine saves annually the enormous sum of $500,000,000. It has been truly said that had it not been for the sewing-machine it would have been impossible to have clothed and kept clothed the vast armies employed on both sides during the late war. Great, indeed, is a world's benefactor; such is Elias Howe.



ISAAC M. SINGER.

The greatest competitor of Mr. Howe was I. M. Singer. In 1850 there appeared in a shop in Boston, a man who exhibited a carving machine as his invention.

Mr. Parton, in the Atlantic Monthly, said: "Singer was a poor, baffled adventurer. He had been an actor and a manager of a theatre, and had tried his hand at various enterprises, none of which had been successful." The proprietor of the shop, who had some sewing-machines there on exhibition, speaking of them, said: "These machines are an excellent invention, but have some serious defects. Now if you could make the desired improvement, there would be more money in it than in making these carving machines." This seemed to gently impress Singer, and the friend advancing $40, he at once began work. According to Singer's testimony in the Howe vs. Singer suits, the story of this wonderful man runs something like this:

"I worked day and night, sleeping but three or four hours out of the twenty-four, and eating generally but once a day, as I knew I must get a machine made for forty dollars or not get it at all. The machine was completed the night of the eleventh day from the day it was commenced. About nine o'clock that evening we got the parts of the machine together, and commenced trying it. The first attempt to sew was unsuccessful, and the workmen, who were tired out with almost unremitting work, left me, one by one, intimating that it was a failure. I continued trying the machine, with Zieber, who furnished the forty dollars, to hold the lamp for me; but in the nervous condition to which I had been reduced, by incessant work and anxiety, was unsuccessful in getting the machine to sew light stitches.

"About midnight I started with Zieber to the hotel, where I boarded. Upon the way we sat down on a pile of boards, and Zieber asked me if I had not noticed that the loose loops of thread on the upper side of the cloth came from the needle? It then flashed upon me that I had forgotten to adjust the tension upon the needle thread. Zieber and I went back to the shop. I adjusted the tension, tried the machine, and sewed five stitches perfectly, when the thread broke. The perfection of those stitches satisfied me that the machine was a success, and I stopped work, went to the hotel, and had a sound sleep. By three o'clock the next day I had the machine finished, and started with it to New York, where I employed Mr. Charles M. Keller to get out a patent for it."

The trial resulted in favor of Howe, but of the two men Singer was in every way the superior in business capacity. In fact; there never has been a sewing-machine manufacturer that could compare with I. M. Singer. "Great and manifold were the difficulties which arose in his path, but one by one he overcame them all. He advertised, he traveled, he sent out agents, he procured the insertion of articles in newspapers, he exhibited the machines at fairs in town or country. Several times he was on the point of failure, but in the nick of time something always happened to save him, and year after year he advanced toward an assured success.

"We well remember his early efforts, when he only had the back part of a small store on Broadway, and a little shop over a railroad depot; and we remember also the general incredulity with regard to the value of the machine with which his name was identified. Even after hearing him explain it at great length, we were very far from expecting to see him one day riding to the Central Park in a French diligence, drawn by five horses paid for by the sewing-machine. Still less did we anticipate that within twelve years the Singer company would be selling a thousand sewing-machines a week, at a profit of a thousand dollars a day. He was the true pioneer of the mere business of selling machines, and made it easier for all his subsequent competitors."

The peculiarity of the Singer machine is the chain stitch or single thread device, but with the employment of an eye-pointed needle, and other appliances, so as to make it admirably adopted for the general purposes of sewing. At Mr. Singer's death it was found that his estate amounted to about $19,000,000.



RICHARD M. HOE.

The recent death of Richard March Hoe, in Florence, Italy, closes the career of one whose name is known wherever the newspaper is used to spread intelligence.

He was the senior member of the firm of printing-press makers, and one of the leading inventors and developers of that great lever of public opinion. Mr. Hoe's father was the founder of the firm. He came to this country from England in 1803, and worked at his trade of carpentry. Through his skill as a workman he was sought out by a man named Smith, a maker of printer's material. He married Smith's sister, and went into partnership with Smith and brother. The printing-presses of those days were made chiefly of wood, and Hoe's skill as a wood-worker was valuable to the firm.

In 1822 Peter Smith invented a hand-press. This press was finally supplanted by the Washington press, invented by Samuel Rust in 1829. Mr. Smith died a year after securing his patent, and the firm-name was changed to R. Hoe & Co., but from the manufacture of the Smith press the company made a fortune. The demand for hand presses increased so rapidly that ten years later it was suggested that steam power might be utilized in some way to do the pulling and tugging necessary in getting an impression. At this time Richard M., one of the sons of the founder of the house, was an attentive listener to the discussions.

Young Richard M. Hoe was born in 1812. He had the advantage of an excellent education, but his father's business possessed such a fascination for him that it was with difficulty he was kept in school. He was a young man of twenty before his father allowed him to work regularly in his shop; but he had already become an expert in handling tools, and soon became one of the best workmen. He joined with his father in the belief that steam would yet be applied to the printing-press, and the numerous models and experiments they made to that end would, in the light of the present day, appear extremely ridiculous.

In 1825-30 Napier had constructed a steam printing-press, and in 1830 Isaac Adams, of Boston, secured a patent for a power press. These inventions were kept very secret; the factories in which they were made being guarded jealously. In 1830 a Napier press was imported into this country for use on the National Intelligencer. Mordecai Noah, editor of Noah's Sunday Times and Messenger, was collector of the port of New York at that time, and being desirous of seeing how the Napier press would work, sent for Mr. Hoe to put it up. He and Richard succeeded in setting up the press, and worked it successfully.

The success of Napier's press set the Hoes to thinking. They made models of its peculiar parts and studied them carefully. Then, in pursuance of a plan suggested by Richard, his father sent his partner, Mr. Newton, to England, for the purpose of examining new machinery there, and to secure models for future use. On his return with ideas, Mr. Newton and the Hoes projected and turned out for sale a novel two-cylinder press, which became universally popular and soon superseded all others, the Napier included.

Thus was steam at last harnessed to the press, but the demand of the daily papers for their increasing editions spurred the press makers to devise machines that could be worked at higher speed than was found possible with the presses, in which the type was secured to a flat bed, which was moved backward and forward under a revolving cylinder. It was seen, then, that if type could be secured to the surface of a cylinder, great speed could be attained. In Sir Rowland Hill's device the type was cast wedge-shape; that is, narrower at the bottom. A broad "nick" was cut into its side, into which a "lead" fitted. The ends of the "lead" in turn fitted into a slot in the column rules, and these latter were bolted into the cylinder. The inventor, Sir Rowland Hill, the father of penny postage in England, sunk, it is said, L80,000 in the endeavor to introduce this method.

In the meantime Richard M. had succeeded to his father's business, and was giving his attention largely to solving this problem of holding type on a revolving cylinder. It was not until 1846 that he hit on the method of doing it. After a dozen years of thought the idea came upon him unexpectedly, and was startling in its simplicity. It was to make the column rules wedge-shape instead of the type. It was this simple device, by the introduction of the "lightning press," that revolutionized the newspaper business of the world, and made the press the power it is. It brought Hoe fame and put him at the head of press makers. His business grew to such dimensions that he has in his employ in his New York factory from 800 to 1,500 hands, varying with the state of trade. His London factory employes from 150 to 250 hands.

Yet the great daily cravings demanded still faster presses. The result was the development of the Web press, in which the paper is drawn into the press from a continuous roll, at a speed of twelve miles an hour. The very latest is a machine called the supplement press, capable of printing complete a paper of from eight to twelve pages, depending on the demand of the day, so that the papers slide out of the machine with the supplements gummed in and the paper folded ready for delivery. Of late years many other remarkably ingenious presses of other makers have come into the market, but still the genius of R. M. Hoe has left an indelible mark in the development of the printing-press. He died June 6th, 1886.



CHARLES GOODYEAR.

About the year 1800 was born in New Haven, Connecticut, Charles Goodyear. He received only a public school education, and when twenty-one years of age joined his father in the hardware trade in the city of Philadelphia; but in the financial troubles of 1830, the firm went under, and the next three years was spent in looking for a life-work.

Passing a store in the city of New York, his eye was attracted by the words "INDIA RUBBER FOR SALE." Having heard much of this new article of late, he purchased a life-preserver which he carried home and so materially improved, in conception, that he was induced to return to the store for the purpose of explaining his ideas. At the store he was now told of the great discouragements with which the rubber trade was contending, the merchants giving this as a reason for not taking to his improvement. The rubber, as then made, would become as hard as flint during cold weather, and if exposed to heat would melt and decay.

Returning to Philadelphia, Goodyear commenced experiments, trying to discover the secret of how to remedy this trouble. He was very poor, and to support his family he 'cobbled' for his neighbors. He tried every experiment within his grasp of intellect, but met only with failure. His friends, who had helped him, left him one by one; his failures continued, but he would not give up. The last piece of furniture was sold, and his family moved into the country, taking up cheap lodgings. Finally he found a druggist who agreed to furnish him what he needed from his store to use in his investigations and purchasing small quantities of rubber at a time he continued his experiments. At length, after three years he discovered that the adhesiveness of the rubber could be obviated by dipping it in a preparation of nitric acid. But this only affected the exterior, and he was once more plunged into the worst of poverty. It was generally agreed that the man who would proceed further, in a cause of this sort, was fairly deserving of all the distress brought on himself, and justly debarred the sympathy of others. His suffering during the years that followed is simply incredible. The prejudice against him was intense. Everybody characterized him as a fool, and no one would help him. A witness afterwards testified in a trial: "They had sickness in the family; I was often in and found them very poor and destitute, for both food and fuel. They had none, nor had they anything to buy any with. This was before they boarded with us, and while they were keeping house. They told me they had no money with which to buy bread from one day to another. They did not know how they should get it. The children said they did not know what they should do for food. They dug their potatoes before they were half-grown, for the sake of having something to eat. Their son Charles, eight years old, used to say that they ought to be thankful for the potatoes, for they did not know what they should do without them. We used to furnish them with milk, and they wished us to take furniture and bed-clothes in payment, rather than not pay for it. At one time they had nothing to eat, and a barrel of flour was unexpectedly sent them."

It is a record of destitution, imprisonment for debt, and suffering from this time until 1841, when he began to see day-light. By accident he one day allowed a piece of rubber to drop on the stove, when, lo! he had found the secret, heat was the thing needed. Six years had he struggled on through untold hardships, and now he seemed crowned with success. He had found the desired solution of the problem, but he made a fatal mistake here. Instead of settling down and manufacturing his discovery, which would have brought him a fortune, he sold rights and kept on experimenting. By certain legal informalities he secured no benefit whatever from his patent in France and he was cheated entirely out of it in England. Although he lived to see large factories for its manufacture spring up in both America and Europe, employing 60,000 operatives, still he died in 1860 at the age of seventy-one, leaving his family unprovided for. The cause was not lack of perseverance nor energy, but the sole cause was lack of judgment in business matters.

The vulcanized rubber trade is one of the greatest industries of the world to-day, amounting to millions of dollars annually. The usefulness of India rubber is thus described in the North American Review: "Some of our readers have been out on the picket-line during the war. They know what it is to stand motionless in a wet and miry rifle-pit in the chilly rain of a southern winter's night. Protected by India rubber boots, blanket and cap, the picket-man is in comparative comfort; a duty which, without that protection, would make him a cowering and shivering wretch, and plant in his bones a latent rheumatism, to be the torment of his old age. Goodyear's India rubber enables him to come in from his pit as dry as when he went into it, and he comes in to lie down with an India rubber blanket between him and the damp earth. If he is wounded it is an India-rubber stretcher or an ambulance, provided with India-rubber springs, that gives him least pain on his way to the hospital, where, if his wound is serious, a water-bed of India rubber gives ease to his mangled frame, and enables him to endure the wearing tedium of an unchanged posture. Bandages and supporters of India rubber avail him much when first he begins to hobble about his ward. A piece of India rubber at the end of his crutch lessens the jar and the noise of his motions, and a cushion of India rubber is comfortable to his arm-pit. The springs which close the hospital door, the bands which excludes the drafts from doors and windows, his pocket-comb and cup and thimble are of the same material. From jars hermetically closed with India rubber he receives the fresh fruit that is so exquisitely delicious to a fevered mouth. The instrument case of his surgeon, and the store-room of his matron contains many articles whose utility is increased by the use of it, and some that could be made of nothing else. In a small rubber case the physician carries with him and preserves his lunar caustic, which would corrode any metallic surface. His shirts and sheets pass through an India rubber clothes-wringer, which saves the strength of the washer-woman and the fibre of the fabric. When the government presents him with an artificial leg, a thick heel and elastic sole of India rubber give him comfort every time he puts it on the ground. In the field this material is not less strikingly useful. During the late war armies have marched through ten days of rain and slept through as many nights, and come out dry into the returning sunshine with their artillery untarnished and their ammunition not injured, because men and munitions were all under India rubber."

Ought we soon to forget him to whom we are indebted, in a large measure, for all this? The American people will long remember Charles Goodyear when others have faded from memory.



PROF. S. F. B. MORSE.

"Canst thou send lightnings that they may go and say unto thee: Here we are!" Said the Lord from the whirlwind to afflicted Job, who remained dumb for he could not answer. The question has been answered in the affirmative in our day by the perfector of the electro-magnetic telegraph, the late Professor Morse, by whose invention the promise has been fulfilled: "I'll put a girdle around the globe in forty minutes."

Samuel Finly Breese Morse was born in Charleston, Massachusetts, April 27th, 1791. His father was the first person to publish geographies in America. His father was also a celebrated Congregational minister, spending much of his time in religious controversy, in maintaining the orthodox faith throughout the New England churches and against Unitarianism. He was prominent among those who founded Andover Theological Seminary, and published many religious periodicals.

S. F. B. Morse was a graduate from Yale at the age of nineteen, and soon went to England for the purpose of studying painting. At the end of two years he received the gold medal of the Adelphia Society of Arts for an original model of a "Dying Hercules," his first attempt at sculpture. The following year he exhibited "The Judgment of Jupiter," a painting praised by his teacher, Mr. West. Becoming quite proficient in painting and sculpture, he returned home in 1815, following his profession in Boston, Charleston, South Carolina, and later in New York city. At the latter place, in connection with other artists, he organized a drawing association, which resulted in the establishment of the National Academy of Design. Prof. Morse was chosen its first President, and was continued in that office for the following sixteen years. He painted a great many portraits, among which was a full length portrait of Lafayette, which was highly prized and commended by the Association. In 1829 he visited Europe a second time to complete his studies in art reading for more than three years in the principal cities of the continent. During his absence abroad he was elected Professor of the literature of the Arts of Design in the University of New York; and in 1835 he delivered a course of lectures before that school on the affinity of those arts.

While in college Mr. Morse had paid special attention to chemistry and natural philosophy; but his love of art seemed to be the stronger; later, however, these sciences became a dominant pursuit with him. As far back as 1826-'7, he and Prof. J. Freeman Dana had been colleague lecturers at the Athenaeum in the City of New York, the former lecturing on the fine arts, and the latter upon electro-magnetism. They were intimate friends, and in their conversation the subject of electro-magnetism was made familiar to the mind of Morse. The electro-magnet on Sturgeon's principle—the first ever shown in the United States—was exhibited and explained in Dana's lectures, and at a later date, by gift of Prof. Torrey, came into Morse's possession. Dana even then suggested, by his spiral volute coil, the electro-magnet of the present day; this was the magnet in use when Morse returned from Europe, and it is now used in every Morse telegraph throughout both hemispheres.

On his second return to the United States he embarked from Havre on the packet ship Sully, in the autumn of 1832 and in a casual conversation with some of the passengers on the then recent discovery in France of the means of obtaining the electric spark from the magnet, showing the identity or relation of electricity and magnetism, Morse's mind conceived, not merely the idea of an electric telegraph, but of an electro-magnetic and chemical recording telegraph; substantially and essentially as it now exists. The testimony to the paternity of the idea in Morse's mind, and to his acts and drawings on board the ship is ample. His own testimony was corroborated by all the passengers with a single exception, Thomas Jackson, who claimed to have originated the idea and imparted the same to Morse. However, there is little controversy in regard to this matter at the present day as the courts decided irrevocably in favor of Morse. The year 1832 is fixed as the date of Morse's conception and realization, also, so far as drawings could embody the conception of the telegraph system; which now bears his name. A part of the apparatus was constructed in New York before the close of the first year, but circumstances prevented its completion before 1835, when he put up a-half mile of wire in coil around a room and exhibited the telegraph in operation. Two years later he exhibited the operation of his system before the University of New York.

From the greater publicity of this exhibition the date of Morse's invention has erroneously been fixed in the autumn of 1837, whereas he operated successfully with the first single instrument in November, 1835. In 1837 he filed his caveat in the Patent Office in Washington, and asked Congress for aid to build an experimental line from that city to Baltimore. The House Committee on Commerce gave a favorable report, but the session closed without action, and Morse went to Europe in the hope of interesting foreign governments in his invention. The result was a refusal to grant him letters patent in England, and the obtaining of a useless brevet d'invention in France, and no exclusive privileges in any other country. He returned home to struggle again with scanty means for four years, during which he continued his appeals at Washington. His hope had expired on the last evening of the session of 1842-3; but in the morning, March 4th, he was startled with the announcement that the desired aid of Congress had been obtained in the midnight hour of the expiring session, and $30,000 placed at his disposal for his experimental essay between Washington and Baltimore. In 1844 the work was completed, and demonstrated to the world the practicability and the utility of the Morse system of electro-magnetic telegraphing. Violations of his patents and assumption of his rights by rival companies involved him in a long series of law suits; but these were eventually decided in his favor, and he reaped the benefits to which his invention entitled him.

It is doubtful if any American ever before received so many marks of distinction. In 1846 Yale College conferred on him the degree of LL.D.; in 1848 he received the decoration of the Nishan Iftikur in diamonds from the Sultan of Turkey; gold medals of scientific merit were awarded him by the king of Prussia; the king of Wurtemberg, and the Emperor of Austria. In 1856 he received from the Emperor of the French the cross of Chevalier of the Legion of Honor; in 1857 from the King of Denmark the cross of Knight Commander of the First Class of the Danebrog; in 1858 from the Queen of Spain the cross of Knight Commander of the Order of Isabella the Catholic; from the king of Italy the cross of the Order of SS. Maurice and Lazarus, and from the king of Portugal the cross of the Order of the Tower and Sword. In 1856 the telegraph companies of Great Britain gave him a banquet in London; and in Paris, in 1858, another banquet was given him by Americans numbering more than 100, and representing almost every State in the Union. In the latter year, at the instance of Napoleon III, representatives of France, Russia, Sweden, Belgium, Holland, Austria, Sardinia, Tuscany, the Holy See, and Turkey met in Paris to decide upon a collective testimonial to him, and the result was a vote of 400,000 francs as a personal reward for his labors. On December 29th, 1868, the citizens of New York gave him a public dinner. In June, 1871, a bronze statue of him, erected by the voluntary contributions of telegraph employes, was formally unveiled in Central Park, New York, by William Cullen Bryant, and in the evening a reception was held in the Academy of Music, at which Prof. Morse telegraphed, by means of one of the instruments used on the original line between New York and Washington, a message of greeting to all the cities of the continent.

The last public service which he performed was the unveiling of the statue of Franklin in Printing House Square, New York, on January 17th, 1872. Submarine telegraphy also originated with Prof. Morse, who laid the first sub-marine lines, in New York harbor in 1842, and received at the time from the American Institute a gold medal. He died in the city of New York April 2nd, 1872. While in Paris in 1839 he made the acquaintance of Daguerre, and from drawings furnished him by the latter, he constructed, on his return, the first daguerreotype apparatus, and took the first sun pictures ever taken in America. He was also an author and poet of some standing.



CYRUS W. FIELD.

There are few people living who have not heard of Cyrus W. Field. Few people, however, have taken the trouble to learn more of him other than the fact that to him are we indebted for the Atlantic Cable, and THIS information has been forced upon them.

One often hears the old saying, "blood tells," and when we review the Field family we are constrained to admit its truth. David Dudly Field, Sr., the father, was a noted Divine. He had a family of seven sons, the oldest of which, David Dudly, Jr., is a most conspicuous lawyer. Stephen Johnson, has held some of the most exalted positions as a jurist within the gift of the nation and his adopted State, California. Henry Martyn, is a renowned editor and Doctor of Divinity. Matthew D. is an expert engineer, and in this capacity did much to aid the success of the cable which has made famous for all time the subject of this narrative. Matthew is also a somewhat noted and successful politician. Another brother, Timothy, entered the navy, and we doubt not would have become equally distinguished but for his untimely death. Cyrus West, was born at Stockbridge, Massachusetts, November 30th, 1819. Unlike the Appletons, Harpers and numerous other noted families, the Fields seemed to discard the idea "in union is there strength," each selecting his own calling, to become individually singled out and honored.

As heretofore shown, almost the entire Field family have made history, but upon Cyrus does the world bestow the greatest distinction. He was the only brother choosing a mercantile life, and at the age of fifteen, nearly sixteen, he was apprenticed to the great A. T. Stewart. After his apprenticeship he returned to Massachusetts and started a small paper-mill, and still later came to New York again, this time to open a paper warehouse, but for some reason failed. One feature of the great success which has attended Mr. Field was his stick-to-it-iveness which enabled him to 'fight it out on that line if it took all summer.' He accordingly compromised the matter with his creditors, re-established the business, profited by his past mistakes, and in the course of eleven or twelve years had amassed an ample fortune. Accordingly, about 1853, he decided to retire, and spent six months traveling in South America, not, however, until he had enclosed a check to each of his old creditors, thereby discharging a moral obligation, although not legally bound.

In the meantime, a Mr. Gibson had enlisted the sympathy of his brother Matthew, the engineer, in a transatlantic telegraph company, which was to be carried on by a co-operation of the telegraph, and a system of fast ocean steamers. Although adverse to all thought of resuming any business this brother obtained for Mr. Gibson an audience, and he presented to Mr. Field his scheme which involved a telegraphic communication between New York and St. John; hence, by fast ocean steamers, Mr. Gibson left without gaining his object, but upon reflection Mr. Field suddenly exclaimed: "Why not run a wire through the ocean itself, instead of ending it at St. John?" Although it is claimed that Field had never heard of such an idea, yet it did not originate with him. In fact, a cable was then in operation between Dover and Calais, connecting England and France. Having become imbued with this plan he at once consulted his brother David as to what legal obstacles might possibly arise, and being satisfied on that score, he set about the accomplishment of his purpose.

He saw Peter Cooper and several other moneyed men and solicited their aid, forming a company, with Peter Cooper as president. Matthew was now interested as chief engineer, and David as counsel. These will be remembered as two of the famous brothers. The burden of the work, however, fell upon our hero. He seemed to be everywhere. First in Newfoundland, where he bought the rights of a rival company then before the Provincial Government, where his influence secured the consent of the legislature of Newfoundland. Then he is over in England, where he is successful in not only securing the necessary rights and privileges to occupy British territory, but the special favor of the Queen and the capital stock of about $1,680,000, which it was hoped could be placed in England, was taken in a few weeks, and not only this but the British government agreed to pay an annual subsidy of about $68,000, for the use of the cable by that government and ships, not only for surveying but to help lay the cable.

Mr. Field now ordered the cable made, and again set sail for America, and is soon at the national capitol trying to enlist the sympathy and aid of our country. The lobby and other influences seemed to be against him, and he met with the cold shoulder at every turn, but nothing dismayed this man. At last the bill passed the Senate by the majority of but one vote, and in the Lower House by an absolutely small majority, but after a hard fight it became a fixed thing, and received the signature of President Buchanan.

Reader, look back upon the trials of Cyrus Field as you have followed them thus far; imagine if you can the trouble, vexation and disappointments which have thus far attended him, and when you think that he had all this trouble to get PERMISSION to lay the cable, and that while he had already passed through much; yet his disappointments were destined to be tenfold greater ere success attended him; will you say he is undeserving of that success? The rights are secure; the stock taken; the cable is done and all seems fair sailing.

The Agamemnon of the Royal Mary and the Niagara, furnished by the United States government, started with their precious burden. The paying out machine kept up its steady revolutions. Slowly, but surely, the cable slips over the side and into the briny deep. Many eminent men were eagerly watching with Mr. Field on the Niagara; a gradual solemnity took possession of the entire ship's company. Who would not be interested? Who would not feel the powerful pressure of responsibility, and when at last the too sudden application of a break parted the cable, and it wholly disappeared from view, the shock was too much for the stoutest nerves. All appeared to feel that a dear friend had just slipped the cable of life, and had gone to make his grave beneath the deep waters.

But of all that sad company, Mr. Field is the least dismayed. He recognized that a most expensive and disastrous accident had happened; but the belief was firmly fixed in his mind that the plan was practicable. He was now offered the position of General Manager, at a salary of $5,000 per year. The position he accepted, but declined the salary.

In 1858 the second attempt was begun, but when about two hundred miles had been laid, the cable parted, and the result of months of labor and large capital was remorsefully swallowed up by the mighty deep. But while all seemed ready to give up, Cyrus Field seemed to be everywhere. His activity seemed to exceed the bounds of human endurance. Many were the successive twenty-four hours in which he had no sleep, and his friends were alarmed lest he and the new enterprise should break together.

By his assiduousness the work was recommenced this same year, and on the 5th of August, 1858, was completed. Messages were exchanged between Queen Victoria and President Buchanan, and for about a month the cable worked perfectly, amid great rejoicing, when all at once it stopped; the cable refused to respond. Few thought the project would be prosecuted further, but they miscalculated the power of endurance, the possession of which has brought the success of that man whom they now envy, "because fortune has smiled upon him more especially than them."

How often do we find ourselves wishing we were as rich as some person, or as influential as another; when we have but to follow their example, do as they have done, endure what they have endured to acquire the coveted success.

If we would stop to consider that seventy-three per cent. of our great men were poor boys, we would readily see that those we now envy are only enjoying the fruit of their own toil.

The civil war broke out and all work was suspended, but in 1863 a new cable was ordered of Gloss, Elliot & Company in London, and a capital of $3,000,000 was raised by the indomitable energy of Mr. Field. The Great Eastern was employed to lay it, and on the 23rd day of July, 1865, that leviathan of the deep, started on her momentous journey, successfully traversing about three-fourths of the entire distance, when the cable once more parted, carrying with it to the bottom of the ocean every fond hope cherished by so many. But once more arose Cyrus West Field, and an entirely new company is formed, and $3,000,000 more is raised. On Friday, July 13th, 1866, the Great Eastern once more starts, and on Friday, the 27th of July, the following cablegram is received.

"HEARTS CONTENT, July 27th.

"We arrived here at nine o'clock this morning. All well, thank God. The Cable is laid, and is in perfect working order.

"Signed, CYRUS W. FIELD."

To make the victory more complete, the Great Eastern again put to sea, raised the cable which was lost the preceding year, spliced it, and the two have since been in constant use.

Who dares deny that Cyrus W. Field is not deserving of enduring fame? For thirteen years he had borne the brunt of all the ridicule and sneers directed at this greatest enterprise of modern history. He has been bitterly denounced by many as a capitalist, a monopolist, and the like; but if the world has been benefited so many millions by the Ocean Telegraph, it seems to us that the BEST is inadequate as a reward to its proprietor.



GEORGE M. PULLMAN.

The subject of this sketch we consider one of the greatest of philanthropists. He is a modest man, and for this reason disclaimed all desire to be known as a benefactor. But we cannot now think of any one who is more clearly identified with the great effort which is going on for the benefit of mankind.

He is a native of the grand old empire State, being born in the western part of New York, March 3rd, 1831. His father was a mechanic of some note, but died before George was of age, leaving him to help support his mother and younger brothers.

He worked for a time in a furniture establishment, but this kind of employment did not satisfy his active nature, and he went to Chicago, where his enterprise could have sea room. He at first became identified with the work of raising and placing new foundations under several large buildings of that city. He helped raise a whole block several feet high, an enterprise which was accomplished without hardly a break, discontinuing none of the business firms who occupied the building, their business being carried on uninterrupted.

George M. Pullman had a perceptive mind—so have all truly successful men. He perceived that while the railway coaches were far superior to the old stages, yet they were far inferior to what he imagined they ought to be. He at once applied to the Chicago and Alton railway management and laid his plan before them. They furnished him with two old coaches, with which to experiment. These he fitted up with bunks, and while they were not to be compared with the elegant palaces which he has since constructed, still one could lie down and sleep all night, which was so far in advance of anything the people had seen, that they were very highly appreciated.

He now went to Colorado, and engaged in various mining schemes, but here he was out of his sphere, and after a three years' sojourn, returned to Chicago. His active imagination had thought out many improvements on the cars he had previously constructed; and he had also secured capital with which to carry out his ideas. Fitting up a shop on the Chicago and Alton road, he constructed two coaches, at the then fabulous cost of $18,000 each. The management of the various western roads looked upon such enterprise as visionary. George M. Pullman, however, cared but little about their opinion.

The Union and Pacific was then exciting much attention. He knew that on the completion of such a road, travelers would appreciate a car in which they could enjoy the comforts of home for the entire tedious trip. To say that his hopes were fully realized, would be inadequate. So popular did they become, that his shops at Chicago could not begin to fill the demands made upon it for his parlor, dining, and sleeping cars. Branches were started at Detroit, St. Louis, Philadelphia, and various places in Europe.

These establishments, of necessity, could not come under his immediate supervision he, therefore, conceived the idea of concentrating his business into one vast establishment, and gathered about him a force of skilled workmen. He looked upon Chicago and its locality as the coming center of population in the United States; but a site in that city would be far too expensive, if indeed one could have been found sufficient for his purpose. About twelve to fifteen miles from Chicago was a swamp: it was considered worthless, but it was as easy for this natural mechanic to conceive the idea of draining this tract of land, as it was to conceive methods to raise buildings. A very large force of men were put to work draining; gas-pipes were laid; streets were laid out and graded, and an architect employed to draw the plans for the building of a whole city at once. Gigantic work-shops were built, and a water supply brought from Lake Michigan, miles away. Besides all this, over fourteen hundred beautiful homes were built before any man was asked to come to Pullman to enter the shops. A bank was opened, a library, containing thousands of volumes, was provided; all these things were brought about by Mr. Pullman. He has expended several million of dollars in beautifying and providing for the comfort and pleasure of his employes. The buildings are not mushroom affairs, but substantial brick edifices which give this place an appearance which will compare favorably with any city. He built a fine hotel, and erected a beautiful church, placing a rich toned organ in it, which alone cost $3,500. Every honest tradesman can come to Pullman. None but liquor dealers or men who desire to keep low groggeries are excluded. No property is sold, but if a party desires to live there he applies to the Superintendent, and a lease is given, which can be cancelled by either party at ten days' notice. Nothing but liquor is forbidden. A man can squander his time, can gamble, possibly, but he cannot obtain drink; the result is, there are no policemen. No visible form of government, save Mr. Pullman, and yet this is a city of nearly eight thousand people. The people are not muddled with drink; they are promptly paid; their 'personal' rights are not interfered with, save in respect to the selling of liquor; they are contented and happy. Mr. Pullman has been largely identified with the Metropolitan Railway and the Eagleton Wire Works in New York city. But the name of Pullman is destined to long remain a synonym of philanthropy. He has practically demonstrated the benefit of legislation against the sale of intoxicating liquors as a beverage. He claims to have done this as a business policy, and disclaims all honor as a philanthropist. We answer, would that we had more men who would follow this kind of a business policy.



THOMAS A. EDISON.

On February 11th, 1845, was born at Milan, Ohio, Thomas A. Edison, now a little over 42 years of age, and to-day enjoying a reputation as an inventor that is without a parallel in history.

At eight or nine years of age he began to earn his own living, selling papers. When twelve years old his enterprise, pushed by ambition, secured him a position as newsboy on the Grand Trunk Railroad. Here his inventive genius manifested itself. Arranging with station agents along the line, he caused the headings of news to be telegraphed ahead, the agents posting the same in some conspicuous place. By this means the profits of his business were greatly augmented. He next fitted up a small printing press in one corner of a car, and when not busy in his regular work as newsboy, successfully published a small paper. The subject-matter was contributed by employes on the road, and young Edison was the proprietor, editor, publisher and selling agent. He also carried on electrical experiments in one corner of the car.

Finally, he entered one of the offices on the road, and here he learned the art of telegraphy. The next few years he was engaged as an operator in several of the largest cities throughout the Union, such as Cincinnati, Indianapolis, Louisville, Boston, New York, Memphis, and Port Huron. He not only became one of the most expert operators in the country, but his office was a labratory for electrical experiment. All day long he attended to the duties of his office, and at night one would find him busy at experiments tending toward the development of the use of the telegraph.

Hard work and frequent wanderings at last found him developing his ideas in Boston. He brought out duplex telegraphy and suggested a printing telegraph for the use of gold and stock quotations. His ability becoming so apparent he was retained by wealthy men in New York at a high salary. In 1876 he removed to Menlo Park, New Jersey, where he fitted up an extensive labratory for the prosecution and development of his enterprise.

Here he has won his world-wide fame, keeping two continents in a fevered state of expectancy. Indeed, some of his inventions have been so wonderful that he might be accredited with supernatural powers. By improvement he brought the telephone of Gray, Bell, etc., from a mere toy to an instrument of great commercial worth. Ten years ago hardly a telephone was in use; now the business of our country would hardly know how to do without it. Of all modern inventions connected with the transmission of electrical sound the telephone has excited, perhaps, the most interest. An instrument which not only transmits intelligible signals great distances, but also the tones of the voice, so that the voice shall be as certainly recognized when heard hundreds of miles away as if the owner was speaking in the same room. No great skill is required of the operator, and if a business man desires to speak with another person he has but to step to an instrument in his own office, ring a bell, and thus, through a central office, connect himself with the instrument of the desired party, when a conversation can take place.

In its mechanism the telephone consists of a steel cylindrical magnet, perhaps five inches long and one-half of an inch thick, encircled at one end by a short bobbin of ebonite, on which is wound a quantity of fine insulated copper wire. The two ends of the coil are soldered to thicker pieces of copper wire which traverse the wooden envelop from end to end, and terminate in the screws of its extremity. Immediately in front is a thin circular plate of iron; this is kept in place by being jammed between the main portion of the wooden case and the cap, which carries the mouth or ear trumpet, which are screwed together. Such is the instrument invented by Bell and Edison.

The means to produce light by electricity next occupied his attention, and the Edison-Electric Light was the result. The electric current for this light is generated by means of large magneto-electric machines, which are driven by some motive power. It is the only light known to science which can be compared to the rays of the sun. Especially is this light useful in lighthouses, on board ships and for lighting streets in cities. It is, however, used in factories, work-shops, large halls, etc., and in the very near future will doubtless become a light in private dwellings.

But, possibly, the most wonderful invention which has been the result of the inventive conception of Mr. Edison is the phonograph, a simple apparatus consisting in its original mechanism of a simple cylinder of hollow brass, mounted upon a shaft, at one end of which is a crank for turning it, and at the other a balance-wheel, the whole being supported by two iron uprights. There is a mouth-piece, as in the telephone, which has a vibrating membrane similar to the drum of a person's ear. To the other side of this membrane there is a light metal point or stylus, which touches the tin-foil which is placed around the cylinder. The operator turns the crank, at the same time talking into the mouth-piece; the membrane vibrates under the impulses of the voice, and the stylus marks the tin-foil in a manner to correspond with the vibrations of the membrane. When the speaking is finished the machine is set back to where it started on the tin-foil, and by once more turning the crank precisely the same vibrations are repeated by the machines. These vibrations effect the air, and this again the ear, and the listener hears the same words come forth that were talked into the instrument. The tin-foil can be removed, and, if uninjured, the sounds can be reproduced at any future date.

Different languages can be reproduced at once, and the instrument can be made to talk and sing at once without confusion. Indeed, so wonderful is this piece of mechanism, that one must see it to be convinced. Even the tone of voice is retained; and it will sneeze, whistle, echo, cough, sing, etc., etc.

Improvements are in progress, notably among which is an apparatus to impel it by clock work instead of a crank. The phonograph as yet has never come into extended use, but its utility is obvious when its mechanism is complete; business men can use it for dictating purposes, as it is possible to put forty thousand words on a tin-foil sheet ten inches square.

The invention of any one of the foregoing must have made for Mr. Edison a world-wide fame, but when it is remembered that he has already taken out over two hundred patents, one realizes something of the fertility of his imagination. Many other inventions are worthy of note, which have originated at the Menlo Park labratory, but space forbids, although it is safe to predict that more startling inventions may yet be in store for an expectant world.



WHY SOME SUCCEED While Others Fail.



SUCCESS AND FAILURE.

Young man, two ways are open before you in life. One points to degradation and want, the other, to usefulness and wealth. In the old Grecian races one only, by any possible means, could gain the prize, but in the momentous race of human life there is no limiting of the prize to one. No one is debarred from competing; all may succeed, provided the right methods are followed. Life is not a lottery. Its prizes are not distributed by chance.

There can hardly be a greater folly, not to say presumption, than that of so many young men and women who, on setting out in life, conclude that it is no use to mark out for themselves a course, and then set themselves with strenuous effort to attain some worthy end; who conclude, therefore, to commit themselves blindly to the current of circumstances. Is it anything surprising that those who aim at nothing, accomplish nothing in life? No better result could reasonably be expected. Twenty clerks in a store; twenty apprentices in a ship-yard; twenty young men in a city or village—all want to get on in the world; most of them expect to succeed. One of the clerks will become a partner, and make a fortune; one of the young men will find his calling and succeed. But what of the other nineteen? They will fail; and miserably fail, some of them. They expect to succeed, but they aim at nothing; content to live for the day only, consequently, little effort is put forth, and they reap a reward accordingly.

Luck! There is no luck about it. The thing is almost as certain as the "rule of three." The young man who will distance his competitors is he who will master his business; who lives within his income, saving his spare money; who preserves his reputation; who devotes his leisure hours to the acquisition of knowledge; and who cultivates a pleasing manner, thus gaining friends. We hear a great deal about luck. If a man succeeds finely in business, he is said to have "good luck." He may have labored for years with this one object in view, bending every energy to attain it. He may have denied himself many things, and his seemingly sudden success may be the result of years of hard work, but the world looks in and says: "He is lucky." Another man plunges into some hot-house scheme and loses: "He is unlucky." Another man's nose is perpetually on the grind-stone; he also has "bad luck." No matter if he follows inclination rather than judgment, if he fails, as he might know he would did he but exercise one-half the judgment he does possess, yet he is never willing to ascribe the failure to himself—he invariably ascribes it to bad luck, or blames some one else.

Luck! There is no such factor in the race for success. Rufus Choate once said, "There is little in the theory of luck which will bring man success; but work, guided by thought, will remove mountains or tunnel them." Carlyle said, "Man know thy work, then do it." How often do we see the sign: "Gentlemen WILL not; OTHERS MUST NOT loaf in this room." True, gentlemen never loaf, but labor. Fire-flies shine only in motion. It is only the active who will be singled out to hold responsible positions. The fact that their ability is manifest is no sign that they are lucky.

Thiers, of France, was once complimented thus: "It is marvelous, Mr. President, how you deliver long improvised speeches about which you have not had time to reflect." His reply was: "You are not paying me a compliment; it is criminal in a statesman to improvise speeches on public affairs. Those speeches I have been fifty years preparing." Daniel Webster's notable reply to Hayne was the result of years of study on the problem of State Rights. Professor Mowry once told the following story: "A few years ago a young man went into a cotton factory and spent a year in the card room. He then devoted another year to learning how to spin; still another how to weave. He boarded with a weaver, and was often asking questions. Of course he picked up all kinds of knowledge. He was educating himself in a good school, and was destined to graduate high in his class. He became superintendent of a small mill at $1,500 a year. One of the large mills in Fall River was running behind hand. Instead of making money the corporation was losing. They needed a first-class man to manage the mill, and applied to a gentleman in Boston well acquainted with the leading men engaged in the manufacture of cotton. He told them he knew of a young man who would suit them, but they would have to pay him a large salary.

"What salary will he require?" "I cannot tell, but I think you will have to pay him $6,000 a year." "That is a large sum; we have never paid so much." "No, probably not, and you have never had a competent man. The condition of your mill and the story you have told me to-day show the result. I do not think he would go for less, but I will advise him to accept if you offer him that salary." The salary was offered, the man accepted, and he saved nearly forty per cent. of the cost of making the goods the first year. Soon he had a call from one of the largest corporations in New England, at a salary of $10,000 per year. He had been with this company but one year when he was offered another place at $15,000 per year. Now some will say: "Well, he was lucky, this gentleman was a friend who helped him to a fat place."

My dear reader, with such we have little patience. It is evident that this young man was determined to succeed from the first. He mastered his business, taking time and going thorough. When once the business was mastered his light began to shine. Possibly the gentleman helped him to a higher salary than he might have accepted, but it is also evident that his ability was manifest. The gentleman knew whereof he spoke. The old proverb that "Circumstances make men" is simply a wolf in wool. Whether a man is conditioned high or low; in the city or on the farm: "If he will; he will." "They can who think they can." "Wishes fail but wills prevail." "Labor is luck." It is better to make our descendants proud of us than to be proud of our ancestry. There is hardly a conceivable obstacle to success that some of our successful men have not overcome: "What man has done, man can do." "Strong men have wills; weak ones, wishes."

In the contest, wills prevail. Some writers would make men sticks carried whither the tide takes them. We have seen that biography vetoes this theory. Will makes circumstances instead of being ruled by them. Alexander Stephens, with a dwarf's body, did a giant's work. With a broken scythe in the race he over-matched those with fine mowing-machines. Will-power, directed by a mind that was often replenished, accomplished the desired result.

Any one can drift. It takes pluck to stem an unfavorable current. A man fails and lays it to circumstances. The fact too frequently is that he swallowed luxuries beyond his means. A gentleman asked a child who made him. The answer was: "God made me so long—measuring the length of a baby—and I growed the rest." The mistake of the little deist in leaving out the God of his growth illustrates a conviction: We are what we make ourselves.

Garfield once said: "If the power to do hard work is not talent it is the best possible substitute for it." Things don't turn up in this world until some one turns them up. A POUND of pluck is worth a TON of luck. Luck is a false light; you may follow it to ruin, but never to success. If a man has ability which is reinforced by energy, the fact is manifest, and he will not lack opportunities. The fortunes of mankind depend so much upon themselves, that it is entirely legitimate to enquire by what means each may make or mar his own happiness; may achieve success or bring upon himself the sufferings of failure.



CONCENTRATION OF EFFORT.

The man who has no occupation, is in a sad plight: The man who lacks concentration of effort is worse off. In a recent test of the power of steel plates, designed for ship armor, one thousand cannon were fired at once against it, but without avail. A large cannon was then brought out. This cannon used but one-tenth as much powder as did the combined force of the others, yet, it was found, when the smoke had cleared away, that the ball had pierced the plate. Ten times the powder needed availed naught, because, the law of concentration was disregarded.

One of the essential requisites to success is concentration. Every young man, therefore, should early ascertain his strong faculties, and discern, if possible, his especial fitness for any calling which he may choose. A man may have the most dazzling talents, but if his energies are scattered he will accomplish nothing. Emerson says: "A man is like a bit of Labrador spar, which has no lustre as you turn it in your hand, until you come to a particular angle; then it shows deep and beautiful colors." There is no adaptation or universal applicability in man. Dryden has said:

"What the child admired, The youth endeavored, and the man acquired."

Is it not so? Do we not find Michael Angelo neglecting school to copy drawings? Henry Clay learning pieces to recite in the barn or corn field? Yet, as Goethe says: "We should guard against a talent which we cannot hope to practice in perfection. Improve it as we may, we shall always, in the end, when the merit of the master has become apparent to us, painfully lament the loss of time and strength devoted to such botching."

The man who would know one thing well, must have the courage to be ignorant of a thousand other things, no matter how attractive they may be, or how desirable it may seem to try them. P. T. Barnum, the veteran showman, who has lost several fortunes but risen above all, paid every dollar of his indebtedness, and is to-day a millionaire, says in his lecture on 'The Art of Money Getting':

"Be a whole man in whatever you undertake. This wholeness is just what distinguishes the shabby, blundering mechanic from the splendid workman. In earlier times, when our country was new, there might have been a chance for the man who gave only one corner of his brain to his chosen calling, but in these days of keen competition it demands the most thorough knowledge of the business, and the most earnest application to bring success. Stick to your business, and you may be sure that your business will stick to you. It is this directing your whole mind and energies at one point, that brings success."

"The first thing a young man should do after selecting his vocation is to become thoroughly satisfied with his choice. He must be thoroughly satisfied or he is defeated at the start. In arriving at this decision he must bear in mind that if he would find a calling in which all will be sunshine, where the clouds never darken the pathway, he must look in some other world for that calling. On earth there are no such callings to be found."

"When we see Spurgeon, the great London preacher, swaying the multitudes, we possibly do not remember the time when, as a poor boy of but eighteen, he begins preaching on the street corners to a shabby crowd. We would possibly be willing to partake of the fame that he may now enjoy, but might object to the pastoral visiting he is obliged to do each week. We would not object to the fame of Webster, of Calhoun or of Clay, but we might think it tedious to work night after night to obtain the knowledge which brought this fame. Ah! how many of us would 'peter' out in a short time? When one is satisfied with his calling he must work at it, if need be, day and night, early and late, in season and out of season, never deferring for a single hour that which can NOW be done. The old proverb, 'What is worth doing at all is worth doing well,' was never truer than it is to-day."

A certain class are clamoring for a division of the national wealth. They are like the worthless vagabond who said to the rich man, "I have discovered that there is money enough in the world for all of us if it was equally divided; this must be done, and we shall all be happy together." "But," replied the rich man, "if everybody was like you it would be spent in two months, and what would we then do?" "Oh! divide again; keep dividing, of course!" And yet a very considerable number of people think this is the solution of the labor problem. The point is, we must distinguish the dividing line between the rights of property and the wrongs of oppression. Either extreme is fatal. Education is surely the solution of the labor question.

Listen: Our country is the freest, the grandest, the best governed of any nation on earth; yet we spend yearly nine hundred million dollars for drink, and only eighty-five million for education. Thus, while one dollar tends to education and wealth, over ten dollars is used to bring ignorance, degradation, and want. Over ten times the influence for evil that there is for good. Where is the remedy? Let Congress, which is supposed to control our interests, legislate against ignorance and for education. Suppose that nine hundred millions were yearly used to educate deserving young men and women in colleges; inaugurated into a "fresh-air fund" for the children in our large cities who have never been under its ennobling influence, but who, on the contrary, have never seen aught but vice and degradation. Nine hundred millions in one year. Nine thousand millions in ten years. How many thousands of young men could go through college if aided each, $100 per year. If it were wholly devoted to this purpose nine million young people could be helped through college in four years—in ten years there would be eighteen or twenty million college graduates from this source alone, what would be the result.

Suppose again that the money was devoted to building tenement houses that would be fit for human beings to live in, look at the wonderful good that could be done. I am not desirous of giving here a dry temperance lecture; but the object of this work is to aid others to success, and if vice and drink were removed there would be but little need for further advice. Ah! there lies the root of the evil. Strike the root, pull it up and trample it under foot until it is dead. Never allow it to take root again, and you can reasonably expect to be at least fairly successful.

This chapter is on "Concentration of Effort". Possibly some will imagine that we have wandered; not at all, as we see it. The abolition of these vices tends toward concentration; bad habits, of no matter what nature lead to failure and tend to draw the attention from one's calling. Then let the young man who would succeed join his heart, his sympathies, his desires, with the right; let him live a consistent life; let him lead a strictly temperate life; let him give his whole influence to temperance, resting assured that if he puts his purposes into action that he will succeed in more ways than one.



SELF-RELIANCE.

Of all the elements of success, none is more essential than self-reliance,—determination to be one's own helper, and not to look to others for support. God never intended that strong independent beings should be reared by clinging to others, like the ivy to the oak, for support.

"God helps those who help themselves," and how true we find this quaint old saying to be. Every youth should feel that his future happiness in life must necessarily depend upon himself; the exercise of his own energies, rather than the patronage of others. A man is in a great degree the arbiter of his own fortune. We are born with powers and faculties capable of almost anything, but it is the exercise of these powers and faculties that gives us ability and skill in anything. The greatest curse that can befall a young man is to lean, while his character is forming, upon others for support.

James A. Garfield, himself one of the greatest examples of the possibilities in our glorious Republic, once said:—

"The man who dares not follow his own independent judgment, but runs perpetually to others for advice, becomes at last a moral weakling, and an intellectual dwarf. Such a man has not self within him, but goes as a supplicant to others, and entreats, one after another, to lend them theirs. He is, in fact, a mere element of a human being, and is carried about the world an insignificant cipher, unless he by chance fastens himself to some other floating elements, with which he may form a species of corporation resembling a man." The best capital with which a young man can start in life, nine times out of ten, is robust health, good morals, fair ability and an iron will, strengthened by a disposition to work at some honest vocation.

We have seen in the preceding pages that a vast majority of our great men started life with these qualifications and none other. The greatest heroes in battle, the greatest orators, ancient or modern, were sons of obscure parents. The greatest fortunes ever accumulated on earth were the fruit of great exertion. From Croesus down to Astor the story is the same. The oak that stands alone to contend with the tempest's blast only takes deeper root and stands the firmer for ensuing conflicts; while the forest tree, when the woodman's axe has spoiled its surroundings, sways and bends and trembles, and perchance is uprooted: so is it with man. Those who are trained to self-reliance are ready to go out and contend in the sternest battles of life; while those who have always leaned for support upon those around them are never prepared to breast the storms of life that arise.

How many young men falter and faint for what they imagine is necessary capital for a start. A few thousands or even hundreds, in his purse, he fancies to be about the only thing needful to secure his fortune. How absurd is this; let the young man know now, that he is unworthy of success so long as he harbors such ideas. No man can gain true success, no matter how situated, unless he depends upon no one but himself; remember that. Does not history bear us out in this? We remember the adage, "Few boys who are born with a silver spoon in their mouth ever achieve greatness." By this we would not argue that wealth is necessarily derogatory to the success of youth; to the contrary, we believe it can be a great help in certain cases and conditions; but we have long since discarded the idea that early wealth is a pre-eminent factor in success; if we should give our unbiased opinion, we should say that, to a vast majority of cases, it is a pre-eminent factor of failure. Give a youth wealth, and you only too often destroy all self-reliance which he may possess.

Let that young man rejoice, rather, whom God hath given health and a faculty to exercise his faculties. The best kind of success is not that which comes by accident, for as it came by chance it will go by chance. The wisest charity, in a vast majority of cases, is helping people to help themselves. Necessity is very often the motive power which sets in motion the sluggish energies. We thus readily see that poverty can be an absolute blessing to youth. A man's true position in the world is that which he himself attains.

How detestable to us is the Briton's reverence of pedigree. Americans reverence achievement, and yet we are tending towards the opposite. Witness society, as it bows with smile and honor to the eight-dollar clerk, while frowning on the eighteen dollar laborer. This is wrong; work is work, and all work is honorable. It is not only wrong, but disgraceful. It is better to make our ancestry proud of us than to be proud of our ancestors. He is a man for what he does, not for what his father or his friends have done. If they have given him a position, the greater is his shame for sinking beneath that position. The person who is above labor or despises the laborer, is himself one of the most despicable creatures on God's earth. He not only displays a dull intelligence of those nobler inspirations with which God has endowed us, but he even shows a lack of plain common sense.

The noblest thing in this world is work. Wise labor brings order out of chaos; it builds cities; it distinguishes barbarism from civilization; it brings success. No man has a right to a fortune; he has no right to expect success, unless he is willing to work for it. A brother of the great orator, Edmund Burke, after listening to one of those eloquent appeals in Parliament, being noticed as employed in deep thought, was asked of whom he was musing. He replied: "I have been wondering how Ned contrived to monopolize all the talent in the family; but I remember that all through childhood, while we were at play, he was at study."

Ah! that's it. The education, moral or intellectual, must be chiefly his own work. Education is education, no matter how obtained. We do not wish to be understood as depreciating the usefulness of colleges; not at all. But a mere college diploma will avail a young man but little. As before stated, education, no matter how obtained, is equally valuable. Study like that of Webster and Greeley, by New Hampshire pine knots, and that of Thurlow Weed before the sap-house fire, is just as valuable, when once obtained, as if it had the sanction of some college president.

The world will only ask, "What can he do?" and will not care a fig for any college certificate. The point is; if a young man be not endowed by self-reliance and a firm determination, colleges will avail him nothing; but if he have these, colleges will push him wonderfully. Nevertheless, colleges are not essential to success—an educated idiot will never make a statesman. It is said that when John C. Calhoun was attending Yale College he was ridiculed for his intense application to his studies. He replied, "Why, sir, I am forced to make the most of my time, that I may acquit myself creditably when in Congress." A laugh followed which roused his Southern blood, and he exclaimed: "Do you doubt it? I assure you that if I was not convinced of my ability to reach the National Capitol as a representative within three years from my graduation, I would leave college this very day." While there are some things in this speech that were possibly unbecoming; yet the principle of self-reliance, this faith in himself, this high aim in life, was undoubtedly the marked characteristic which brought to Calhoun his splendid success.

No young man will ever succeed who will not cultivate a thinking mind. If he is not original in aims and purposes he will not succeed. Witness the attempt of others to continue the business of Stewart. They had not only his experience, but the benefit of his great wealth; he succeeded without either—they failed with both; he was obliged to establish a business—they had the benefit of his great patronage.

It has been said that a lawyer cannot be a merchant. Why? While a lawyer he thinks for himself: When a merchant he allows others to think for him. A certain great manufacturer made "kid" gloves his specialty, and so well did he succeed that to-day his trade mark imports to manufactured ratskins a value incommunicable by any other talisman. It is a poor kind of enterprise which thus depends upon the judgment of others. What can be more absurd than for a man to hope to rank as a thundering Jupiter when he borrows all his thunder. Remember that the world only crowns him as truly great who has won for himself that greatness.



ECONOMY OF TIME.

"Full many a gem, of purest ray serene, The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear; Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, And waste its sweetness on the desert air."

How many young men for whom nature has done so much, "blush unseen," and waste their ability. Franklin said, "Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of." We have seen how Franklin used his time. Born the son of a soap-boiler, lived to become one of our most noted philosophers, died worth thousands. Advice from such men carries conviction, for we cannot but feel that our chances are fully equal to what theirs were.

Gladstone, England's most noted Premier, once said, "Believe me when I tell you that thrift of time will repay you in after-life with usury, but the waste of it will make you dwindle away until you fairly sink out of existence, unknown, unmourned." Thurlow Weed was so poor in boyhood that he was of necessity glad to use pieces of carpet to cover his all but freezing feet; thus shod he walked two miles to borrow a history of the French revolution, which he mastered stretched prone before the sap-fire, while watching the kettles of sap transformed to maple sugar. Thus was it that he laid the foundation of his education, which in after years enabled him to sway such mighty power at Albany; known as the "king maker."

Elihu Burritt, a child of poverty, the son of a poor farmer, the youngest of ten children. He was apprenticed at eighteen to a blacksmith. He wanted to become a scholar and bought some Greek and Latin works, carrying them in his pocket and studying as he worked at the anvil. From these he went to Spanish, Italian and French. He always had his book near him and improved every spare moment. He studied seven languages in one single year. Then he taught school one year, but his health failing, he went into the grocery business. Soon what money he had was swept away by losses.

Here we see him at twenty-seven, life seemingly a failure. Alas! how many would have given up. He left New Britain, his native town, walked to Boston, and from there to Worcester, where he once more engaged himself at his trade. His failure in business turns his attention once more to study. He now is convinced as to the proper course to pursue, his aim is fixed, and he now sets himself strenuously about the accomplishment of his purpose. At thirty years of age he is master of every language of Europe, and is turning his attention to those of Asia, such as Hebrew, Syriac, Chaldaic. He is offered by a wealthy gentleman a course in Harvard University, but prefers to work with his hands while he studies.

He now begins to lecture, and everybody is eager to hear the learned blacksmith. After a very successful tour he returns to the anvil. After this he visits Europe, becomes the warm friend of John Bright and other eminent men; writes books, lectures, edits newspapers, builds a church and holds meetings himself. He said: "It is not genius that wins, but hard work and a pure life." He chose the best associates only, believing that a boy's companions have much to do with his success in life. At sixty-eight he died, honored by two hemispheres.

If our readers want further proof as to the result of improving spare moments, let them study the lives of such men as Douglass, Lincoln, Grant, Garfield, Blaine, Cleveland, and others too numerous to mention, and they will find that they were reared in the lower walks of life, but by using every available minute they have been enabled to rise to influence and usefulness. By this means they have worked the very odds and ends of time, into results of the greatest value. An hour every day, for ten years, will transform any one of ordinary ability from ignorance to learning.

Think of it. One hour could be easily improved each evening, counting three hundred week days to a year; in ten years you have spent three thousand golden hours. If directed toward some specific end, think what it would accomplish. Then there are the Sundays devoted to religious knowledge. One of the first things to be learned by him who would succeed, is ECONOMY OF TIME. Lost wealth can be replaced by industry; lost health by hygiene; but lost time is gone forever.

The most frequent excuse one hears is: "I have no time." They cheat themselves with the delusion that they would like to do this or that, but cannot as they have no leisure. Dear reader, did you ever think that the more a person has to do, the more they feel they can do? Look at the men in our own community who have done the most for mankind; are they the wealthy, whose only duty seems to be to kill time? No. Almost universally they are the over-worked class who seem already burdened with cares. These are the men who find time to preside at public meetings, and to serve on committees.

It is easier for an over-worked man to do a little more than for a lazy one to get up steam. A light stroke will keep a hoop in motion, but it takes a smart blow to start it. The busy man succeeds: While others are yawning and stretching, getting their eyes open, he will see the opportunity and improve it. Complain not that you have no leisure. Rather be thankful that you are not cursed with it. Yes, curse it is nine times out of ten. Think of the young man going to some vile place of amusement to kill time, then think of that young man utilizing that hour every night in the acquisition of knowledge which will fit him for life's journey. Think also of the money he will save. Leisure is too often like a two-edged sword; it cuts both ways.



CAUSES OF FAILURE.

Horace Greeley has truly said: "If any man fancies that there is some easier way of gaining a dollar than by squarely earning it he has lost the clew to his way through this mortal labyrinth, and must henceforth wander as chance may dictate." Look about you; how many there are who are determined to share all the good things of this world without exchanging an equivalent. They go into business, but are not content to wait patiently, adding one dollar to another, and thus rendering to mankind an equivalent for this wealth for which they are asking. This excessive haste to become rich is one of the most frequent causes of failure. When a young man has decided to work with a will, and to accumulate every dollar he legitimately can he has made a long stride toward success. We do not deprecate a desire to be some one in the world, but we do most emphatically frown upon the desire to get wealth by speculation or illicit means. We most earnestly advise all young men to choose a calling, become thoroughly master of that calling, then pursue that vocation to success, avoiding all outside operations. Another man who has dealt in stocks all his life may be able to succeed, but your business is to stick to your vocation until, if necessary, you fairly wring success from it.

Moses Taylor was a successful merchant, he had long deposited with the City Bank, and was finally made its president. The late Commodore Vanderbilt often tried to induce him to enter into his grand speculations, but of no avail. At last the crash of '57 came. The bankers called a meeting to discuss the situation. One bank after another reported drafts of from sixty to even ninety per cent. of their specie. When Mr. Taylor was called he replied: "The City Bank contained this morning $400,000; to-night we had $480,000." This was the kind of a bank president such principles made him.

Hardly anything is more fatal to success than a desire to become suddenly rich. A business man now counts his wealth by the thousands, but he sees a grand chance to speculate. This is a little risky, of course, but then the old adage: "Never venture, never have." I admit I may lose, but then all men are subject to loss in any business, but I am reasonably sure of gaining an immense amount. Why! what would folks think? I would be a millionaire. I would do so and so. Thus he indulges in this sort of reasoning, goes into a business of which he knows nothing and loses all. Why wouldn't he? Men who have made a study of that business for years, and who have amassed a fortune in it, are daily becoming bankrupt. What an idiot a man makes of himself when he leaves a calling in which he has been eminently successful to embark in a calling which is, at best, uncertain, and of which he knows nothing. Once for all, let me admonish you: If you would succeed never enter outside operations, especially if they be of a speculative nature. Select a calling, and if you stick to your calling, your calling will stick to you.

Frequent changes of business is another cause of failure, but we have treated this subject quite thoroughly elsewhere in this work. Therefore it seems to us that to add more here would be superfluous. True it is that some men have succeeded who have seemingly drifted about. Dr. Adam Clark has said: "The old adage about too many irons in the fire conveys an abominable lie. Keep them all agoing—poker, tongs and all." But Dr. Clark seems to forget that the most of the people who try to follow his advice, either burn their fingers or find their irons cooling faster than they can use them. We cannot all be Clarks if we try, and to follow this method the most of us will fail; but we can, by following one line of procedure, at last bring success.

Extravagance of living is another prolific cause of bankruptcy. A man imagines that by hiring a horse and driving in the park he will show people that he is as good as the neighbor who drives his own horse. He deludes himself with the idea that this sort of extravagance will, in the eyes of his fellow-men, place him on an equal footing with millionaires.

Dr. Franklin has truly said: "It is not our own eyes, but other people's, that ruin us." It has been said that the merchant who could live on five hundred a year, fifty years ago, now requires five thousand. In living, avoid a "penny wise and pound foolish" custom. A man may think he knows all about economy and yet be ignorant of its first principles. For instance, a business man may save every imaginable piece of writing paper, using all the dirty envelopes that come in his way. This he does instead of using a neat letter head and clean paper, at a slight additional cost, and vast gain in the influence which such a letter carries over the other. Some years ago a man stopped at a farm house over night. After tea he much desired to read, but found it impossible from the insufficient light of one candle. Seeing his dilemma, the hostess said: "It is rather difficult to read here evenings; the proverb says, 'You must have a ship at sea in order to be able to burn two candles at once.'" She would as soon have thought of throwing a five dollar bill into the fire as of setting the example of burning two candles at once. This woman saved, perhaps, five or six dollars a year, but the information she thus denied her children would, of course, out-weigh a ton of candles. But this is not the worst of it.

The business man, by such costly stinginess, consoles himself that he is saving. As he has saved a few dollars in letter paper, he feels justified in expending ten times that amount for some extravagance. The man thinks he is a saving man. The woman is a saving woman, she knows she is a saving woman. She has saved five or six dollars this year in candles, and so feels justified in buying some needless finery, which could gratify nothing but the eye. She is sure she understands economy, yet she starves the mind to clothe the body in finery. She is something like the man who could not afford to buy more than a penny herring for his dinner, yet hired a coach and four to take it home. Saving by retail and wasting by wholesale. Nowadays we use kerosene and thus our light is both good and cheap, but the principle remains.

Wear the old clothes until you can pay for more; never wear clothes for which you owe anyone. Live on plainer food if need be. Greeley said: "If I had but fifty cents a week to live on, I'd buy a peck of corn and parch it before I'd owe any man a dollar." The young man who follows this principle will never be obliged to live on parched corn. How few people keep an itemized account of their expenses. Spendthrifts never like to keep accounts. Buy a book; post in it every night your daily expenditures in the columns; one headed "Necessaries," the other "Luxuries," and you will find that the latter column will be at least double the former. Indeed, in some cases it will exceed it ten times over.

It is not the purchase of the necessaries of life that ruin people, but the most foolish expenditures which we imagine necessary to our comfort. Necessary to our comfort; Ah! what a mistake is that, as many a man will testify who is perpetually dunned by uneasy creditors. It is the sheerest kind of nonsense, this living on credit. It is wicked. Yet a gentleman recently told the writer that he personally knew a clergyman who had been preaching for years on a salary exceeding seven hundred dollars per year, and of late on twelve hundred per year; yet, this man of the gospel to-day owes his college debts. A man loaned him money to go through school, and he has never been "able" to repay that money, although he has practiced the most "rigid economy."

Stuff! this man knows nothing of the first principles of economy. In my opinion, there are many clergymen who will have to answer for the sin of extravigance: There are many more who will have to answer for the sin of slothfulness. The Bible says: "Six days shalt thou labor and do all thy work." Ah! there is a part of the commandments too often skipped flippantly over. Many a clergyman would be horrified if asked to do any labor on the seventh day; but would be equally horrified if accused of sinning by attending to a foreign business, thereby neglecting to do all his labor during the six other days.

God gives us ample time to do our work, and it is a sin to leave any of it undone. God expects a man to choose some calling, and He also expects that man to master that calling, and He expects him to do his utmost to excel in that calling. No clergyman can spend four days out of a week in some foreign work, and in the two remaining days thoroughly prepare himself for the Sabbath work. For two reasons: One is, he disregards the law of concentration, divides his mind and thoughts; hence, loses force and influence. The other, that God does not approve of other than our best effort.

This preacher will occupy one hour in preaching a twenty-five minute discourse, and then complain because people are not interested in his sermons. We do not justify Sabbath-breaking, nor a lack of religious interest, but the preacher who is unwilling to take any responsibility upon himself for such a state of things is lacking somewhere. We speak of the clergyman simply as illustrative of our idea in this matter. The same rule applies to the lawyer, physician, or merchant—the mechanic, artist or laborer. If I was a day laborer building a stone wall I'd study my work and push it so vigorously that I would soon be, if not the best, at least one of the best workmen anywhere to be found. Strive to be an authority. Wasted opportunity; there is the root of thousands of failures.

A recent paper states that nine-tenths of our young lawyers fail from lack of study. Here is a thought for the clergyman who thinks he should have a better place. Of course there are circumstances to be considered, but the man of determination bends circumstances to his will. A man imagines himself capable of filling a higher place than he does. He imagines himself a Webster, a Lincoln, a Garfield, a Spurgeon—'but vainly waits for circumstances to favor his deserved promotion. Look at Spurgeon; was he picked up bodily and placed in the pulpit he now stands upon? No, but he was full of the Holy Ghost, and without thought of what he deserved began preaching in the street. Was Talmage placed in the Tabernacle because he was of real inferiority to other preachers. No; but he was original, he borrowed from no one, he did his best, he fits the notch in which he is placed. Did people get down on their knees to Beecher, begging him to occupy Plymouth church? They recognized the necessity of concentration; and, although you see them in other fields, at times, still it was not until they had mastered their first undertaking. Elihu Burritt mastered over forty different languages by taking one at a time.

The writer, in early youth, learned a lesson which has ever been of inestimable benefit to him. The next lessons would begin Fractions, something we never had taken. We began to glance through that part of the book, and soon became thoroughly convinced that we should never be able to master their intricacies, at once becoming despondent. Coming home at night, he spoke of his discouragement, when his father set to work explaining the first principles. Thus, step by step, the stubborn principles were mastered, and to-day, if there is any part of Arithmetic in which he excels it is in Fractions.

"Never cross bridges until you come to them." A man should plan ahead, but he should be hopeful—not confident—should never borrow trouble, and must avoid all extremes. Another cause of failure is: The habit of endorsing without security. No one should ever endorse any man's paper without security or an equivalent. I hold that no man has a right to ask you to endorse his paper unless he can either endorse for you or give good security. Of course there are cases where a brother, who is young and cannot give security, can be helped into business; but his habits must be his security, and his duty is to have made his previous life a guarantee of his ability to safely conduct the business. But even in such cases a man's first duty is to his family, and he should never endorse, even a brother's paper, to a greater amount than he feels that he could reasonably lose.

A man may be doing a thriving manufacturing business—another man comes to him and says: "You are aware that I am worth $20,000, and don't owe a dollar; my money is all locked up at present in my business, which you are also aware is to-day in a flourishing condition. Now, if I had $5,000 to-day I could purchase a lot of goods and double my money in a few months. Will you endorse my note for that amount?" You reflect that he is worth $20,000, and, therefore, you incur no risk by endorsing his note. Of course, he is a neighbor; you want to accommodate him, and you give him your name without taking the precaution of being secured. Shortly after he shows you the note, cancelled, and tells you, probably truly, that he made the profit expected by the operation. You reflect that you have done him a favor, and the thought makes you feel good.

You do not reflect, possibly, that he might have failed for every dollar that he was worth, and you would have lost $5,000. You possibly forget that you have risked $5,000 without even the prospect of one cent in return. This is the worst kind of hazard. But let us see—by and by the same favor is again asked, and you again comply; you have fixed the impression in your mind that it is perfectly safe to endorse his notes without security. This man is getting money too easily. All he has to do is take the note to the bank, and as either you or he are considered good for it, he gets his cash. He gets the money, for the time being, without an effort. Now mark the result: He sees a chance for speculation outside of his business—a temporary investment of only $10,000 is required. It is sure to come back even before the note is due. He places the amount before you and you sign in a mechanical way.

Being firmly convinced that your friend is perfectly responsible, you endorse his notes as a matter of course. But the speculation does not develop as soon as was expected. However, "it is all right; all that is needed is another $10,000 note to take up the former one at the bank." Before this comes due the speculation turns out a dead loss. This friend does not tell you that he has lost one-half his fortune—he does not even tell you that he has speculated at all. But he is now thoroughly excited, he sees men all around making money—we seldom hear of the losers—"he looks for his money where he lost it." He gets you to endorse other notes at different times upon different pretenses until suddenly you are aware that your friend has lost all his fortune and all of yours. But you do not reflect that you have ruined him as well as he has ruined you.

All this could have been avoided by your GENTLEMANLY but BUSINESS-LIKE BEARING on the start. If you had said: "You are my neighbor, and of course, if my name will be of use to you at the bank, you can have it. All I ask is security. I do not at all distrust you, or your plan, but I always give security when I ask such a favor and I presume that you do." If you had simply asked security he could not have gone beyond his tether, and, possibly, very likely would not have speculated at all. What the world demands is thinking men. Let justice rule in all business transactions. How many men would not waste another man's property, but would waste that which belongs to his family! Ah! we want more men who will recognize family demands for justice, as well as other people's demands—men who have the brains to comprehend that it is possible to cheat their own family as well as their neighbor.