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Chapter XXX: Self-Help · Pushing to the Front

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  Chapter thirty of Pushing to the Front by Horizon Sweat Marden. This LibriVox recording
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  is in the public domain recording by Luke Sartoor, Chapter thirty, self Help.
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  I learned that no man in God's wide earth is either willing or able
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  to help any other man. Pestalozzi, What I am? I have made
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  myself, Humphrey Davy, Be sure, my son, and remember that the
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  best men always make themselves. Patrick Henry, hereditary bondsmen know ye not?
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  Who would be free themselves must strike the blow byron. Who waits to have
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  his task marked out, shall die and leave his errand unfulfilled. Lowell.
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  Colonel Crockett makes room for himself, exclaimed a Backwood's congressman, in answer to
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  the exclamation of the White House usher to make room for Colonel Crockett. This
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  remarkable man was not afraid to oppose the head of a great nation. He
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  preferred being right to being president. Though rough, uncultured, and uncouth,
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  Crockett was a man of great courage and determination. Poverty is uncomfortable, as
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  I can testify, said James A. Garfield. But nine times out of
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  ten, the best thing that can happen to a young man is to be
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  tossed overboard and compelled to sink or swim for himself. In all my acquaintance,
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  I have never known a man to be drowned who was worth the saving.
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  Field. Was the youngest member of the House of Representatives when he entered,
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  but he had not been in his seat sixty days before his ability was
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  recognized and his place conceded. He stepped to the front with the confidence of
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  one who belonged there. He succeeded because all the world in concert could not
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  have kept him in the background, and because when once in the front,
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  he played his part with an intrepidity and commanding ease that were but the outward
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  evidences of the immense reserves of energy on which it was in his power to
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  draw. Take the place and attitude which belongs to you, says Emerson,
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  and all men acquiesce the world must be just. It leaves every man with
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  profound unconcern to set his own rate. A person under the firm persuasion that
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  he can command resources virtually has them, says Livy. Richard Arkwright. The
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  thirteenth child in a hovel, with no education, no chance, gave his
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  spinning model to the world, and put a scepter in England's right hand,
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  such as the queen never wielded. Solario, a wandering gipsy tinker, fell
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  deeply in love with the daughter of the painter col Antonio del Fiore, but
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  was told that no one but a painter as good as the father should wed
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  the maiden. Will you give me ten years to learn to paint, and
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  so entitle myself to the hand of your daughter. Consent was given col Antonio,
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  thinking that he would never be troubled further by the gypsy. About the
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  time that the ten years were to end, the king's sisters showed col Antonio
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  a madonna and child, which the painter extolled in terms of the highest praise.
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  Judge of his surprise on learning that Solario was the artist his great determination
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  gained him his bride. Louis Philippe said he was the only sovereign in Europe
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  fit to govern, for he could black his own boots. When asked to
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  name his family coat of arms, a self made president of the United States
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  replied, a pair of shirt sleeves. It is not the men who have
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  inherited most, except it be in nobility of soul and purpose who have risen
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  highest. But rather the men with no start, who have won fortunes and
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  have made adverse circumstances a spur to goad them up the steep mount where Fame's
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  proud temple shines are far. To such men, every possible goal is accessible,
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  and honest ambition has no height that genius or talent may tread which has
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  not felt the impress of their feet. You may leave your millions to your
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  son, but have you really given him anything. You cannot transfer the discipline,
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  the experience, the power which the acquisition has given you. You cannot
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  transfer the delight of achieving, the joy felt only in growth, the pride
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  of acquisition. The character which trained habits of accuracy, method, promptness,
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  patience, dispatch, honesty of dealing, politeness of manner have developed. Cannot
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  transfer the skill, sagacity, prudence, foresight which lie concealed in your wealth.
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  It meant a great deal for you, but means nothing to your heir.
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  In climbing to your fortune, you developed the muscle, stamina, and
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  strength which enabled you to maintain your lofty position, to keep your millions intact.
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  If you had the power which comes only from experience and which alone enables
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  you to stand firm on your dizzy height. Your fortune was experienced to you,
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  joy, growth, discipline, and character. To him, it will
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  be a temptation and anxiety, which will probably dwarf him. It was wings
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  to you, it will be a dead weight to him. To you,
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  it was education and expansion of your highest powers. To him, it may
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  mean inaction, lethargy, indolence, weakness, ignorance. You have taken the
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  priceless spur necessity away from him, the spur which has goaded man to nearly
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  all the great achievements in the history of the world. You thought it a
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  kindness to deprive yourself in order that your son might begin where you left off.
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  You thought to spare him the drudgery, the hardships, the deprivations,
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  the lack of opportunities, the meager education which you had on the old farm.
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  But you have put a crutch into his hand instead of a staff.
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  You have taken away from him the incentive to self development, to self elevation,
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  to self discipline and self help, without which no real success, no
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  real happiness, no great character is ever possible. His enthusiasm will evaporate,
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  his energy will be dissipated. His ambition, not being stimulated by the struggle
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  for self elevation, will gradually die away. If you do everything for your
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  son and fight his battles for him, you will have a weakling on your
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  hands. At twenty one, my life is a wreck, said the dying
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  Cyrus w Field. My fortune gone, my home dishonored. Oh, I
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  was so unkind to Edward when I thought I was being kind. If I
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  had only had firmness enough to compel my boys to earn their living, then
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  they would have known the meaning of money. His table was covered with medals
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  and certificates of honor from many nations in recognition of his great work for civilization.
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  In Mooring, too continents side by side in thought of the fame he
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  had won and could never lose. But grief shook the sands of life,
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  as he thought only of the son who had brought disgrace upon a name before
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  unsullied. The wounds were sharper than those of a serpent's tooth. During the
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  Great financial Crisis of eighteen fifty seven, Mariah Mitchell, who was visiting England,
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  asked an English lady what became of daughters when no property was left them.
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  They live on their brothers, was the reply. But what becomes of
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  the American daughters, asked the English lady. When there is no money left,
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  they earn it, was Miss Mitchell's reply. Men who have been bolsted
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  up all their lives are seldom good for anything in a crisis. When misfortune
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  comes, they look around for somebody to lean upon. If the prop is
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  not there, down they go. Once down they are as helpless as capsized
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  turtles or unhorsed men in armor. Many a frontier boy has succeeded beyond all
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  his expectations, simply because all props were early knocked out from under him,
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  and he was obliged to stand upon his own feet. A man's best friends
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  are his ten fingers, said Robert Collier, who brought his wife to America.
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  In the steerage. There is no manhood mill which takes in boys and
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  turns out men. What you call no chance may be your only chance.
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  Don't wait for your place to be made for you make it yourself. Don't
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  wait for somebody to give you a lift, lift yourself. Henry Ward Beecher
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  did not wait for a call to a big church with a large salary.
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  He accepted the first pastorate offered him in a little town near Cincinnati. He
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  became literally the light of the church, for he trimmed the lamps, kindled
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  the fires, swept the rooms, and rang the bell. His salary was
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  only about two hundred dollars a year, but he knew that a fine church
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  and a great salary cannot make a great man. It was work and opportunity
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  that he wanted. He felt that if there were anything in him, work
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  would bring it out. When Beethoven was examining the work of Monchelaise, he
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  found written at the end Phinis with God's help, he wrote, under it,
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  man help yourself. A young man stood listlessly watching some anglers on a
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  bridge. He was poor and dejected. At length, approaching a basket filled
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  with fish, he sighed, if now I had these, I would be
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  happy. I could sell them and buy food and lodgings. I will give
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  you just as many and just as good, said the owner, who chanced
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  to overhear his words. If you will do me a trifling favor, and
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  what is that? Asked the other, Only tend this line till I come
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  back. I wish to go on a short errand the proposal was gladly accepted.
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  The old man was gone so long that the young man began to get
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  impatient. Meanwhile, the fish snapped greedily at the hook, and he lost
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  all his depression in the excitement of pulling them in. When the owner returned,
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  he had caught a large number, counting out from them as many as
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  were in the ask it, and presenting them to the youth. The old
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  fisherman said, I fulfill my promise from the fish you have caught to teach
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  you. Whenever you see others earning what you need to waste no time in
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  foolish wishing, but cast a line for yourself. A white squall caught a
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  party of tourists on a lake in Scotland and threatened to capsize the boat.
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  When it seemed that the crisis had really come, the largest and strongest man
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  in the party, in a state of intense fear, said, let us
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  pray no, no, my man, shouted the bluff old boatman. Let
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  the little man pray you take the oar. The grandest fortunes ever accumulated or
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  possessed on Earth were, and are, the fruit of endeavor that had no
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  capital to begin with save, energy, intellect, and the will. From
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  Croesus down to Rockefeller. The story is the same, not only in the
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  getting of wealth, but also in the acquirement of eminence. Those men have
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  one most who relied most upon themselves. The male inhabitants in the township of
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  Loaferdom, in the county of hate Work, says the Printer's Squib, found
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  themselves laboring under great inconvenience, for want of an easily traveled road between poverty
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  and independence. They therefore petitioned the powers that be to levy at tax upon
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  the property of the entire county for the purpose of laying out a macadamized highway,
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  broad and smooth, and all the way down hill to the latter place.
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  Every One is the artificer of his own fortune, says sallust man is
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  not merely the architect of his own fate, but he must lay the bricks
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  himself. Bayard Taylor at twenty three wrote, I will become the sculptor of
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  my own mind's statue. His biography shows how often the chisel and hammer were
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  in his hands to shape himself into his ideal labor. Is the only legal
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  tender in the world to true success. The gods sell everything for that nothing.
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  Without it, you will never find success marked down. The door to
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  the temple of success is never left open. Every one who enters makes his
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  own door, which closes behind him to all others. Circumstances have rarely favored
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  great men. They have fought their way to triumph over the road of difficulty
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  and through all sorts of opposition. A lowly beginning and a humble origin are
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  no bar to a great career. The farmers boys fill many of the greatest
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  places in legislatures, in business, at the bar in pulpits in congress.
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  Today, boys of lowly origin have made many of the greatest discoveries. Are
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  presidents of our banks and our colleges, of our universities. Our poor boys
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  and girls have written many of our greatest books, and have filled the highest
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  places as teachers and journalists. Ask almost any great man in our large cities
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  where he was born, and he will tell you it was on a farm
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  or in a small country village. Nearly all of the great capitalists of the
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  city came from the country. Isaac Rich, the founder of Boston University,
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  left Cape Cod for Boston to make his way with the capital of only four
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  dollars. Like Horace Greeley, he could find no opening for a boy.
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  But what of that? He made an opening? He found a board and
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  made it into an oyster stand on the street corner. He borrowed a wheelbarrow
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  and went three miles to an oyster smack, bought three bushes of oysters and
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  wheeled them to his stand. Soon his little savings amounted to one hundred and
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  thirty dollars, And then he bought a horse and cart. Self help has
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  accomplished about all the great things of the world. How many young men falter,
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  faint and dully with their purpose because they have no capital to start with,
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  and wait and wait for some good luck to give them a lift.
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  But success is the child of drudgery and perseverance. It cannot be coaxed or
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  bribed. Pay the price, and it is yours. Where is the boy
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  to day who has less chanced to rise in the world than Elihu Burit apprenticed
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  to a blacksmith in whose shop he had to work at the forge all the
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  daylight, and often by candlelight. Yet he managed by studying with a book
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  before him, and his meals, carrying it in his pocket, that he
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  might utilize every spare moment and studying at night and holidays to pick up an
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  excellent edge education in the odds and ends of time, which most boys throw
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  away. While the rich boy and the idler were yawning and stretching and getting
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  their eyes open, young Burit had seized the opportunity and improved it. At
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  thirty years of age, he was master of every important language in Europe and
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  was studying those of Asia. What chance had such a boy for distinction?
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  Probably not a single youth will read this book who has not a better opportunity
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  for success. Yet he had a thirst for knowledge and a desire for self
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  improvement, which overcame every obstacle in his pathway. If the youth of America,
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  who are struggling against cruel circumstances to do something and be somebody in the
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  world, could only understand that ninety percent of what is called genius is merely
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  the resu volt of persistent, determined industry, in most cases of downright hard
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  work, that it is the slavery to a single idea which has given to
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  many a mediocre talent the reputation of being a genius, they would be inspired
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  with new hope. It is interesting to note that the men who talk most
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  about genius are the men who like to work. The least. The lazier
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  the man, the more he will have to say about great things being done
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  by genius. The greatest geniuses have been the greatest workers. Sheridan was considered
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  a genius, but it was found that the brilliance and offhand sayings with which
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  he used to dazzle the House of Commons were elaborated, polished and repolished,
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  and put down in his memorandum book Ready for any emergency. Genius has been
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  well defined as the infinite capacity for taking pains. If men who have done
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  great things could only reveal to the struggling youth of to day how much of
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  their reputations was due to downright hard digging and plodding, what an uplift of
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  inspiration and encouragement they would give. How often I have wished that the discouraged,
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  struggling youth could know of the heart aches, the head aches, the
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  nerve aches, the disheartening trials, the discouraged hours, the fears and to
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  despair involved in works which have gained the admiration of the world, but which
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  have taxed the utmost powers of their authors. You can read in a few
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  minutes or a few hours a poem or a book with only pleasure and delight,
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  but the days and months of weary plodding over details and dreary drudgery often
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  required to produce it would stagger belief. The greatest works in literature have been
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  elaborated and elaborated line by line, paragraph by paragraph, often rewritten a dozen
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  times. The drudgery which literary men have put into the productions which have stood
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  the test of time is almost incredible. Lucretius worked nearly a lifetime on one
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  poem. It completely absorbed his life. It is said that Bryant rewrote Than
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  Autopsis a hundred times, and even then was not satisfied with it. John
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  Foster would sometimes linger a week over a single sentence. He would hack,
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  split, prune, pull up by the roots, or practice any other severity
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  on whatever he wrote till it gained his consent to exist. Charmers was once
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  asked what Foster was about in London. Hard at it, he replied,
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  at the rate of a line a week. Even Lord Bacon, one of
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  the greatest geniuses that ever lived, at his death left large numbers of manuscripts
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  filled with sudden thoughts, set down for use. Hume toiled thirteen hours a
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  day on his history of England. Lord Eldon astonished the world with his great
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  illegal learning, but when he was a student too poor to buy books,
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  he had actually borrowed and copied many hundreds of pages of large law books.
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  Matthew Hale for years studied law sixteen hours a day. Speaking of Fox,
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  some one declared that he wrote drop by drop. Rosseau says of the labor
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  involved in his smooth and lively style. My manuscripts, blotted, scratched,
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  interlined, and scarcely legible, attest the trouble they cost me. There is
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  not one of them which I have not been obliged to transcribe four or five
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  times before it went to press. Some of my periods I have turned or
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  returned in my head for five or six nights before they were fit to be
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  put to paper. Beethoven probably surpassed all other musicians in his painstaking, fidelity
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  and persistent application. There is scarcely a bar in his music that was not
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  written and rewritten at least a dozen times. His favorite maxim was the barriers
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  are not yet erected, which can say to aspiring talent and industry, thus
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  far and no further. Gibbon wrote his autobiography nine times, and was in
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  his study every morning, summer and winter, at six o'clock. And yet
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  youth who waste their evenings wonder at the genius which can produce the decline and
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  fall of the Roman empire upon which Gibbon worked twenty years. Even Plato,
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  one of the greatest writers that ever lived, wrote the first sentence in his
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  Republic nine different ways before he was satisfied with it. Burke wrote the conclusion
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  of his speech at the Trial of Hastings sixteen times, and Butler his famous
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  analogy twenty times. It took Virgil seven years to write his Georgics and twelve
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  years to write the Aeneid. He was so displeased with the latter that he
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  attempted to rise from his death bed to commit it to the flames. Hayden
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  was very poor. His father was a coachman, and he friendless and lonely.
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  Married a servant girl. He was sent away from home to act as
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  errand boy for a music teacher. He absorbed a great deal of information,
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  but he had a hard life of persecution until he became a barber in Vienna.
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  Here he blacked boots for an influential man who became a friend to him.
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  In seventeen ninety eight, this poor boy's oratorio, The Creation, came
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  upon the musical world like the rising of a new sun which never set.
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  He was courted by princes and dined with kings and queens. His reputation was
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  made. There was no more barbering, no more poverty. But of his
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  eight hundred compositions, the Creation eclipsed them all. He died while Napoleon's guns
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  were bombarding Vienna, some of the shot falling in his garden. When a
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  man like Lord Cavenart, without arms or legs, manages to put himself into
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  Parliament, when a man like Francis Joseph Campbell, a blind man, becomes
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  a distinguished mathematician, a musician, and a great philanthropist, we get a
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  hint as to what it means to make the most possible out of ourselves and
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  our opportunities. Perhaps ninety nine of a hundred, under such unfortunate circumstances would
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  be content to remain helpless objects of charity for life. If it is your
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  call. To acquire money power instead of brain power, to acquire business power
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  instead of professional power. Double your talent, just the same, no matter
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  what it may. A Glover's apprentice of Glasgow, Scotland, who was too
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  poor to afford even a candle or a fire, and who studied by the
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  light of the shop windows in the streets, and when the shops were closed,
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  climbed the lamp post, holding his book in one hand and clinging to
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  the lamp post with the other. This poor boy, with less chance than
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  almost any boy in America, became the most eminent scholar of Scotland. Francis
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  Parkman, half blind, became one of America's greatest historians in spite of everything,
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  because he made himself such personal value is a coin of one's own minting,
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  one is taken at the worth he has put into himself. Franklin was
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  but a poor printer's boy, whose highest luxury at one time was only a
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  penny roll eaten in the streets of Philadelphia. Michael Faraday was a poor boy
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  son of a blacksmith who apprenticed him at the age of thirteen to a bookbinder
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  in London. Michael laid the foundations of his future greatness. By making himself
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  familiar with the contents of the books he bound, he remained at night after
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  others had gone to read and study the precious volumes. Lord Tantidon was proud
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  to point out to his son the shop where he had shaved for a penny.
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  A French doctor once taunted Fletcher, Bishop of Nismay, who had been
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  a tullow chandler in his youth, with the meanness of his origin, to
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  which you replied, if you had been born in the same condition that I
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  was, you would still have been but a maker of candles. Edwin Chadwick,
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  in his report to the British Parliament, stated that children working on halftime,
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  that is, studying three hours a day and working the rest of their
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  time out of doors really made the greatest intellectual progress during the year. Business
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  Men have often accomplished wonders during the busiest lives by simply devoting one, two,
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  three or four hours daily to study or other literary work. James Watt
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  received only the rudiments of an education at school, for his attendance was irregular
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  on account of delicate health. He more than made up for all deficiencies however,
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  by the diligence with which he pursued his studies at home. Alexander the
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  Fifth was a beggar. He was born Mud and died Marble. William Herschell,
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  placed at the age of fourteen as a musician in the band of the
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  Hanoverian Guards, devoted all his leisure to philosophical studies. He acquired a large
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  fund of general knowledge, and in astronomy, a science in which he was
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  wholly self instructed, his discoveries entitled him to rank with the greatest astronomers of
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  all time. George Washington was the son of a widow, born under the
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  roof of a Westmoreland farmer. Almost from infancy his lot had been that of
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  an orphan. No academy had welcomed him to its shade, No college crowned
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  him with its honors. To read, to write, to cipher, these
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  had been his degrees in knowledge. Shakespeare learned little more than reading and writing
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  at school, but by self culture he made himself the great master among literary
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  men. Too, enjoyed few advantages of education, and his youth was passed
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  in almost abject poverty. James Ferguson, the son of a half starved peasant
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  learned to read by listening to the recitations of one of his elder brothers.
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  While a mere boy, he discovered several mechanical principles, made models of mills
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  and spinning wheels, and by means of beads on strings, worked out an
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  excellent map of the heavens. Ferguson made remarkable things with a common pen knife.
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  How many great men have mounted the hill of knowledge by out of the
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  way paths. Gifford worked his intricate problems with a shoemaker's all on a bit
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  of leather. Rittenhouse first calculated eclipses on his plow handle. Columbus, while
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  leading the life of a sailor, managed to become the most accomplished geographer and
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  astronomer of his time. When Peter the Great, a boy of seventeen,
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  became the absolute ruler of Russia, his subjects were little better than savages,
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  and in himself even the passions and propensities of barbarism was so strong that they
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  were frequently exhibited during his whole career. But he determined to transform himself and
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  the Russians into civilized people. He instituted reforms with great energy and at the
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  age of twenty six, started on a visit to the other countries of Europe
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  for the purpose of learning about their arts and institutions. At Sardam, Holland,
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  he was so impressed with the sights of the Great East India dockyard that
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  he apprenticed himself to a shipbuilder and helped to build the Saint Peter, which
• 33:55
  he promptly purchased, continuing his travels. After he had learned his trade,
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  he worked in England in paper mills, saw mills, rope yards, watchmakers
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  shops and other manufactories, doing the work and receiving the treatment of a common
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  laborer. While traveling. His constant habit was to obtain as much information as
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  he could beforehand with regard to every place he was to visit, and he
• 34:27
  would demand let me see all when setting out on his investigations. On such
• 34:35
  occasions, he carried his tablets in his hand, and whatever he deemed worthy
• 34:39
  of remembrance was carefully noted down. He would often leave his carriage if he
• 34:45
  saw the country people at work by the wayside as he passed along, and
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  not only enter into conversation with them on agricultural affairs, but also accompany them
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  to their homes, examine their furniture, and take drawings of their implements of
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  husbandry. Thus he obtained much minute and correct knowledge, which he would scarcely
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  have acquired by other means, and which he afterward turned to admirable account in
• 35:16
  the improvement of his own country. The ancients said know thyself, the twentieth
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  century says, help thyself. Self. Culture gives a second birth to the
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  soul. A liberal education is a true regeneration. When a man is once
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  liberally educated, he will generally remain a man, not shrink to a mannikin,
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  nor dwindle to a brute. But if he is not properly educated,
• 35:52
  if he has merely been crammed and stuffed through college, if he has nearly
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  a broken down memory from trying to hold crammed facts enough to pass the examination,
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  he will continue to shrink, shrivel, and dwindle, often below his
• 36:12
  original proportions, for he will lose both his confidence and self respect as his
• 36:17
  crammed facts, which never became a part of himself, evaporate from his distended
• 36:23
  memory. Every bit of education or culture is of great advantage in the struggle
• 36:30
  for existence. The microscope does not create anything new, but it reveals marvels.
• 36:39
  To educate. The eye adds to its magnifying power until it sees beauty
• 36:45
  where before it saw only ugliness. It reveals a world we never suspected,
• 36:51
  and finds the greatest beauty even in the commonest things. The eye of an
• 36:57
  Agassiz could see worlds of which the uneducated eye never dreamed. The cultured hand
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  can do a thousand things the uneducated hand cannot do. It becomes graceful,
• 37:12
  steady of nerve, strong, skillful. Indeed, it almost seems to think,
• 37:19
  so animated is it. With intelligence, the cultured will can seize,
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  grasp, and hold the possessor with irresistible power, and nerve to almost superhuman
• 37:31
  effort. The educated touch can almost perform miracles. The educated taste can achieve
• 37:38
  wonders almost past belief. When a contrast between the cultured logical, profound,
• 37:47
  masterly reason of a gladstone and that of the hodge carrier, who has never
• 37:52
  developed or educated his reason beyond what is necessary to enable him to mix mortar
• 38:00
  and carry brick, be careful to avoid that over intellectual culture, which is
• 38:07
  purchased at the expense of moral vigor an observant professor of one of our colleges
• 38:13
  has remarked that the mind may be so rounded and polished by education, and
• 38:19
  so well balanced as not to be energetic in any one faculty. In other
• 38:24
  men not thus trained, the sense of deficiency and of the sharp, jagged
• 38:30
  corners of their knowledge leads to efforts to fill up the chasms, rendering them
• 38:36
  at last far better educated men than the polished, easygoing graduate, who has
• 38:42
  just knowledge enough to prevent consciousness of his ignorance. While all the faculties of
• 38:47
  the mind should be cultivated, it is yet desirable that it should have two
• 38:53
  or three rough hewn features of massive strength. Young men are too apt to
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  forget the great end of life, which is to be and to do,
• 39:07
  not to read and brood over what other men have been and done. I
• 39:15
  repeat that my object is not to give him knowledge, but to teach him
• 39:21
  how to acquire it. At need, said Rosso, all learning is self
• 39:28
  teaching. It is upon the working of the pupil's own mind that his progress
• 39:35
  in knowledge depends. The great business of the master is to teach the pupil
• 39:40
  to teach himself. Thinking, not growth, makes manhood, says Isaac Taylor.
• 39:51
  Accustom yourself therefore to thinking. Set yourself to understand whatever you see or
• 39:58
  read. To joined thinking with reading is one of the first maxims and one
• 40:05
  of the easiest operations. How few think justly of the thinking few. How
• 40:14
  many never think? Who think they do? End of Chapter thirty Self Help
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  recording by Luke Sartor, Brisbane, Queensland,