as I deserved it. Remember what one hundred and twenty dollars
meant on Prince Edward Island, and to me, a poor boy who had never
possessed such a sum in his life. On the other side was my hope of
obtaining an education. I knew that it involved hard work and
self-denial, and there was the possibility of failure in the end. But
my mind was made up. I would not turn back. I need not say that I do
not regret that early decision, although I think that I should have
made a successful storekeeper.

"With my capital of eighty dollars, I began to attend the village high
school, to get my preparation for college. I had only one year to do
it in. My money would not last longer than that. I recited in Latin,
Greek, and algebra, all on the same day, and for the next forty weeks I
studied harder than I ever had before or have since. At the end of the
year I entered the competitive examination for a scholarship in Prince
of Wales College, at Charlottetown, on the Island. I had small hope of
winning it, my preparation had been so hasty and incomplete. But when
the result was announced, I found that I had not only won the
scholarship from my county, but stood first of all the competitors on
the Island.

"The scholarship I had won amounted to only sixty dollars a year. It
seems little enough, but I can say now, after nearly thirty years, that
the winning of it was the greatest success I ever have had. I have had
other rewards, which, to most persons, would seem immeasurably greater,
but with this difference: that first success was essential; without it
I could not have gone on. The others I could have done without, if it
had been necessary."

For two years young Schurman attended Prince of Wales College. He
lived on his scholarship and what he could earn by keeping books for
one of the town storekeepers, spending less than one hundred dollars
during the entire college year. Afterward, he taught a country school
for a year, and then went to Acadia College in Nova Scotia to complete
his course.

One of Mr. Schurman's fellow-students in Acadia says that he was
remarkable chiefly for taking every prize to which he was eligible. In
his senior year, he learned of a scholarship in the University of
London offered for competition by the students of Canadian colleges.
The scholarship paid five hundred dollars a year for three years. The
young student in Acadia was ambitious to continue his studies in
England, and saw in t