s young man intended
to make his way in the world. Determined audacity was in his very
face. Handsome, with the hated Hebrew blood in his veins, after three
defeats in parliamentary elections he was not the least daunted, for he
knew his day would come. Lord Melbourne, the great Prime Minister,
when this gay young fop was introduced to him, asked him what he wished
to be. "Prime Minister of England," was his audacious reply.

William H. Seward was given a thousand dollars by his father with which
to go to college; this was all he was to have. The son returned at the
end of the freshman year with extravagant habits and no money. His
father refused to give him more, and told him he could not stay at
home. When the youth found the props all taken out from under him, and
that he must now sink or swim, he left home moneyless, returned to
college, graduated at the head of his class, studied law, was elected
Governor of New York, and became Lincoln's great Secretary of State
during the Civil War.

Garfield said, "If the power to do hard work is not talent, it is the
best possible substitute for it." The triumph of industry and grit
over low birth and iron fortune in America, the land of opportunity,
ought to be sufficient to put to shame all grumblers over their hard
fortune and those who attempt to excuse aimless, shiftless, successless
men because they have no chance.

During a winter in the War of 1812, General Jackson's troops,
unprovided for and starving, became mutinous and were going home. But
the general set the example of living on acorns; and then he rode
before the rebellious line and threatened with instant death the first
mutineer that should try to leave.

The race is not always to the swift, the battle is not always to the
strong. Horses are sometimes weighted or hampered in the race, and
this is taken into account in the result. So in the race of life the
distance alone does not determine the prize. We must take into
consideration the hindrances, the weights we have carried, the
disadvantages of education, of breeding, of training, of surroundings,
of circumstances. How many young men are weighted down with debt, with
poverty, with the support of invalid parents or brothers and sisters,
or friends? How many are fettered with ignorance, hampered by
inhospitable surroundings, with the opposition of parents who do not
understand them? How many a round boy is hindered in the race by being
forced