word to
utter against strenuous devotion to business while you are at it. But
one of the wisest and most thoroughly cultivated men whom I ever knew,
retired before the age of fifty, from a profession in which he was
making an enormous income, because, he said, he had got as much as he or
any one belonging to him could want, and he did not see why he should
sacrifice the rest of his life to money-getting. Some people thought him
very foolish. I did not. And I believe that the gentleman of whom I
speak never once repented his decision."

[Footnote 1: A collection ought to be made and published of Lord Derby's
admirable Addresses to Young Men.]

The gentleman to whom Lord Derby referred was Mr. Nasmyth, the inventor
of the steam hammer. And as he has himself permitted the story of his
life to be published, there is no necessity for concealing his name. His
life is besides calculated to furnish one of the best illustrations of
our subject. When a boy, he was of a bright, active, cheerful
disposition. To a certain extent he inherited his mechanical powers from
his father, who, besides being an excellent painter, was a thorough
mechanic. It was in his workshop that the boy made his first
acquaintance with tools. He also had for his companion the son of an
iron-founder, and he often went to the founder's shop to watch the
moulding, iron-melting, casting, forging, pattern-making, and smith's
work that was going on.

"I look back," Mr. Nasmyth says, "to the hours of Saturday afternoons
spent in having the run of the workshops of this small foundry as the
true and only apprenticeship of my life. I did not trust to reading
about such things. I saw, handled, and helped when I could; and all the
ideas in connection with them became in all details, ever after,
permanent in my mind,--to say nothing of the no small acquaintance
obtained at the same time of the nature of workmen."

In course of time, young Nasmyth, with the aid of his father's tools,
could do little jobs for himself. He made steels for tinder-boxes, which
he sold to his schoolfellows. He made model steam-engines, and sectional
models, for use at popular lectures and in schools; and by selling such
models, he raised sufficient money to enable him to attend the lectures
on Natural Philosophy and Chemistry at the Edinburgh University. Among
his works at that time, was a working model of a steam carriage for use
on common roads. It worked so well that he was induced to