felt within him a call to another kind of life than that his father
led.

This youth, who was yet in his teens, next to his father and mother,
loved a book better than anything else in the world, and his great
ambition was to go to college, to become a "scholar." Whether he
followed the plow, or tossed hay under a burning July sun, or chopped
wood, while his blood tingled from the combined effects of exercise and
the keen December wind, his thoughts were ever fixed on the problem,
"How can I go to college?"

His parents were poor, and, while they could give him a comfortable
support as long as he worked on the farm with them, they could not
afford to send him to college. But if they could not give him any
material aid, they gave him all their sympathy, which kept the fire of
his resolution burning at white heat.

There is some subtle communication between the mind and the spiritual
forces of achievement which renders it impossible for one to think for
any great length of time on a tangled problem, without a method for its
untanglement being suggested. So, one evening, while driving the cows
home to be milked, the thought flashed across the brain of the would-be
student: "If I can't have anything else for capital, why can't I have a
cow? I could do something with it, I am sure, and to college I MUST go,
come what will." Courage is more than half the battle. Decision and
Energy are its captains, and, when these three are united, victory is
sure. The problem of going to college was already more than half solved.

Our youthful farmer did not let his thought grow cold. Hurrying at once
to his father, he said, "If you will give me a cow, I shall feel free,
with your permission, to go forth and see what I can do for myself in
the world." The father, agreeing to the proposition, which seemed to
him a practical one, replied heartily, "My son, you shall have the best
milch cow I own."

Followed by the prayers and blessings of his parents, the youth started
from home, driving his cow before him, his destination being a certain
academy between seventy-five and one hundred miles distant.

Very soon he experienced the truth of the old adage that "Heaven helps
those who help themselves." At the end of his first day's journey, when
he sought a night's lodging for himself and accommodation for his cow
in return for her milk, he met with unexpected kindness. The good
people to whom he applied not only refused to take anything from