h their
lessons. I helped some lame dogs over the stile. One among them was a
young American of brilliant scholastic attainments, who was the victim
of hereditary alcoholism. His mother, a saintly and noble
prohibitionist worker, whom I afterwards met in America, had heard of
me, and wrote asking me to keep a watchful eye on her boy. This I did
for about 12 months, and found him employment. He held a science
degree, and was an authority on mineralogy, metallurgy, and kindred
subjects. During this speculative period he persuaded me to plunge
(rather wildly for me) in mining shares. I plunged to the extent of 500
pounds, and I owe it to the good sense and practical ability of my
nephew that I lost no more heavily than I did, for he paid 100 pounds
to let me off my bargain.

My protege continued to visit me weekly, and we wrote to one another
once a week or oftener. The books I lent to him I know to this day by
their colour and the smell of tobacco. I wrote to his mother regularly,
and consulted with his good friend, Mr. Waterhouse, over what was best
to be done. One bad outburst he had when he had got some money through
me to pay off liabilities. I recollect his penitent, despairing
confession, with the reference to Edwin Arnold's poem

He who died at Azun gave
This to those who dug his grave.

The time came when I felt I could hold him no longer, although that
escapade was forgiven, and I determined to send him to his mother--not
without misgivings about what she might have still to suffer. He wrote
to me occasionally. His health was never good, and I attribute the
craving for drink and excitement a good deal to physical causes; but at
the same time I am sure that he could have withstood it by a more
resolute will. The will is the character--it is the real man. When
people say that the first thing in education is to break the will, they
make a radical mistake. Train the will to work according to the
dictates of an enlightened conscience, for it is all we have to trust
to for the stability of character. My poor lad called me his Australian
mother. When I saw his real mother, I wondered more and more what sort
of a husband she had, or what atavism Edward drew from to produce a
character so unlike hers. I heard nothing from herself of what she went
through, but from her friends I gathered that he had several outbreaks,
and cost her far more than she could afford. She paid everything that
he owed in Adelaide, exc