worked hard till after dark, and received the magnificent sum of six dollars! Each of those dollars looked as large to me as the moon looks to-night." Thus I think I have shown pretty conclusively that genius is neither smothered by poverty nor killed by difficulties, and that those who possess it will rise and make themselves known in spite of every obstacle. NOTE.-Mr. Lawrence Hutton gives the following list of distinguished Americans who never attended college: "Mark Twain, Howells, Aldrich, Stockton, George W. Cable, Richard Watson Gilder, Walt Whitman, Whitcomb Riley, Bunner, Hopkinson Smith, Charles Henry Webb (John Paul), Bret Harte, Joaquin Miller, Thomas Russell Sullivan, Artemus Ward, Edward Eggleston, Hamilton Gibson, John Burroughs, Harold Frederick, Howard Pyle, Thomas Janvier, James Parton, Buchanan Read, E. L. Youmans, Bronson Alcott, Charles Brockton Paine, Audubon, Rodman Drake, Bayard Taylor, John G. Whittier, John Howard Payne, William Curtis, and Washington Irving." None of these, not even Lawrence Hutton himself, were college-bred men. If all the distinguished men of Great Britain and Ireland who never attended college, or who learned by self-help, were added to this list, what a brilliant constellation this would make! CHAPTER IX. THE SECRET OF LITERARY SUCCESS. OME writers on education make statements which are rather discouraging to those young people who are endeavoring to make progress by their own exertions. Dr. Smiles speaks of Dr. Burney learning French and Italian while travelling on horseback from one musical pupil to another; of Kirke White learning Greek while walking to and from a lawyer's office; of a boy learning Latin and French while carrying messages in the streets of Manchester; and of Elihu Burritt learning forty languages while earning his living as a blacksmith. Now this is all nonsense. These persons may, in that way, have got a smattering of these languages, and succeeded, perhaps, with the aid of a dictionary, in making out a passage or two in a French or Italian, Greek or Latin book; but they never learned to read, write, or speak these languages, with any degree of correctness, in that way. The knowledge of a language does not depend on the learning of mere words and phrases; that is, in fact, the smallest part of the business. A proper comprehension of the structure of the sentence is the main thing; and for this and a fair knowledge of the grammatical forms, the closest thought and the most careful attention are necessary. Memory is by no means the chief faculty employed; for the advantages gained in learning a language do not consist in the ability to repeat passages by heart, or to ask a waiter for some foreign dish, but in the power to comprehend principles-and these throw light on the structure of the native tongue as well as on that of the one studied-in the ability to express thought logically and in conformity with the laws on which the language is based. This requires more understanding than memory, more knowledge of principles than of words. That is why Cobbett's French Grammar is so much better than the collections of words and rules that usually go under the name of French grammars, Nothing, therefore, but steady and undivided attention can enable one to master a foreign language. All this "Latin without a Master," and "Greek in Six Weeks," is the merest catchpenny humbug. One must read and translate hundreds of pages from the foreign into the native, and from the native into the foreign tongue, before one can use either correctly. I know of only three Germans in the United States who have mastered English: I mean Mr. Carl Schurz, the late Professor Schem, and John B. Stallo of Ohio; and of only one American who has mastered German, Mr. Bayard Taylor. The rest are mere smatterers, who have learned just enough "to get along;" and this is all they wanted to do. I defy the best of the native Germans to write down on demand ten consecutive English sentences without a blunder. I defy the best of them to make a ten-minute speech, and let a reporter take it down word for word, without making It is easy to get a smat a laughing-stock of himself. tering of a language; it is easy to ask for meat and drink, to inquire one's way, to buy and sell, and employ the ordinary phrases about one's health and the weather; all this Sauveur business is very easy; but it is hard, very hard, and requires the closest study, to master a language, to become capable of using it correctly in expressing thought. I learned German so as to pass for a German among Germans, but it took me almost my entire time and my undivided attention for a whole year to do it; and even now I should hardly venture to write anything in that language for the press without having it looked over by a native. "The growth of what is excellent is slow," says Cowper; and nothing excellent is ever acquired very easily. "Some will never learn anything because they understand everything too soon," says another writer. I remem ber reading of an actor who succeeded, in a case of extreme necessity, in cramming the chief role of a comedy into his memory in a few hours, and then successfully playing the part at night; but he said he forgot the whole thing in about as short a time as he had learned it. And that is precisely the case with those who learn, or rather cram, a language into their heads in a few weeks or months. Knowledge of every kind grows like a plant, and anything of a mushroom growth is sure to be worthless. Every sensible teacher will tell you that one language well learned is better than a smattering of twenty. For in the proper learning of one language you get a training of the mind, an increase of mental power, which is never gotten by smatterings. Never mind what the precocities and the prodigies do; the slow learning of a plain man will last you longer and be far more serviceable to you than any wonderful overnight growth of knowledge. Furthermore, no man can learn anything without a motive or incentive, a good, strong, sensible motive. Whatever you study must be studied with the view of making use, in some way, of the knowledge gained or the ability acquired. And not only use, but some benevolent, philanthropic use. Horace Mann did not think that any self-improvement could be vital, or worthy, that did not ally itself with the improvement of others. When you study, think of what good you can do with your knowledge, as well as of how much fame you can win, or of how much money you can make. I do not say you should not think of the latter ; you should; for I believe with Horace Greeley that every healthy young man, in this country, ought to be ashamed of being poor. But I also believe that a man who, with all the knowledge in the world, thinks of nothing but his own success, and never dreams of helping mankind in any way, of ameliorating the evils of society, is a poor, pitiful creature; sure to be miserable in the end, and to find all his honors and gains turn to ashes in his grasp. That is what the Apostle Paul means, when he says that all the gifts under heaven avail nothing without charity. Remember Wolsey's words: Let all the ends thou aimst at be thy country's, Never study on speculation; all such study is vain. Form a plan; have an object; then work for it; learn all you can about it, and you will be sure to succeed. What I mean by studying on speculation is that aimless learning of things because they may be useful |