344 ANNUAL, REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



days. You who are even lifty years and more do not think that you 

 are too old to do some thinking, and studying yet; though it stands 

 to reason that this can best be accomplished by younger men and 

 women, and especiall}' the farmers' boys and girls. 



But before I will try to tell you how this seemingly impossible 

 thing can be done, let me cite a few of the world's master minds and 

 in what way they accomplished (heir success, and from what posi- 

 tions they rose. Eichard Arkwright, the inventor of the spinning- 

 jenny and the founder of cotton manufacture of Great Britain, work- 

 ed in his younger days as a barber. At the same trade Lord Ten- 

 lerden w'orked, who later became one of the most distinguished Chief 

 Justices of England. "Strata" Smith, one of England's greatest 

 geologists, was a farmer boy and followed the vocation for a number 

 of years. Shakespeare was a poor country boy; his father being a 

 butcher, Brindley, the engineer, Cook, the navigator, and Burns, 

 the poet, were day-laborers. Ben Johnson worked as a mason with 

 a trowel in his hand and a book in his pocket. To the same class 

 belong Hugh Miller, the geologist, and Allen Cunningham, the writer 

 and sculptor. These men all got their education by self-study, 

 hardly one of them w^as ever an hour in school. Stothard learned 

 the art of combining colors by closely studying butterflies' wings. 

 Beewick first practiced drawing on the cottage walls of his native 

 village. Benjamin West made his first brushes out of a cat's tail. 

 One of the vergers in the cathedral at Pisa, after replenishing with 

 oil a lamp which hung from the roof, left it swinging to and fro. 

 Galileo, then a youth of eighteen, watched it and conceived the idea 

 to measure time. After working fifty long years, he was successful 

 and gave to the world his great invention, the pendulum. 



These great men were true sons of perseverance — of never ceasing 

 industry and toil. Time saw them once as weak and helpless as any 

 of us. It illustrates what each may do if he takes hold of life with a 

 purpose. 



Granville Sharj), a clerk in the Ordnance Office of England, de- 

 voted his spare time to reading volumes upon volumes of English 

 law and succeeded in freeing the slaves of England and founding the 

 colony of Sierra Leon. 



Now' and then a man stands aside from the crowd and labors earn- 

 estly, steadfastly, confidently, and straightway becomes famous for 

 wisdom, intellect, skill, greatness of some sort. The world wonders, 

 admires and idolizes. I do not want you to think that by these few 

 remarks I want to make you all intellectual giants, but if you will 

 do what I will shortly state I feel confident that you will be greatly 

 profited thereby. 



In the first place, remember that every act rewards itself, and that 

 not in nature but in man is all the beauty and worth he sees. "The 



