23 MODERN BLACkSMlTHiNC^ 



elevate the man. No smith should think it idle to read 

 and study. "Every kind of knowledge," observes a 

 writer, "comes into play some time or other, not only 

 systematic study, but fragmentary, even the odds and 

 ends, the merest rag-tags of information." Some 

 fact, or experience, and sometimes an anecdote, recur 

 to the mind, by the power of association, just in the 

 right time and place. A carpenter was observed to 

 be very particular and painstaking in repairing an old 

 chair of a magistrate, and when asked why, said: "I 

 want this chair to be easy for me to sit in some time." 

 He lived long enough to sit in it. 



Hugh Miller found time while pursuing the trade of 

 a stone mason, not only to read, but to write, cultivat- 

 ing his style till he became one of the most facile and 

 brilliant authors of the day. Elihu Burritt acquired a 

 mastery of eighteen languages and twenty-two dia- 

 lects, not by rare genius, which he disclaimed, but by 

 improving the bits and fragments of time which he 

 had to spare from his occupation as a blacksmith. 



Let it be a practice or a habit, if you will, to buy at 

 least one book every year, and to read the same, once, 

 twice, thrice, or until its contents are indelibly im- 

 pressed upon your mind. It will come back to your 

 mind and be useful when you expect it the least. 



