HISTORY OF THE COTTON GIN. 297 



ELI WHITNEY,* THE INVENTOR OF THE COTTON GIN. 



A STRUGGLE always presents a manly and inspiring spec- 

 tacle. Man was made for action arid he cannot but sympa- 

 thize with earnest and energetic action on the part of others. 

 The struggle of brute force against brute force, is not without 

 interest. The strife of mind with mind is nobler ; nobler still 

 is the struggle of mind with unwilling nature, when he is 

 sternly resolved on wresting from her reluctant grasp the secret 

 of her mystery. The interest increases just as the genius is 

 commanding as the obstacles are great and manifold as the 

 strife is protracted and as the triumph is complete and final. 

 If the struggle be for a worthy object, and that object be fully 

 secured in some permanent benefit to mankind, which remains 

 as its lasting memorial, it is nobler still. 



For one or all of these reasons the lives of " self-made men" 

 have usually a peculiar charm. They are always read with 

 an eager interest by the young and hopeful. Most of all are 

 they favorite books with the young American. The structure 

 of our government and society, gives leave to every man to 

 make the most of himself. The buoyant and hopeful youth 

 of our people, the boundless and undeveloped resources holding 

 out so wide a field for effort, and the familiar spectacle of men, 

 who, from the humblest origin, have risen by native energy to 

 the highest stations of wealth and honor, these all combine to 

 make the incidents of the life of such men the favorite reading 

 of multitudes among us. 



There are few lives of this class that present the elements 



* Memoir of Eli Whitney, Esq. By Denison Olmstead, Professor of 

 Natural Philosophy and Astronomy, Yale College. First published in the 

 American Journal of Science, for 1832. New-Haven: Durne & Peck. 

 1346. pp. 80. 



