Chapter XXII (2)

“Were the conditions surrounding your youth especially difficult?”

“No. They were those common to every small New York town in 1832. I was born at Stockbridge, in Madison county. Our family had its roots in Scotland. My father’s ancestors were the Robertsons, Watsons, and McGregors of Scotland; my mother came of the Puritans, who settled in Connecticut.”

“Dr. Gunsaulus says,” I ventured, “that _all these streams of heredity set toward business affairs_.”

“Perhaps so. I like trading well. My father was reasonably prosperous and independent for those times. My mother had been a schoolteacher. There were six boys, and of course such a household had to be managed with the strictest economy in those days. My mother thought it her duty to bring to our home some of the rigid discipline of the school-room. We were all trained to work together, and everything was done as systematically as possible.”

“Had you access to any books?”

“Yes, the Bible, ‘Pilgrim’s Progress,’ and a History of the United States.”

It is said of the latter, by those closest to Mr. Armour, that it was as full of shouting Americanism as anything ever written, and that Mr. Armour’s whole nature is yet colored by its stout American prejudices; also that it was read and re-read by the Armour children, though of this the great merchant did not speak.

“Were you always of _a robust constitution_?” I asked.

“Yes, sir. All our boys were. We were stout enough to be bathed in an ice-cold spring, out of doors, when at home. There were no bath tubs and warm water arrangements in those days. We had to be strong. My father was a stern Scotchman, and when he laid his plans they were carried out. When he set us boys to work, we worked. It was our mother who insisted on keeping us all at school, and who looked after our educational needs; while our father saw to it that we had plenty of good, hard work on the farm.”

“How did you enjoy that sort of life?” I asked.

“Well enough, but not much more than any boy does. Boys are always more or less afraid of hard work.”

The truth is, I have heard, but not from Mr. Armour, that when he attended the district school, he was as full of pranks and capers as the best; and that he traded jack-knives in summer and bob-sleds in winter. Young Armour was often to be found, in the winter, coasting down the long hill near the schoolhouse. Later, he had a brief term of schooling at the Cazenovia Seminary.

FOOTING IT TO CALIFORNIA

“When did you leave the farm for a mercantile life?” I asked.

“I was a clerk in a store in Stockbridge for two years, after I was seventeen, but was engaged with the farm more or less, and wanted to get out of that life. I was a little over seventeen years old when the California gold excitement of 1849 reached our town. Wonderful tales were told of gold already found, and the prospects for more on the Pacific coast. I brooded over the difference between tossing hay in the hot sun and digging up gold by handfuls, until one day I threw down my pitchfork and went over to the house and told mother that I had quit that kind of work.

“People with plenty of money could sail around Cape Horn in those days, but I had no money to spare, and so decided to walk across the country. That is, we were carried part of the way by rail and walked the rest. I persuaded one of the neighbor’s boys, Calvin Gilbert, to go along with me, and we started.

“I provided myself with an old carpet sack into which to put my clothes. I bought a new pair of boots, and when we had gone as far as we could on canals and wagons, I bought two oxen. With these we managed for awhile, but eventually reached California afoot.”

Young Armour suffered a severe illness on the journey, and was nursed by his companion Gilbert, who gathered herbs and steeped them for his friend’s use, and once rode thirty miles in the rain to get a doctor. When they reached California, he fell in with Edward Croarkin, a miner, who nursed him back to health. The manner in which he remembered these men gives keen satisfaction to the friends of the great merchant.

“Did you have any money when you arrived at the gold-fields?”

“Scarcely any. I struck right out, though, and found a place where I could dig, and I struck pay dirt in a little time.”

“Did you work entirely alone?”

“No. It was not long before I met Mr. Croarkin at a little mining camp called Virginia. He had the next claim to mine, and we became partners. After a little while, he went away, but came back in a year. We then bought in together. The way we ran things was ‘turn about.’ Croarkin would cook one week, and I the next, and then we would have a clean-up every Sunday morning. We baked our own bread, and kept a few hens, which kept us supplied with eggs. There was a man named Chapin who had a little store in the village, and we would take our gold dust there and trade it for groceries.”

THE DITCH

“Did you discover much gold?” I asked.

“Oh, I worked with pretty good success,—nothing startling. _I didn’t waste much, and tried to live carefully._ I also _studied the business opportunities_ around, and persuaded some of my friends to join me in buying and developing a ‘ditch,’—a kind of aqueduct, to convey water to diggers and washers. That proved more profitable than digging for gold, and at the end of the year, the others sold out to me, took their earnings and went home. I stayed, and bought up several other water-powers, until, in 1856, I thought I had enough, and so I sold out and came East.”

“How much had you made, altogether?”

“About four thousand dollars.”

This was when Mr. Armour was twenty-four years old,—his capital for beginning to do business.

HE ENTERS THE GRAIN MARKET

“Did you return to Stockbridge?”

“A little while, but my ambition set in another direction. I had been studying the methods then used for moving the vast and growing food products of the West, such as grain and cattle, and I believed that I could improve them and make money. The idea and the field interested me and I decided to enter it.

“My standing was good, and I raised the money, and bought what was then the largest elevator in Milwaukee. This put me in contact with the movement of grain. At that time, John Plankington had been established in Milwaukee a number of years, and, in partnership with Frederick Layton, had built up a good pork-packing concern. I bought in with those gentlemen, and so came in contact with the work I liked. One of my brothers, Herman, had established himself in Chicago some time before, in the grain-commission business. I got him to turn that over to the care of another brother, Joseph, so that he might go to New York as a member of the new firm, of which I was a partner. It was important that the Milwaukee and Chicago houses should be able to ship to a house of their own in New York,—that is, to themselves. Risks were avoided in this way, and we were certain of obtaining all that the ever-changing markets could offer us.”

“When did you begin to build up your Chicago interests?”

“They were really begun, before the war, by my brother Herman. When he went to New York for us, we began adding a small packinghouse to the Chicago commission branch. It gradually grew with the growth of the West.”

MR. ARMOUR’S ACUTE PERCEPTION OF THE COMMERCIAL CONDITIONS FOR BUILDING
UP A GREAT BUSINESS

“Is there any one thing that accounts for the immense growth of the packing industry here?” I asked.

“System and the growth of the West did it. Things were changing at startling rates in those days. The West was growing fast. Its great areas of production offered good profits to men who would handle and ship the products. Railway lines were reaching out in new directions, or increasing their capacities and lowering their rates of transportation. These changes and the growth of the country made the creation of a food-gathering and delivering system necessary. Other things helped. At that time (1863), a great many could see that the war was going to terminate favorably for the Union. Farming operations had been enlarged by the war demand and war prices. The state banking system had been done away with, and we had a uniform currency, available everywhere, so that exchanges between the East and the West had become greatly simplified. Nothing more was needed than a steady watchfulness of the markets by competent men in continuous telegraphic communication with each other, and who knew the legitimate demand and supply, in order to sell all products quickly and with profit.”

SYSTEM AND GOOD MEASURE

“Do you believe that system does so much?” I ventured.

“System and good measure. _Give a measure heaped full and running over, and success is_ _certain._ That is what it means to be the intelligent servants of a great public need. We believed in thoughtfully adopting every attainable improvement, mechanical or otherwise, in the methods and appliances for handling every pound of grain or flesh. Right liberality and right economy will do everything where a public need is being served. Then, too, our

METHODS

improved all the time. There was a time when many parts of cattle were wasted, and the health of the city injured by the refuse. Now, by adopting the best known methods, nothing is wasted; and buttons, fertilizers, glue and other things are made cheaper and better for the world in general, out of material that was before a waste and a menace. I believe in finding out the truth about all things—the very latest truth or discovery,—and applying it.”

“You attribute nothing to good fortune?”

“Nothing!” Certainly the word came well from a man whose energy, integrity, and business ability made more money out of a ditch than other men were making out of rich placers in the gold region.

THE TURNING POINT

“May I ask what you consider the turning-point of your career?”

“The time when I began to save the money I earned at the gold-fields.”

TRUTH

“What trait do you consider most essential in young men?”

“Truth. Let them get that. Young men talk about getting capital to work with. Let them get truth on board, and capital follows. It’s easy enough to get that.”

A GREAT ORATOR, AND A GREAT CHARITY

“Did you always desire to follow a commercial, rather than a professional life?”

“Not always. I have no talent in any other direction; but I should have liked to be a great orator.”

Mr. Armour would say no more on this subject, but his admiration for oratory has been demonstrated in a remarkable way.

It was after a Sunday morning discourse by the splendid orator, Dr. Gunsaulus, at Plymouth Church, Chicago, in which the latter had set forth his views on the subject of educating children, that Mr. Armour came forward and said:—

“You believe in those ideas of yours, do you?”

“I certainly do,” said Dr. Gunsaulus.

“And would you carry them out if you had the opportunity?”

“I would.”

“Well, sir,” said Mr. Armour, “if you will give me five years of your time, I will give you the money.”

“But to carry out my ideas would take a million dollars!” exclaimed Gunsaulus.

“I have made a little money in my time,” returned Mr. Armour. And so the famous Armour Institute of Technology, to which its founder has already given sums aggregating $2,800,000, was associated with Mr. Armour’s love of oratory.

One of his lieutenants says that Gerritt Smith, the old abolitionist, was Armour’s boyhood’s hero, and that to-day Mr. Armour will go far to hear a good speaker, often remarking that he would have preferred to be a great orator rather than a great capitalist.

EASE IN HIS WORK

“There is no need to ask you,” I continued, “whether you believe in constant, hard labor?”

“I should not call it hard. I believe in close application, of course, while laboring. Overwork is not necessary to success. Every man should have plenty of rest. I have.”

“You must rise early to be at your office at half past seven?”

“Yes, but I go to bed early. I am not burning the candle at both ends.”

The enormous energy of this man, who is too modest to discuss it, is displayed in the most normal manner. Though he sits all day at a desk which has direct cable connection with London, Liverpool, Calcutta, and other great centers of trade, with which he is in constant connection,—though he has at his hand long-distance telephone connection with New York, New Orleans, and San Francisco, and direct wires from his room to almost all parts of the world, conveying messages in short sentences upon subjects which involve the moving of vast amounts of stock and cereals, and the exchange of millions in money, he is not, seemingly, an overworked man. The great subjects to which he gives calm, undivided attention from early morning until evening, are laid aside with the ease with which one doffs his raiment, and outside of his office the cares weigh upon him no more. His mind takes up new and simpler things.

“What do you do,” I inquired, “after your hard day’s work,—think about it?”

“Not at all. I drive, take up home subjects, and never think of the office until I return to it.”

“Your sleep is never disturbed?”

“Not at all.”

A BUSINESS KING

And yet the business which this man forgets, when he gathers children about him and moves in his simple home circle, amounts in one year, to over $100,000,000 worth of food products, manufactured and distributed; the hogs killed, 1,750,000; the cattle, 1,080,000; the sheep, 625,000. Eleven thousand men are constantly employed, and the wages paid them are over $5,500,000; the railway cars owned and moving about all parts of the country, four thousand; the wagons of many kinds and of large number, drawn by seven hundred and fifty horses. The glue factory, employing seven hundred and fifty hands, makes over twelve million pounds of glue. In his private office, it is he who takes care of all the general affairs of this immense world of industry, and yet at half-past four he is done, and the whole subject is comfortably off his mind.

TRAINING YOUTH FOR BUSINESS

“Do you believe in inherited abilities, or that any boy can be taught and trained, and made a great and able man?”

“I recognize inherited ability. Some people have it, and only in a certain direction; but I think men can be taught and trained so that they become much better and more useful than they would be, otherwise. Some boys require more training and teaching than others. There is prosperity for everyone, according to his ability.”

“What would you do with those who are naturally less competent than others?”

“Train them, and give them work according to their ability. I believe that life is all right, and that this difference which nature makes is all right. Everything is good, and is coming out satisfactorily, and we ought to make the most of conditions, and try to use and improve everything. The work needed is here, and everyone should set about doing it.”

When asked if he thought the chances for young men as good to-day as they were when he was young. “Yes,” he said, “I think so. The world is changing every day and new fields are constantly opening. We have new ideas, new inventions, new methods of manufacture, and new ways to-day everywhere. There is plenty of room for any man who can do anything well. The electrical field is a wonderful one. There are other things equally good, and the right man is never at a loss for an opportunity. Provided he has some ability and good sense to start with, is thrifty, honest and economical, there is no reason why any young man should not accumulate money and attain so called success in life.”

When asked to what qualities he attributed his own success, Mr. Armour said: “I think that thrift and economy had much to do with it. I owe much to my mother’s training and to a good line of Scotch ancestors, who have always been thrifty and economical. As to my business education, I never had any. I am, in fact, a good deal like Topsy, ‘I just growed.’ My success has been largely a matter of organization.

“I have always made it a point to surround myself with good men. I take them when they are young and keep them just as long as I can. Nearly all of the men I now have, have grown up with me. Many of them have worked with me for twenty years. They have started in at low wages, and have been advanced until they have reached the highest positions.” Mr. Armour thinks that most men who accumulate a large amount of money, inherited the money-making instinct. The power of making and accumulating money, he says, is as much a natural gift as are those of a singer or an artist. “The germs of the power to make money must be in the mind. Take, for instance, the people we have working with us. I can get millions of good bookkeepers or accountants, but not more than one out of five hundred in all of those I have employed has made a great success as an organizer or trader.”

Mr. Armour is a great believer in young men and young brains. He never discharges a man if he can possibly avoid it. If the man is not doing good work where he is, he puts him in some other department, but never discharges him if he can find him other work. He will not, however, tolerate intemperance, laziness or getting into debt. Some time ago a policeman entered his office. In answer to Mr. Armour’s question, “What do you want here?” he replied: “I want to garnishee one of your men’s wages for debt.” “Indeed,” said Mr. Armour, “and who is the man?” Asking the officer into his private room he sent for the debtor. “How long have you been in debt?” asked Mr. Armour. The clerk replied that he had been behind for twenty years and could not seem to catch up. “But you get a good salary, don’t you?” “Yes, but I can’t get out of debt.” “But you must get out, or you must leave here,” said Mr. Armour. “How much do you owe?” The clerk then gave the amount, which was less than a thousand-dollars. “Well,” said Mr. Armour, handing him a check, “there is enough to pay all your debts, and if I hear of you again getting into debt, you will have to leave.” The clerk paid his debts and remodeled his life on a cash basis.

PROMPT TO ACT

In illustration of Mr. Armour’s aptitude for doing business, and his energy, it is related that when, in 1893, local forces planned to defeat him in the grain market, and everyone was crying that at last the great Goliath had met his David, he was all energy. He had ordered immense quantities of wheat. The opposition had shrewdly secured every available place of storage, and rejoiced that the great packer, having no place to store his property, would suffer immense loss, and must capitulate. He foresaw the fray and its dangers, and, going over on Goose Island, bought property at any price, and began the construction of immense elevators. The town was placarded with the truth that anyone could get work at Armour’s elevators. No one believed they could be done in time, but three shifts of men working night and day, often under the direct supervision of the millionaire, gradually forced the work ahead, and when, on the appointed day, the great grain-ships began to arrive, the opposition realized failure. The vessels began to pour the contents of their immense holds into these granaries, and the fight was over.

FORESIGHT

The foresight that sent him to New York in 1864, to sell pork, brought him back from Europe in 1893, months before the impending panic was dreamed of by other merchants. It is told of him that he called all his head men to New York, and announced to them:—

“Gentlemen, there’s going to be financial trouble soon.”

“Why, Mr. Armour,” they said, “you must be mistaken. Things were never better. You have been ill, and are suddenly apprehensive.”

“Oh, no,” he said, “I’m not. There is going to be trouble;” and he gave as his reasons certain conditions which existed in nearly all countries, which none of those present had thought of. “Now,” said he to the first of his many lieutenants, “how much will you need to run your department until next year?”

The head man named his need. The others were asked, each in turn, the same question, and, when all were through, he counted up, and, turning to the company, said:—

“Gentlemen, go back and borrow all you need in Chicago, on my credit. Use my name for all it will bring in the way of loans.”

FOREARMED AGAINST PANIC

The lieutenants returned, and the name of Armour was strained to its utmost limit. When all had been borrowed, the financial flurry suddenly loomed up, but it did not worry the great packer. In his vaults were $8,000,000 in gold. All who had loaned him at interest then hurried to his doors, fearing that he also was imperiled. They found him supplied with ready money, and able to compel them to wait until the stipulated time of payment, or to force them to abandon their claims of interest for their money, and so tide him over the unhappy period. It was a master stroke, and made the name of the great packer a power in the world of finance.

SOME SECRETS OF SUCCESS

“Do you consider your financial decisions which you make quickly to be brilliant intuitions?” I asked.

“I never did anything worth doing by accident, nor did anything I have come that way. No, I never decide anything without knowing the conditions of the market, and never begin unless satisfied concerning the conclusion.”

“Not everyone could do that,” I said.

“I cannot do everything. Every man can do something, and there is plenty to do,—never more than now. The problems to be solved are greater now than ever before. _Never was there more need of able men. I am looking for trained men all the time._ More money is being offered for them everywhere than formerly.”

“Do you consider that _happiness_ consists in labor alone?”

“_It consists in doing something for others._ If you give the world better material, better measure, better opportunities for living respectably, there is happiness in that. You cannot give the world anything without labor, and there is no satisfaction in anything but such labor as looks toward doing this, and does it.”

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V

What Miss Mary E. Proctor Did to Popularize Astronomy

“YOU can never know what your possibilities are,” said Miss Proctor, “till you have put yourself to the test. There are many, many women who long to do something, and could succeed, if they would only banish their doubts, and plunge in. For example, I was not at all sure that I could interest audiences with talks on astronomy, but, in 1893, I began, and since then have given between four and five hundred lectures.”

Miss Proctor is so busy spreading knowledge of the beauties and marvels of the heavens, that she was at home in New York for only a two days’ interval between tours, when she consented to talk to me about her work. This talk showed such enthusiasm and whole-souled devotion to the theme that it is easy to understand Miss Proctor’s success as a lecturer, although she is physically diminutive, and is very domestic in her tastes.

AUDIENCES ARE APPRECIATIVE

“I am always nervous in going before an audience,” she said, “but there is so much I want to tell them that I have no time at all to think of myself. I find that if the lecturer is really interested in the subject, those who come to listen usually are; and it is certainly true, as I have learned by going upon the platform, tired out from a long journey, that you cannot expect enthusiasm in your audience, unless you are enthusiastic yourself. But I think that audiences are very responsive and appreciative of intelligent efforts to interest them, and, therefore, I am sure, that if a woman possesses, or can acquire a thorough knowledge of some practical, popular subject, and has enthusiasm and a fair knowledge of human nature, she can attain success on the lecture platform.

“The field is broad, and far from over-crowded, and it yields bountifully to those who are willing to toil and wait. There is Miss Roberts, for instance, who commands large audiences for her lectures on music; and Mrs. Lemcke, who has been remarkably successful in her practical talks on cooking; and Mary E. Booth, who gives wonderfully instructive and entertaining lectures on the revelations of the microscope; and Miss Very, who takes audiences of children on most delightful and profitable imaginary trips to places of importance.

LECTURES TO CHILDREN

“Children, by the way, are my most satisfactory audiences. Grown-up people never become so absorbed. It is the greatest pleasure of my lecturing to talk to the little tots, and watch them drink it all in. Indeed, I prepared my very first lecture for children, but didn’t deliver it. That episode marked the beginning of my career as a lecturer.

“Do you ask me to tell you about it? My father, Richard A. Proctor, wrote, as you know, many books on popular astronomy. When I was a girl I did not read them very carefully; my education at South Kensington, London, following a musical and artistic direction. In fact, I was ambitious to become a painter. But when my father died, in 1888, I found comfort in reading his books all over again; and as he had drilled me to write for his periodical, ‘_Knowledge_,’ I began to write articles on astronomy for anyone who would accept them. One day, in the spring of 1893, I received a letter from Mrs. Potter Palmer, asking me if I would talk to an audience of children in the Children’s Building at the World’s Fair. The idea of lecturing was new to me, but I decided that I would try, at any rate, and so I took great pains to prepare a talk that I thought the children would understand, and be interested in. But when I reached the building, I found an audience, not of children, but of men and women. _There was hardly a child in all the assembled five hundred people._ It would never do to give them the childish talk I had prepared, and as it was my first attempt to talk from a platform, you can imagine my state of mind. I was determined, however, that my first effort should not be a fiasco, so I stepped out upon the platform and talked about the things that had most interested me in my father’s books and conversations.”

A LESSON IN LECTURING

“I have lectured a great many times since then, but my first lecture was the most trying. I am now glad that things happened as they did, for that experience taught me a valuable lesson. I learned not to commit my talks to memory, but merely to have the topics and facts and general arrangement of the lecture well in mind. By this method, I can change and adapt myself to my audience at any time; and I often have to do this. I am able to feel intuitively whether I have gained my listeners’ sympathy and interest, and when I feel that I have not, I immediately take another tack. Another great advantage of not committing what you are going to say to memory, word for word, is the added color and animation and spontaneity which the conversational tone and manner gives the lecture.”

THE STEREOPTICON

“My stereopticon pictures of the heavenly bodies are of great help to me. They naturally add much to the interest, and are really a revelation to most of my audiences, for the reason that they show things that can never be seen with the naked eye. How my father would have delighted in them, and how effectively he would have used them. But celestial photography had not been made practical at the time of his death; it is, indeed, quite a new art, although its general principles are very simple. A special lens and photographic plate are adjusted in the telescope, and the plate is exposed as in an ordinary camera, except that the exposure is much longer. It usually continues for about four hours, the greater the length of time the greater being the number of stars that will be seen in the photograph. After the developing, these stars appear as mere specks on the plate. That they are so small is not surprising, for most of them are stars that are never seen by the eye alone. When the photograph is enlarged by the stereopticon, the result is like looking at a considerable portion of the heavens through a powerful telescope.

“The children utter exclamations of delight when they see the pictures,—the children, dear, imaginative little souls, it is my ambition to devote more and more of my time to them, and finally talk and write for them altogether. They are greatly impressed with the new world in the skies which is opened to them, and I like to think that these early impressions will give them an understanding and appreciation of the wonders of astronomy that will always be a pleasure to them.”

“STORIES FROM STAR LAND”

“For the children, my first book, ‘Stories From Starland,’ was written. I tried to weave into it poetical and romantic ideas, that appeal to the imaginative mind of the child, and quicken the interest without any sacrifice of accuracy in the facts with which I deal. I wrote the book in a week. The publisher came to me one Saturday, and told me that he would like a children’s book on astronomy. I devoted all my days to it till the following Saturday night, and on Monday morning took the completed manuscript to the publishing house. They seemed very much surprised that it should be finished so soon; but as a matter of fact it was not much more than the manual labor of writing out the manuscript that I did in that week. _The little book itself is the result of ten years’ thought and study._

“It is much the same with my lectures. I deliver them in a hasty, conversational tone, and they seem, as one of my listeners told me recently, to be ‘just offhand chats.’ But in reality I devote a great deal of labor to them, and am constantly adding new facts and new ideas.”

CONCENTRATION OF ATTENTION

“I learned very soon after I began my work, that _I must give myself up to it absolutely_ if I were to achieve success. There could be no side issues, nothing else to absorb any of my energy, or take any of my thought or time. One of the first things I did was to take a thorough course in singing, for the purpose of acquiring complete control of my voice. I put aside all social functions, of which I am rather fond and have since devoted my days and nights to astronomy,—not that I work at night, except when I lecture; I rest and retire early, so that in the morning I may have the spirit and enthusiasm necessary to do good work.

“_Enthusiasm_, it seems to me, is an important factor in success. It combats discouragement, makes work a pleasure, and sacrifices easier.

“A great many women fail in special fields of endeavor, who might succeed if they were willing to sacrifice something, and would not let the distractions creep in. There is more in a woman’s life to divert her attention from a single purpose than in a man’s; but if the woman has chosen some line of effort that is worthy to be called life work, and if—refusing to be drawn aside,—she keeps her eyes steadfastly upon the goal, I believe that she is almost certain to achieve success.”

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VI

The Boyhood Experience of President Schurman of Cornell University

AT ten years of age, he was a country lad on a backwoods farm on Prince Edward Island.

At thirteen, he had become a clerk in a country store, at a salary of thirty dollars a year.

At eighteen, he was a college student, supporting himself by working in the evenings as a bookkeeper.

At twenty, he had won a scholarship in the University of London, in competition with all other Canadian students.

At twenty-five, he was professor of philosophy, Acadia College, Nova Scotia.

At thirty-eight, he was appointed President of Cornell University.

At forty-four, he was chairman of President McKinley’s special commission to the Philippines.

In this summary is epitomized the career of Jacob Gould Schurman. It is a romance of real life such as is not unfamiliar in America. Mr. Schurman’s career differs from that of some other self-made men, however. Instead of heaping up millions upon millions, he has applied his talents to winning the intellectual prizes of life, and has made his way, unaided, to the front rank of the leaders in thought and learning in this country. His career is a source of inspiration to all poor boys who have their own way to make in the world, for he has won his present honors by his own unaided efforts.

President Schurman says of his early life:—

“It is impossible for the boy of to-day, no matter in what part of the country he is brought up, to appreciate the life of Prince Edward Island as it was forty years ago. At that time, it had neither railroads nor daily newspapers, nor any of the dozen other things that are the merest commonplaces nowadays, even to the boys of the country districts. I did not see a railroad until late in my ’teens. I was never inside of a theatre until after I was twenty. The only newspaper that came to my father’s house was a little provincial weekly. The only books the house contained were a few standard works,—such as the Bible, Bunyan’s ‘Pilgrim’s Progress,’ Fox’s ‘Book of Martyrs,’ and a few others of that class. Remember, too, that this was not back at the beginning of the century, but little more than a generation ago, for I was born in the year 1854.

“My father had cleared away the land on which our house stood. He was a poor man, but no poorer than his neighbors. No amount of land, and no amount of work could yield much more than the necessaries of life in that time and place. There were eight children in our family, and there was work for all of us.”

A LONG TRAMP TO SCHOOL

“Our parents were anxious to have their children acquire at least an elementary education; and so, summer and winter, we tramped the mile and a half that lay between our house and the district school, and the snow often fell to the depth of five or six feet on the island, and sometimes, when it was at its worst, our father would drive us all to school in a big sleigh. But no weather was bad enough to keep us away.

“That would be looked upon as a poor kind of school, nowadays, I suppose. The scholars were of all ages, and everything, from A,-B,-C, to the Rule of Three, was taught by the one teacher. But whatever may have been its deficiencies, the work of the school was thorough. The teacher was an old-fashioned drillmaster, and whatever he drove into our heads he put there to stay. I went to this school until I was thirteen, and by that time I had learned to read and write and spell and figure with considerable accuracy.

“At the age of thirteen, I left home. I had formed no definite plans for the future. I merely wanted to get into a village, and to earn some money.

“My father got me a place in the nearest town,—Summerside,—a village of about one thousand inhabitants. For my first year’s work I was to receive thirty dollars and my board. Think of that, young men of to-day! Thirty dollars a year for working from seven in the morning until ten at night! But I was glad to get the place. It was a start in the world, and the little village was like a city to my country eyes.”

HE ALWAYS SUPPORTED HIMSELF

“From the time I began working in the store until to-day, I have always supported myself, and during all the years of my boyhood I never received a penny that I did not earn myself. At the end of my first year, I went to a larger store in the same town, where I was to receive sixty dollars a year and my board. I kept this place for two years, and then I gave it up, against the wishes of my employer, because I had made up my mind that I wanted to get a better education. I determined to go to college.

“I did not know how I was going to do this, except that it must be by my own efforts. I had saved about eighty dollars from my store-keeping, and that was all the money I had in the world.” _Out of a hundred and fifty dollars, the only cash he received as his first earnings during three years, young Schurman had saved eighty dollars; this he invested in the beginnings of an education._

“When I told my employer of my plan, he tried to dissuade me from it. He pointed out the difficulties in the way of my going to college, and offered to double my pay if I would stay in the store.”

THE TURNING-POINT OF HIS LIFE

“That was the turning-point in my life. On one side was the certainty of one hundred and twenty dollars a year, and the prospect of promotion as fast as I deserved it. Remember what one hundred and twenty dollars meant in Prince Edward Island, and to a poor boy who had never possessed such a sum in his life. On the other side was my hope of obtaining an education. I knew that it involved hard work and self-denial, and there was the possibility of failure in the end. But my mind was made up. I would not turn back. I need not say that I do not regret that early decision, although I think that I should have made a successful storekeeper.

“With my eighty dollars capital, I began to attend the village high school, to get my preparation for college. I had only one year to do it in. My money would not last longer than that. I recited in Latin, Greek and algebra, all on the same day, and for the next forty weeks I studied harder than I ever had before or have since. At the end of the year I entered the competitive examination for a scholarship in Prince of Wales College, at Charlotte Town, on the island. I had small hope of winning it, my preparation had been so hasty and incomplete. But when the result was announced, I found that I had not only won the scholarship from my county, but stood first of all the competitors on the island.

“The scholarship I had won amounted to only sixty dollars a year. It seems little enough, but I can say now, after nearly thirty years, that the winning of it was the greatest success I have ever had. I have had other rewards, which, to most persons, would seem immeasurably greater, but with this difference: that first success was essential; without it I could not have gone on. The others I could have done without, if it had been necessary.”

For two years young Schurman attended Prince of Wales College. He lived on his scholarship and what he could earn by keeping books for one of the town storekeepers, spending less than one hundred dollars during the entire college year. Afterwards, he taught a country school for a year, and then went to Acadia College in Nova Scotia to complete his college course.

A SPLENDID COLLEGE RECORD

One of Mr. Schurman’s fellow-students in Acadia says that he was remarkable chiefly for taking every prize to which he was eligible. In his senior year, he learned of a scholarship in the University of London, to be competed for by the students of Canadian colleges. The scholarship paid five hundred dollars a year for three years. The young student in Acadia was ambitious to continue his studies in England, and saw in this offer his opportunity. He tried the examination and won the prize.

During the three years in the University of London, Mr. Schurman became deeply interested in the study of philosophy, and decided that he had found in it his life work. He was eager to go to Germany and study under the great leaders of philosophic thought. A way was opened for him, through the offer of the Hibbard Society in London; the prize being a traveling fellowship with two thousand dollars a year. The honor men of the great English universities like Oxford and Cambridge were among the competitors, but the poor country boy from Prince Edward Island was again successful, greatly to the surprise of the others.

At the end of his course in Germany, Mr. Schurman, then a Doctor of Philosophy, returned to Acadia College to become a teacher there. Soon afterwards, he was called to Dalhousie University, at Halifax, Nova Scotia. In 1886, when a chair of philosophy was established at Cornell, President White, who once met the brilliant young Canadian, called him to that position. Two years later, Dr. Schurman became Dean of the Sage School of Philosophy at Cornell; and, in 1892, when the President’s chair became vacant, he was placed at the head of the great university. At that time, he was only thirty-eight years of age.

President Schurman is a man of great intellectual power, and an inspiring presence. Though one of the youngest college presidents in the country, he is one of the most successful, and under his leadership Cornell has been very prosperous. He is deeply interested in all the affairs of young men, and especially those who, as he did, must make their own way in the world. He said, the other day:—

“Though I am no longer engaged directly in teaching, I should think my work a failure if I did not feel that my influence on the young men with whom I come in contact is as direct and helpful as that of a teacher could be.”

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VII

The Story of John Wanamaker

IN a plain two-story dwelling, on the outskirts of Philadelphia, the future merchant prince was born, July 11, 1837. His parents were Americans in humble station; his mother being of that sturdy Pennsylvania Dutch stock which has no parallel except the Scotch for ruggedness. His father, a hardworking man, owned a brickyard in the close vicinity of the family residence. Little John earned his first money, seven big copper cents, by assisting his father. He was too small to do much, but turned the bricks every morning as they lay drying in the summer sun. As he grew older and stronger, the boy was given harder tasks around the brickyard.

He went to school a little, not much, and he assisted his mother in the house a great deal. His father died when John was fourteen, and this changed the whole course of his life. He abandoned the brickyard and secured a place in a bookstore owned by Barclay Lippincott, on Market Street, Philadelphia, at a salary of one dollar and twenty-five cents a week.

It was a four-mile walk from his home to his place of business. Cheerfully he trudged this distance morning and night; purchasing an apple or a roll each noon for luncheon, and giving his mother all the money that he saved. He used to deny himself every comfort, and the only other money that he ever spent was on books for his mother. This seems to have been the boy’s chief source of pleasure at that period. Even to-day, he says of his mother: “Her smile was a bit of heaven, and it never faded out of her face till her dying day.” Mrs. Wanamaker lived to see her son famous and wealthy.

HIS CAPITAL AT FOURTEEN

John Wanamaker, the boy, had no single thing in all his surroundings to give him an advantage over any one of hundreds of other boys in the city of Philadelphia. Indeed, there were hundreds and hundreds of other boys of his own age for whom anyone would have felt safe in prophesying a more notable career. His capital was not in money. Very few boys in all that great city had less money than John Wanamaker, and comparatively few families of average position but were better off in the way of worldly goods. John Wanamaker’s capital, that stood him in such good stead in after life, comprised good health, good habits, a clean mind, thrift in money matters, and tireless devotion to whatever he thought to be duty.

People who were well acquainted with John Wanamaker when he was a book publisher’s boy, say that he was exceptionally promising as a boy; that he was studious as well as attentive to business. He did not take kindly to rough play, or do much playing of any kind. He was earnest in his work, unusually earnest for a boy. And he was saving of his money.

When, a little later, he went to a Market street clothing house and asked for a place, he had no difficulty in getting it, nor had he any trouble in holding it, and here he could earn twenty-five cents a week more wages.

TOWER HALL CLOTHING STORE

Men who worked with him in the Tower Hall Clothing Store say that he was always bright, willing, accommodating, and very seldom out of temper. His effort was to be first at the store in the morning, and he was very likely to be one of the last, if not the last, at the store in the evening. If there was an errand, he was always prompt and glad to do it. And so the store people liked him, and the proprietor liked him, and, when he began to sell clothing, the customers liked him. He was considerate of their interests. He did not try to force undesirable goods upon them. He treated them so that when they came again they would be apt to ask, “Where is John?”

HIS AMBITION AND POWER AS AN ORGANIZER AT SIXTEEN

Colonel Bennett, the proprietor of Tower Hall, said of him at this time:—

“John was certainly the most ambitious boy I ever saw. I used to take him to lunch with me, and he used to tell me how he was going to be a great merchant.

“He was very much interested in the temperance cause; and had not been with me long before he persuaded most of the employees in the store to join the temperance society to which he belonged. He was always organizing something. He seemed to be a natural-born organizer. This faculty is largely accountable for his great success in after life.”

THE Y. M. C. A.

Young Wanamaker’s religious principles were always at the forefront in whatever he did. His interest in Sunday School work, and his skill as an organizer became well known. And so earnestly did he engage in the work of the Young Men’s Christian Association, that he was appointed the first salaried secretary of the Philadelphia branch, at one thousand dollars a year. Never since has a secretary enrolled so many members in the same space of time. He passed seven years in this arduous work.

OAK HALL

He saved his money; and, at twenty-four, formed a partnership with his brother-in-law Nathan Brown, and opened Oak Hall Clothing store, in April, 1861. Their united capital was only $3,500; yet Wanamaker’s capital of popular good-will was very great. He was already a great power in the city. I can never forget the impression made upon my mind, after he had been in business but a few months, when I visited his Bethany Sunday School, established in one of the most unpromising sections of the city, which had become already a factor for good, with one of the largest enrollments in the world. And he was foremost in every form of philanthropic work.

It was because of his great capacity to do business that Wanamaker had been able to “boom” the Young Men’s Christian Association work. He knew how to do it. And he could “boom” a Sunday School, or anything else that he took hold of. He had

A HEAD BUILT FOR BUSINESS,

whatever the business might be. And as for Oak Hall, he knew just what to do with it.

_The first thing he did was to multiply his working capital by getting the best help obtainable for running the store._

At the very outset, John Wanamaker did what almost any other business man would have stood aghast at. He chose the best man he knew as a salesman in the clothing business in Philadelphia,—the man of the most winning personality who could attract trade,—and agreed to pay him $1,350 for a year,—one-third of the entire capital of the new concern.

It has been a prime principle with this merchant prince not only to deal fairly with his employees, but to make it an object for them to earn money for him and to stand by him. Capacity has been the first demand. _He engaged the very best men to be had._ There are to-day dozens of men in his employ who receive larger salaries than are paid to cabinet ministers. All the employees of the Thirteenth Street store, which he occupied in 1877, participate in _a yearly division of profits. Their share at the end of the first year amounted to $109,439.68._

HIS RELATION TO CUSTOMERS

A considerable portion of the trade of the new store came from people in the country districts. Mr. Wanamaker had a way of getting close to them and gaining their good will. He understood human nature. He put his customer at ease. He showed interest in the things that interested the farmer. An old employee of the firm says: “John used to put a lot of chestnuts in his pocket along in the fall and winter, and, when he had one of these countrymen in tow, he’d slip a few of the nuts into the visitor’s hand and both would go munching about the store.”

Wanamaker was the first to introduce the “one-price system” into the clothing trade. It was the universal rule in those days, in the clothing trade, not to mark the prices plainly on the goods that were for sale. Within rather liberal bounds, the salesman got what he could from the customer. Mr. Wanamaker, after a time, instituted at Oak Hall the plan of “but one price and that plainly marked.” In doing this he followed the cue of Stewart, who was the first merchant in the country to introduce it into the dry-goods business.

The great Wanamaker store of 1877 went much further:—

He announced that _those who bought goods of him were to be satisfied with what they bought, or have their money back_.

To the old mercantile houses of the city, this seemed like committing business suicide.

It was, also, unheard-of that special effort should be made to add to the comfort of visitors; to make them welcome whether they cared to buy or not; to induce them to look upon the store as a meeting-place, a rendezvous, a resting-place,—a sort of city home, almost.

THE MERCHANT’S ORGANIZING FACULTY

was so great that General Grant once remarked to George W. Childs that Wanamaker would have been a great general if his lot had been that of army service.

Wanamaker used to buy goods of Stewart, and the New York merchant remarked to a friend: “If young Wanamaker lives, he will be a greater merchant than I ever was.”

Sometime in recent years, since Wanamaker bought the Stewart store, he said to Frank G. Carpenter:—

“A. T. Stewart was a genius. I have been surprised again and again as I have gone through the Broadway and Tenth Street building, to find what a knowledge he had of the needs of a mercantile establishment. Mr. Stewart put up a building which is to-day, I believe, better arranged than any of the modern structures. He seemed to know just what was needed.