Thus he was able to send out into the world a number of good, strong, prosperous workmen who would otherwise have drifted into being wasters.
And from his little effort in Portsmouth sprang up similar ragged schools and boys' clubs in different parts of the Kingdom.
So he did as much by his thrift as many have done by saving their millions.
* * * * *
HOW A POOR BOY BECAME RICH.
"How can I ever succeed in becoming great and rich? It is impossible.
I am only a poor boy!"
That is what a lad said to me. I was able to restore him to greater hopefulness by saying:
"Nothing is impossible if you make up your mind to do it. Many a great man who is alive to-day began as a poor boy like yourself, with no help besides his own wits and pluck."
Then I told him about Sir William Arrol. At nine years of age he went to work as a "piecer" in a cotton factory. A few years later he became apprenticed to a blacksmith. He worked hard and well, and was very steady, so that at the age of twenty-three he found himself foreman in Messrs. Laidlaw's boiler works in Glasgow. Like a Scout, he was thrifty, and in five years of this employment he saved up 85 Pounds of his wages, and with this sum he started a business of his own.
At first he made boilers and girders, and then, as his business grew bigger, he took up bridge-building.