WHAT IT MEANS.
No word should be more prominent in any boy’s vocabulary than perseverance. Industry is a good word, but one may be industrious, without being persevering, but he cannot be persevering without being industrious. Perseverance means persistence in any design, steadiness in pursuit, constancy in progress. It is the bending of all energies in one direction till the thing is accomplished. Demosthenes was a stammerer. He would be an orator, and with pebbles in his mouth walked the seashore articulating, until when Philip threatened to invade Athens, he with matchless oratory so appealed to the Athenians that they cried, “Let us fight Philip.” Fight they did, and Greece was saved. James Watt was poor and unlettered. He sees the lid of the kettle rise and fall by the power of steam, and from that day bends his mind and hand until in after years he creates a steam engine. Gutenberg beholds the coarse types of Lawrence Coster and declares he can do better. After much persecution by superstitious persons, he shuts himself up in a cell of St. Arbogast monastery and works early and late till he has carved lead type, made an ink roller and built a printing press. Marcus Morton wants to be Governor of Massachusetts. Seventeen times he runs for the position and at last succeeds. Cyrus Field spends eleven years before he succeeds in designing and laying the Atlantic cable. Edison makes eighteen hundred experiments before he discovers the proper substance for the incandescent light, and six thousand before he solves the problem of preparing the products of the great iron mills for the blast furnace. The boy who expects to succeed may have to try many times and face many opposing forces, but as adverse winds aid the kite to fly, so difficulties are usually blessings in disguise. To climb Alpine peaks “will put to proof the energies of him who would reach the summit.”
PERSEVERANCE A NECESSITY.
Nothing guarantees success like persistency; it is more effective than brilliancy. The faculty of sticking and hanging on when everybody else lets go is one of the secrets of success. When Congress and the country were excited over President Johnson’s effort to drive Mr. Stanton from the Cabinet because he opposed the President’s policy in the South, Charles Sumner sent the Secretary this message, “Stanton stick.” He did so to the benefit of the nation. The boy who expects to make his mark in the world must be a “sticker.” He must “keep everlastingly at it.” With determination he must conquer opposition and annihilate obstacles. With Pitt he must trample on so-called impossibilities. “Impossible is not found in the dictionary of fools,” said Napoleon, when told that the Alps stood in the way of his conquest. “Impossible,” cried Chatham, when confined to his room with gout, “who talks to me of impossibilities?” Lord Anson had sent word that it was impossible to fit out a naval expedition within a prescribed period. “Tell him that he serves under a minister who treads on impossibilities.” When Daniel Webster was speaking at Bunker Hill, the crowd became so large and pressed so near to him that he shouted: “Keep back! Keep back!” “It is impossible,” cried some one in the crowd. The orator looked at them a moment and then said, “Nothing is impossible at Bunker Hill.” And few things are impossible to persevering lads.
Tamerlane was once forced to take shelter from his enemies in a ruined building, where he sat discouraged for hours. His attention was at last attracted by an ant that was carrying a grain of corn larger than itself up a high wall. Sixty-nine times did the grain fall, but the insect persevered, and the seventieth time it reached the top. That sight instilled courage in the bosom of Tamerlane. Robert Bruce, of Scotland, had a similar experience. On one occasion he was so harassed by the English that he was compelled to take shelter in a barn over night. In the morning he saw a spider climbing a beam of the roof. Twelve times in succession did it fall but the thirteenth time it succeeded in gaining the top. The object lesson impressed Bruce. Rising, he said: “This spider has taught me perseverance. I will follow its example. Twelve times I have been beaten, and the thirteenth time I may succeed.” He rallied his forces, met and defeated Edward and was crowned king.
Christopher Columbus conceived the idea that undiscovered continents existed west of the Atlantic, and he determined to test the truth of his theory. He had many difficulties to contend with, such as poverty and repeated discouragements. The Court of Portugal disappointed him, his native city of Genoa would not render him aid, and the city of Venice refused him. At last he laid his cause before Ferdinand and Isabella, King and Queen of Spain, and he was about to give up and repair to France, when the Queen sold her jewels to defray the expenses of the expedition. Thus assisted, he turned his ships westward and started. On board his vessel he had ignorance, superstition and mutiny to contend with, and this continued until the cry of “Land! Land!” came from the lookout at the top of the mast; then a new world and a glorious triumph crowned his efforts.
PERSEVERANCE IS REWARDED IF PATIENTLY PURSUED.
Great results are not accomplished in a moment. Sowing precedes reaping. The wheat must first be sifted and crushed in the mill before it is baked into bread. The railroad that runs from the Atlantic to the Pacific coast is but numerous steel rails placed one before the other. The President in the White House, the general in the army, the judge on the bench, the orator on the platform reached their positions, not by a hop-skip-and-jump manner, but by perpetual pushing and concentration of their energies in one direction. There might have been times when these were side-tracked and their procedure necessarily slow, but as soon as the main track was clear, or as soon as they had cleared it, they went forth with undaunted persistence realizing as the Italian proverb reads: “Who goes slowly goes long, and goes far,” and contentment was not theirs till the goal was reached. To such of like determination, in Richelieu’s words:
“Fail! Fail!
In the lexicon of youth, which Fate reserves