“Get out of my way! What are you good for anyhow?” asked a cross man to a lad who happened to be standing in his way. The boy replied, “They make men out of such things as I am.” How true. That dirty boy taken by a philanthropist in New Orleans, only for the reason that he was an orphan, became Sir Henry M. Stanley, who found Livingstone and opened Africa. About fifty years ago, when New York City sought to aid her homeless children, an agent called on Judge John Green, of Tixston, Indiana, to inquire if he would take a boy. Mr. Green said, “I will, if you will bring me the raggedest, dirtiest and ugliest one of the lot.” A boy by the name of John Brady more than filled the bill. He was accepted, educated and became a missionary to Alaska. So suitable a man was he for commissioner of that unexplored land of wealth, that President Harrison appointed him governor.
Who can value the worth of a boy? Like Moses, Luther, or Lincoln, he might rise to bless a nation. Boyhood is the blossom that ripens into manhood. It is the formative period of one’s character. Said Lord Collingwood to a young friend, “You must establish a character before you are twenty-five that will serve you all life.” The building of such is the greatest earthly task, and he is the greatest man “who chooses right with the most invincible resolution, who resists the sorest temptation from within and without, who is most fearless under menaces and frowns, whose reliance on truth, on virtue, and on God, is most unfaltering.”
To aid in the growth of such is this work written. It is hoped that it will be transformed into an epitome, a registry of the reader’s own life—a compilation and condensation of the best things he shall finally leave to those who survive him. For it should
—“to one of these four ends conduce,
For wisdom, piety, delight or use.”
Incorporated herein are the best things of many books; the thoughts of noble men which by the power of a just appreciation and of a retentive memory may be made one’s own. Of those who have written introductions to this work, some have since retired from their official positions, and some are dead. The stories gathered from many sources illustrate great principles, which, if carefully heeded will conduce to a happy and manly life; for
—“He most lives
Who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best.”
