T.H. Huxley - "Lectures and Essays "

Vingie E. Roe - "The Maid of the Whispering Hills"

John Greenleaf Whittier - "Mountain Pictures and Others, From Poems of Nature,"

William Shakespeare - "The Taming of the Shrew"

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Self Help

S >> Samuel Smiles >> Self Help



Transcribed by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk




SELF HELP; WITH ILLUSTRATIONS OF CONDUCT AND PERSEVERANCE




CHAPTER I--SELF-HELP--NATIONAL AND INDIVIDUAL



"The worth of a State, in the long run, is the worth of the
individuals composing it."--J. S. Mill.

"We put too much faith in systems, and look too little to men."--B.
Disraeli.


"Heaven helps those who help themselves" is a well-tried maxim,
embodying in a small compass the results of vast human experience.
The spirit of self-help is the root of all genuine growth in the
individual; and, exhibited in the lives of many, it constitutes the
true source of national vigour and strength. Help from without is
often enfeebling in its effects, but help from within invariably
invigorates. Whatever is done FOR men or classes, to a certain
extent takes away the stimulus and necessity of doing for
themselves; and where men are subjected to over-guidance and over-
government, the inevitable tendency is to render them comparatively
helpless.

Even the best institutions can give a man no active help. Perhaps
the most they can do is, to leave him free to develop himself and
improve his individual condition. But in all times men have been
prone to believe that their happiness and well-being were to be
secured by means of institutions rather than by their own conduct.
Hence the value of legislation as an agent in human advancement has
usually been much over-estimated. To constitute the millionth part
of a Legislature, by voting for one or two men once in three or
five years, however conscientiously this duty may be performed, can
exercise but little active influence upon any man's life and
character. Moreover, it is every day becoming more clearly
understood, that the function of Government is negative and
restrictive, rather than positive and active; being resolvable
principally into protection--protection of life, liberty, and
property. Laws, wisely administered, will secure men in the
enjoyment of the fruits of their labour, whether of mind or body,
at a comparatively small personal sacrifice; but no laws, however
stringent, can make the idle industrious, the thriftless provident,
or the drunken sober. Such reforms can only be effected by means
of individual action, economy, and self-denial; by better habits,
rather than by greater rights.

The Government of a nation itself is usually found to be but the
reflex of the individuals composing it. The Government that is
ahead of the people will inevitably be dragged down to their level,
as the Government that is behind them will in the long run be
dragged up. In the order of nature, the collective character of a
nation will as surely find its befitting results in its law and
government, as water finds its own level. The noble people will be
nobly ruled, and the ignorant and corrupt ignobly. Indeed all
experience serves to prove that the worth and strength of a State
depend far less upon the form of its institutions than upon the
character of its men. For the nation is only an aggregate of
individual conditions, and civilization itself is but a question of
the personal improvement of the men, women, and children of whom
society is composed.

National progress is the sum of individual industry, energy, and
uprightness, as national decay is of individual idleness,
selfishness, and vice. What we are accustomed to decry as great
social evils, will, for the most part, be found to be but the
outgrowth of man's own perverted life; and though we may endeavour
to cut them down and extirpate them by means of Law, they will only
spring up again with fresh luxuriance in some other form, unless
the conditions of personal life and character are radically
improved. If this view be correct, then it follows that the
highest patriotism and philanthropy consist, not so much in
altering laws and modifying institutions, as in helping and
stimulating men to elevate and improve themselves by their own free
and independent individual action.

It may be of comparatively little consequence how a man is governed
from without, whilst everything depends upon how he governs himself
from within. The greatest slave is not he who is ruled by a
despot, great though that evil be, but he who is the thrall of his
own moral ignorance, selfishness, and vice. Nations who are thus
enslaved at heart cannot be freed by any mere changes of masters or
of institutions; and so long as the fatal delusion prevails, that
liberty solely depends upon and consists in government, so long
will such changes, no matter at what cost they may be effected,
have as little practical and lasting result as the shifting of the
figures in a phantasmagoria. The solid foundations of liberty must
rest upon individual character; which is also the only sure
guarantee for social security and national progress. John Stuart
Mill truly observes that "even despotism does not produce its worst
effects so long as individuality exists under it; and whatever
crushes individuality IS despotism, by whatever name it be called."

Old fallacies as to human progress are constantly turning up. Some
call for Caesars, others for Nationalities, and others for Acts of
Parliament. We are to wait for Caesars, and when they are found,
"happy the people who recognise and follow them." {1} This
doctrine shortly means, everything FOR the people, nothing BY
them,--a doctrine which, if taken as a guide, must, by destroying
the free conscience of a community, speedily prepare the way for
any form of despotism. Caesarism is human idolatry in its worst
form--a worship of mere power, as degrading in its effects as the
worship of mere wealth would be. A far healthier doctrine to
inculcate among the nations would be that of Self-Help; and so soon
as it is thoroughly understood and carried into action, Caesarism
will be no more. The two principles are directly antagonistic; and
what Victor Hugo said of the Pen and the Sword alike applies to
them, "Ceci tuera cela." [This will kill that.]

The power of Nationalities and Acts of Parliament is also a
prevalent superstition. What William Dargan, one of Ireland's
truest patriots, said at the closing of the first Dublin Industrial
Exhibition, may well be quoted now. "To tell the truth," he said,
"I never heard the word independence mentioned that my own country
and my own fellow townsmen did not occur to my mind. I have heard
a great deal about the independence that we were to get from this,
that, and the other place, and of the great expectations we were to
have from persons from other countries coming amongst us. Whilst I
value as much as any man the great advantages that must result to
us from that intercourse, I have always been deeply impressed with
the feeling that our industrial independence is dependent upon
ourselves. I believe that with simple industry and careful
exactness in the utilization of our energies, we never had a fairer
chance nor a brighter prospect than the present. We have made a
step, but perseverance is the great agent of success; and if we but
go on zealously, I believe in my conscience that in a short period
we shall arrive at a position of equal comfort, of equal happiness,
and of equal independence, with that of any other people."

All nations have been made what they are by the thinking and the
working of many generations of men. Patient and persevering
labourers in all ranks and conditions of life, cultivators of the
soil and explorers of the mine, inventors and discoverers,
manufacturers, mechanics and artisans, poets, philosophers, and
politicians, all have contributed towards the grand result, one
generation building upon another's labours, and carrying them
forward to still higher stages. This constant succession of noble
workers--the artisans of civilisation--has served to create order
out of chaos in industry, science, and art; and the living race has
thus, in the course of nature, become the inheritor of the rich
estate provided by the skill and industry of our forefathers, which
is placed in our hands to cultivate, and to hand down, not only
unimpaired but improved, to our successors.

The spirit of self-help, as exhibited in the energetic action of
individuals, has in all times been a marked feature in the English
character, and furnishes the true measure of our power as a nation.
Rising above the heads of the mass, there were always to be found a
series of individuals distinguished beyond others, who commanded
the public homage. But our progress has also been owing to
multitudes of smaller and less known men. Though only the
generals' names may be remembered in the history of any great
campaign, it has been in a great measure through the individual
valour and heroism of the privates that victories have been won.
And life, too, is "a soldiers' battle,"--men in the ranks having in
all times been amongst the greatest of workers. Many are the lives
of men unwritten, which have nevertheless as powerfully influenced
civilisation and progress as the more fortunate Great whose names
are recorded in biography. Even the humblest person, who sets
before his fellows an example of industry, sobriety, and upright
honesty of purpose in life, has a present as well as a future
influence upon the well-being of his country; for his life and
character pass unconsciously into the lives of others, and
propagate good example for all time to come.

Daily experience shows that it is energetic individualism which
produces the most powerful effects upon the life and action of
others, and really constitutes the best practical education.
Schools, academies, and colleges, give but the merest beginnings of
culture in comparison with it. Far more influential is the life-
education daily given in our homes, in the streets, behind
counters, in workshops, at the loom and the plough, in counting-
houses and manufactories, and in the busy haunts of men. This is
that finishing instruction as members of society, which Schiller
designated "the education of the human race," consisting in action,
conduct, self-culture, self-control,--all that tends to discipline
a man truly, and fit him for the proper performance of the duties
and business of life,--a kind of education not to be learnt from
books, or acquired by any amount of mere literary training. With
his usual weight of words Bacon observes, that "Studies teach not
their own use; but that is a wisdom without them, and above them,
won by observation;" a remark that holds true of actual life, as
well as of the cultivation of the intellect itself. For all
experience serves to illustrate and enforce the lesson, that a man
perfects himself by work more than by reading,--that it is life
rather than literature, action rather than study, and character
rather than biography, which tend perpetually to renovate mankind.

Biographies of great, but especially of good men, are nevertheless
most instructive and useful, as helps, guides, and incentives to
others. Some of the best are almost equivalent to gospels--
teaching high living, high thinking, and energetic action for their
own and the world's good. The valuable examples which they furnish
of the power of self-help, of patient purpose, resolute working,
and steadfast integrity, issuing in the formation of truly noble
and manly character, exhibit in language not to be misunderstood,
what it is in the power of each to accomplish for himself; and
eloquently illustrate the efficacy of self-respect and self-
reliance in enabling men of even the humblest rank to work out for
themselves an honourable competency and a solid reputation.

Great men of science, literature, and art--apostles of great
thoughts and lords of the great heart--have belonged to no
exclusive class nor rank in life. They have come alike from
colleges, workshops, and farmhouses,--from the huts of poor men and
the mansions of the rich. Some of God's greatest apostles have
come from "the ranks." The poorest have sometimes taken the
highest places; nor have difficulties apparently the most
insuperable proved obstacles in their way. Those very
difficulties, in many instances, would ever seem to have been their
best helpers, by evoking their powers of labour and endurance, and
stimulating into life faculties which might otherwise have lain
dormant. The instances of obstacles thus surmounted, and of
triumphs thus achieved, are indeed so numerous, as almost to
justify the proverb that "with Will one can do anything." Take,
for instance, the remarkable fact, that from the barber's shop came
Jeremy Taylor, the most poetical of divines; Sir Richard Arkwright,
the inventor of the spinning-jenny and founder of the cotton
manufacture; Lord Tenterden, one of the most distinguished of Lord
Chief Justices; and Turner, the greatest among landscape painters.

No one knows to a certainty what Shakespeare was; but it is
unquestionable that he sprang from a humble rank. His father was a
butcher and grazier; and Shakespeare himself is supposed to have
been in early life a woolcomber; whilst others aver that he was an
usher in a school and afterwards a scrivener's clerk. He truly
seems to have been "not one, but all mankind's epitome." For such
is the accuracy of his sea phrases that a naval writer alleges that
he must have been a sailor; whilst a clergyman infers, from
internal evidence in his writings, that he was probably a parson's
clerk; and a distinguished judge of horse-flesh insists that he
must have been a horse-dealer. Shakespeare was certainly an actor,
and in the course of his life "played many parts," gathering his
wonderful stores of knowledge from a wide field of experience and
observation. In any event, he must have been a close student and a
hard worker; and to this day his writings continue to exercise a
powerful influence on the formation of English character.

The common class of day labourers has given us Brindley the
engineer, Cook the navigator, and Burns the poet. Masons and
bricklayers can boast of Ben Jonson, who worked at the building of
Lincoln's Inn, with a trowel in his hand and a book in his pocket,
Edwards and Telford the engineers, Hugh Miller the geologist, and
Allan Cunningham the writer and sculptor; whilst among
distinguished carpenters we find the names of Inigo Jones the
architect, Harrison the chronometer-maker, John Hunter the
physiologist, Romney and Opie the painters, Professor Lee the
Orientalist, and John Gibson the sculptor.

From the weaver class have sprung Simson the mathematician, Bacon
the sculptor, the two Milners, Adam Walker, John Foster, Wilson the
ornithologist, Dr. Livingstone the missionary traveller, and
Tannahill the poet. Shoemakers have given us Sir Cloudesley Shovel
the great Admiral, Sturgeon the electrician, Samuel Drew the
essayist, Gifford the editor of the 'Quarterly Review,' Bloomfield
the poet, and William Carey the missionary; whilst Morrison,
another laborious missionary, was a maker of shoe-lasts. Within
the last few years, a profound naturalist has been discovered in
the person of a shoemaker at Banff, named Thomas Edwards, who,
while maintaining himself by his trade, has devoted his leisure to
the study of natural science in all its branches, his researches in
connexion with the smaller crustaceae having been rewarded by the
discovery of a new species, to which the name of "Praniza
Edwardsii" has been given by naturalists.

Nor have tailors been undistinguished. John Stow, the historian,
worked at the trade during some part of his life. Jackson, the
painter, made clothes until he reached manhood. The brave Sir John
Hawkswood, who so greatly distinguished himself at Poictiers, and
was knighted by Edward III. for his valour, was in early life
apprenticed to a London tailor. Admiral Hobson, who broke the boom
at Vigo in 1702, belonged to the same calling. He was working as a
tailor's apprentice near Bonchurch, in the Isle of Wight, when the
news flew through the village that a squadron of men-of-war was
sailing off the island. He sprang from the shopboard, and ran down
with his comrades to the beach, to gaze upon the glorious sight.
The boy was suddenly inflamed with the ambition to be a sailor; and
springing into a boat, he rowed off to the squadron, gained the
admiral's ship, and was accepted as a volunteer. Years after, he
returned to his native village full of honours, and dined off bacon
and eggs in the cottage where he had worked as an apprentice. But
the greatest tailor of all is unquestionably Andrew Johnson, the
present President of the United States--a man of extraordinary
force of character and vigour of intellect. In his great speech at
Washington, when describing himself as having begun his political
career as an alderman, and run through all the branches of the
legislature, a voice in the crowd cried, "From a tailor up." It
was characteristic of Johnson to take the intended sarcasm in good
part, and even to turn it to account. "Some gentleman says I have
been a tailor. That does not disconcert me in the least; for when
I was a tailor I had the reputation of being a good one, and making
close fits; I was always punctual with my customers, and always did
good work."

Cardinal Wolsey, De Foe, Akenside, and Kirke White were the sons of
butchers; Bunyan was a tinker, and Joseph Lancaster a basket-maker.
Among the great names identified with the invention of the steam-
engine are those of Newcomen, Watt, and Stephenson; the first a
blacksmith, the second a maker of mathematical instruments, and the
third an engine-fireman. Huntingdon the preacher was originally a
coalheaver, and Bewick, the father of wood-engraving, a coalminer.
Dodsley was a footman, and Holcroft a groom. Baffin the navigator
began his seafaring career as a man before the mast, and Sir
Cloudesley Shovel as a cabin-boy. Herschel played the oboe in a
military band. Chantrey was a journeyman carver, Etty a journeyman
printer, and Sir Thomas Lawrence the son of a tavern-keeper.
Michael Faraday, the son of a blacksmith, was in early life
apprenticed to a bookbinder, and worked at that trade until he
reached his twenty-second year: he now occupies the very first
rank as a philosopher, excelling even his master, Sir Humphry Davy,
in the art of lucidly expounding the most difficult and abstruse
points in natural science.

Among those who have given the greatest impulse to the sublime
science of astronomy, we find Copernicus, the son of a Polish
baker; Kepler, the son of a German public-house keeper, and himself
the "garcon de cabaret;" d'Alembert, a foundling picked up one
winter's night on the steps of the church of St. Jean le Rond at
Paris, and brought up by the wife of a glazier; and Newton and
Laplace, the one the son of a small freeholder near Grantham, the
other the son of a poor peasant of Beaumont-en-Auge, near Honfleur.
Notwithstanding their comparatively adverse circumstances in early
life, these distinguished men achieved a solid and enduring
reputation by the exercise of their genius, which all the wealth in
the world could not have purchased. The very possession of wealth
might indeed have proved an obstacle greater even than the humble
means to which they were born. The father of Lagrange, the
astronomer and mathematician, held the office of Treasurer of War
at Turin; but having ruined himself by speculations, his family
were reduced to comparative poverty. To this circumstance Lagrange
was in after life accustomed partly to attribute his own fame and
happiness. "Had I been rich," said he, "I should probably not have
become a mathematician."

The sons of clergymen and ministers of religion generally, have
particularly distinguished themselves in our country's history.
Amongst them we find the names of Drake and Nelson, celebrated in
naval heroism; of Wollaston, Young, Playfair, and Bell, in science;
of Wren, Reynolds, Wilson, and Wilkie, in art; of Thurlow and
Campbell, in law; and of Addison, Thomson, Goldsmith, Coleridge,
and Tennyson, in literature. Lord Hardinge, Colonel Edwardes, and
Major Hodson, so honourably known in Indian warfare, were also the
sons of clergymen. Indeed, the empire of England in India was won
and held chiefly by men of the middle class--such as Clive, Warren
Hastings, and their successors--men for the most part bred in
factories and trained to habits of business.

Among the sons of attorneys we find Edmund Burke, Smeaton the
engineer, Scott and Wordsworth, and Lords Somers, Hardwick, and
Dunning. Sir William Blackstone was the posthumous son of a silk-
mercer. Lord Gifford's father was a grocer at Dover; Lord Denman's
a physician; judge Talfourd's a country brewer; and Lord Chief
Baron Pollock's a celebrated saddler at Charing Cross. Layard, the
discoverer of the monuments of Nineveh, was an articled clerk in a
London solicitor's office; and Sir William Armstrong, the inventor
of hydraulic machinery and of the Armstrong ordnance, was also
trained to the law and practised for some time as an attorney.
Milton was the son of a London scrivener, and Pope and Southey were
the sons of linendrapers. Professor Wilson was the son of a
Paisley manufacturer, and Lord Macaulay of an African merchant.
Keats was a druggist, and Sir Humphry Davy a country apothecary's
apprentice. Speaking of himself, Davy once said, "What I am I have
made myself: I say this without vanity, and in pure simplicity of
heart." Richard Owen, the Newton of Natural History, began life as
a midshipman, and did not enter upon the line of scientific
research in which he has since become so distinguished, until
comparatively late in life. He laid the foundations of his great
knowledge while occupied in cataloguing the magnificent museum
accumulated by the industry of John Hunter, a work which occupied
him at the College of Surgeons during a period of about ten years.

Foreign not less than English biography abounds in illustrations of
men who have glorified the lot of poverty by their labours and
their genius. In Art we find Claude, the son of a pastrycook;
Geefs, of a baker; Leopold Robert, of a watchmaker; and Haydn, of a
wheelwright; whilst Daguerre was a scene-painter at the Opera. The
father of Gregory VII. was a carpenter; of Sextus V., a shepherd;
and of Adrian VI., a poor bargeman. When a boy, Adrian, unable to
pay for a light by which to study, was accustomed to prepare his
lessons by the light of the lamps in the streets and the church
porches, exhibiting a degree of patience and industry which were
the certain forerunners of his future distinction. Of like humble
origin were Hauy, the mineralogist, who was the son of a weaver of
Saint-Just; Hautefeuille, the mechanician, of a baker at Orleans;
Joseph Fourier, the mathematician, of a tailor at Auxerre; Durand,
the architect, of a Paris shoemaker; and Gesner, the naturalist, of
a skinner or worker in hides, at Zurich. This last began his
career under all the disadvantages attendant on poverty, sickness,
and domestic calamity; none of which, however, were sufficient to
damp his courage or hinder his progress. His life was indeed an
eminent illustration of the truth of the saying, that those who
have most to do and are willing to work, will find the most time.
Pierre Ramus was another man of like character. He was the son of
poor parents in Picardy, and when a boy was employed to tend sheep.
But not liking the occupation he ran away to Paris. After
encountering much misery, he succeeded in entering the College of
Navarre as a servant. The situation, however, opened for him the
road to learning, and he shortly became one of the most
distinguished men of his time.

The chemist Vauquelin was the son of a peasant of Saint-Andre-
d'Herbetot, in the Calvados. When a boy at school, though poorly
clad, he was full of bright intelligence; and the master, who
taught him to read and write, when praising him for his diligence,
used to say, "Go on, my boy; work, study, Colin, and one day you
will go as well dressed as the parish churchwarden!" A country
apothecary who visited the school, admired the robust boy's arms,
and offered to take him into his laboratory to pound his drugs, to
which Vauquelin assented, in the hope of being able to continue his
lessons. But the apothecary would not permit him to spend any part
of his time in learning; and on ascertaining this, the youth
immediately determined to quit his service. He therefore left
Saint-Andre and took the road for Paris with his havresac on his
back. Arrived there, he searched for a place as apothecary's boy,
but could not find one. Worn out by fatigue and destitution,
Vauquelin fell ill, and in that state was taken to the hospital,
where he thought he should die. But better things were in store
for the poor boy. He recovered, and again proceeded in his search
of employment, which he at length found with an apothecary.
Shortly after, he became known to Fourcroy the eminent chemist, who
was so pleased with the youth that he made him his private
secretary; and many years after, on the death of that great
philosopher, Vauquelin succeeded him as Professor of Chemistry.
Finally, in 1829, the electors of the district of Calvados
appointed him their representative in the Chamber of Deputies, and
he re-entered in triumph the village which he had left so many
years before, so poor and so obscure.

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