Self-Made if Ever Made. PROF. D. COLLIN WELLS, PH.D., Dartmouth College, New Hampshire. N July, 1870, the armies of France and Germany stood face to face upon the Rhine. Appearances favored France. IN She was richer and more populous; the organization of her forces appeared to be perfect. "On to Berlin," was the cry from Paris as the armies met. To the astonishment of Europe the French forces were cut in two and rolled into Metz and around Sedan like shore wreckage driven before a tidal wave. Within a few weeks, two great armies and the Emperor surrendered. Paris was taken, and German troopers paraded her streets. It was wonderful. As men thought it out, they came to see that it was not France that was beaten, but only Louis Napoleon and a lot of nobles, influential because they bore titles or were favorites, Unhappy Louis Napoleon, the feeble bearer of a great name: Emperor, because of his name and criminal daring, upon the throne of his illustrious uncle, the man who made himself and the name! By a series of happy accidents he had gained some credit in the Crimean War, and at Magenta and Solferino. The unmasking time had come, as it always comes when sham, artificial toy-men meet genuine self-made men. Such were the leaders on the German side. What a group they were, merely those four out of a great number,-every man the creator of his own greatness! King William, Bismarck, Von Moltke, and Von Roon. William, strong, upright, warlike, and beloved by his people, "every inch a king." The German soldier, disciplined to perfection in the school and barracks, equipped and supplied by Von Roon, Minister of War, a master of administrative detail. Arms in perfect order, provisions enough and just where they were wanted, and a railway system so nicely organized as to handle the armies with utmost ease. Bismarck, the master mind of European politics, no miscalculation here. Above all, Von Moltke, chief of staff, who hurled armies by telegraph, as he sat at his cabinet, as easily as a master moves chessmen against a stupid opponent. A rare man this Von Moltke! One who made himself ready for his opportunities beyond all men known to the modern world. Of an impoverished family, he rose very slowly and by his own merit. He yielded to no temptation, vice, or dishonesty, of course, nor to the greater and ever present temptation to idleness, for he constantly worked to the limit of human endurance. He was ready for every emergency, not by accident, but because he made himself ready by painstaking labor, before the opportunity came. His favorite motto was, " Help yourself and others will help you." Hundreds of his age in the Prussian army were of nobler birth, thousands of greater fortune, but he made himself superior to them all by extraordinary fidelity and diligence. The greatest master of strategy the world has ever seen was sixty-six years at school to himself before he was ready for his task. Though born with the century, and an army officer at nineteen, he was an old man when, in 1866, as Prussian chief of staff, he crushed Austria at Sadowa and drove her out of Germany. Four years later the silent, modest soldier of seventy, ready for the still greater opportunity, smote France, and changed the map of Europe. Glory and the field marshal's baton, after fifty-one years of hard work! No wonder Louis Napoleon was beaten by such men as he. All Louis Napoleons have been, and always will be. Opportunity always finds out frauds. It does not make men, but shows the world what they have made of themselves. On January 25, 1830, in the Senate of the United States, Hayne of South Carolina presented the Southern doctrine of nullification and state rights, in a powerful and plausible speech. Webster proposed to answer him next morning. His friends protested that the time for preparation was too short. Next morning Webster delivered the greatest speech in American history. He had prepared for it all his life. "There is no such thing as extemporaneous acquisition," he once said. This opportunity did not make Daniel Webster; he had made himself, and responded naturally to the opportunity. These examples from political and military life can be paralleled in every calling every day. Every obituary of scholar or millionaire tells the same story, that men are selfmade if ever made. Francis Parkman, half blind, was America's greatest historian in spite of everything, because he made himself such. It is the greatest glory of America that it is the land of selfmade men. Here all is in free movement, and every one finds his own level. Fathers and grandfathers cannot long hold one up, or keep him down. Personal value here is a coin of one's own minting, one is taken at the worth he has put into himself. This does not mean that every boy can make anything of himself. Natural talent and opportunities for using it are to be considered. Talents differ, and so do opportunities. What is meant is that upon one's self depends the use made of talents and opportunities. The finest talent can be wasted, as John Randolph wasted his by drink, or crowning opportunities thrown away, as Aaron Burr threw his away. If opportunities are earlier neglected, fine talents are never revealed, the world is poorer, the man is a failure. This failure to make the most of himself may be, in one case, the failure to be a first-class carpenter, a master workman; in another, to be a thrifty, prosperous farmer; of still a third, to be a studious, growing doctor or lawyer. It is all relative to the start and surroundings. This does not condemn anyone to anything beforehand. Poverty and lack of friends did not condemn Lincoln and Garfield to ignorance and obscurity. In the United States, wealth and power are in the hands of men who have won for themselves. This is admitted, but it is often forgotten that the same rule is true all the way through society,as true of the good blacksmith as of the railroad magnate. The man who, like Adam Bede, always drives a nail straight, and planes a board true, whom men always employ at good wages, is equally the maker of his own fortunes. It is mostly a moral matter, an affair of character in its widest sense. This character building is delicate work. One has a dozen chances to spoil it in the making, every day and for three hundred and sixty-five days in the year; perhaps for seventy years, as in Von Moltke's case. Others train It is often a small thing that turns the scale. It may be that the favor of superiors or the public is lost by a hasty temper or a sour spirit; things within one's own control. themselves to self-control and kindness, and win. This one may drink his first glass, and die a drunkard, or at best squander money that should be saved to noble uses. Another is an idler and wastes his time, with the result that he is ignorant when it is essential for him to know, or without resources when fronted with starvation or sickness. Another is a spendthrift and never gets ahead, however hard he works. Another yields to some weakness or passion, and finds himself heavily handicapped for life. It is fundamentally true that one gets a better position, in the long run, only by filling well his present one. Fine qualities are perhaps better known to observers than to their possessors. The banker or the merchant notes them in subordinates; they are welcomed in the laborer; a doctor or a lawyer is employed because of them. Each one is his own best recommendation for promotion. One cannot Advancement usually comes unexpectedly. prepare for it as if it were in the calendar. It is like the coming of the kingdom of heaven. The young officer, Von Moltke, mastered Russian as his fifth modern language, thinking it might be sometime useful, as it was. He perfected himself in every accomplishment and so was always qualified. It is the |