es, to the astonishment of everybody, and
the paper entered upon a career of remarkable prosperity, the profits
sometimes amounting to over four hundred thousand dollars a year. He
always refused to lower the wages of his employees even when every
other establishment in Philadelphia was doing so.

At a banquet in Lyons, nearly a century and a half ago, a discussion
arose in regard to the meaning of a painting representing some scene in
the mythology or history of Greece. Seeing that the discussion was
growing warm, the host turned to one of the waiters and asked him to
explain the picture. Greatly to the surprise of the company, the
servant gave a clear concise account of the whole subject, so plain and
convincing that it at once settled the dispute.

"In what school have you studied, Monsieur?" asked one of the guests,
addressing the waiter with great respect. "I have studied in many
schools, Monseigneur," replied the young servant: "but the school in
which I studied longest and learned most is the school of adversity."
Well had he profited by poverty's lessons; for, although then but a
poor waiter, all Europe soon rang with the fame of the writings of the
greatest genius of his age and country, Jean Jacques Rousseau.

The smooth sand beach of Lake Erie constituted the foolscap on which,
for want of other material, P. R. Spencer, a barefoot boy with no
chance, perfected the essential principles of the Spencerian system of
penmanship, the most beautiful exposition of graphic art.

For eight years William Cobbett had followed the plow, when he ran away
to London, copied law papers for eight or nine months, and then
enlisted in an infantry regiment. During his first year of soldier
life he subscribed to a circulating library at Chatham, read every book
in it, and began to study.

"I learned grammar when I was a private soldier on the pay of sixpence
a day. The edge of my berth, or that of the guard-bed, was my seat to
study in; my knapsack was my bookcase; a bit of board lying on my lap
was my writing-table, and the task did not demand anything like a year
of my life. I had no money to purchase candles or oil; in winter it
was rarely that I could get any evening light but that of the fire, and
only my turn, even, of that. To buy a pen or a sheet of paper I was
compelled to forego some portion of my food, though in a state of half
starvation. I had no moment of time that I could call my own, and I
had to read