he kept in his pocket. These
bits he would commit to memory when he had leisure. A later pocket
companion contained a neatly written copy of Valpey's Greek Grammar, as
far as the syntax, which he committed to memory. In his morning walks in
1832 he committed to memory the first fourteen chapters of Proverbs. He
would not undertake a fresh chapter until he had repeated the preceding
one without hesitation.

As most of his knowledge of words was gained from books, he had
difficulty in pronunciation. "His method of overcoming the deficiency
was ingenious," his biographer wrote. "Again and again he read 'Paradise
Lost.' Careful attention to the meter enabled him to correct his faulty
pronunciation of many words. Words not found in the poem he discovered
in the dictionary. With unusual courage he decided to read through
Walker's Dictionary, fixing his mind on words new to him and on the
spelling and pronunciation of familiar terms. On the pages of one of his
pocket-books he copied all words he had been in the habit of
mispronouncing. Although there were more than two thousand of these
words, the plan was carried out before he was seventeen."

The labor of writing out so many extracts from books led him to study
the imperfect system of shorthand then current, and to develop the
system that was to bear his name.

So many young people feel that they "simply cannot abide" the long
process of getting an education; they give up when they are only a part
of the way to the goal. But for most of them the day of bitter regret
will come when they will wish that they had been more like Eastman or
Pitman in their determination to be patient and persistent, to allow
nothing to stand in the way of their purpose to fit themselves in the
best possible manner for the serious business of life.

II

DEPENDING ON SELF

Young men just starting out in life nowadays, who find the path to
success difficult, are more fortunate than some of those who struggled
with hard times a century or more ago, because they are determined to
make a self-respecting fight on their own merits. It was not always so;
once nothing was thought of the effort made by an impecunious young man
to throw himself on the generosity of one who had already achieved
success. Then it was a habit of many authors to seek as a patron a man
of influence and means who would help them live till their books were
ready for the publisher, and then help to get the books before the