e. And while he studied, his life purpose was formed: some day he
would make it easy for apprentice boys to secure an education after
working hours. Many years passed before he was able to carry this
purpose into effect. By this time the apprentice system had been
displaced, but he felt that young people still needed the school he had
in mind. In 1859, nearly fifty years after his own boyhood struggle, he
founded Cooper Union, in which thousands have had the opportunity "to
open the volume of Nature by the light of truth--so unveiling the laws
and methods of Deity that the young may see the beauties of creation,
enjoy its blessings and learn to love the Being from whom cometh every
good and perfect gift."

As a boy Abraham Lincoln made up his mind "to live like Washington." He
was twenty-two years old when, in New Orleans,--where he had taken a
flatboat loaded with produce--he saw a slave auction and spoke the
never-to-be-forgotten words: "If ever I get a chance to hit that thing,
I'll hit it hard." Thirty-five years later came his chance, and he did
"hit that thing hard" with the Emancipation Proclamation.

Alexander Graham Bell's life ambition was to teach deaf children how to
articulate. Funds were short. That he might have more funds he engaged
in experiments that led to the invention of the telephone. When the
telephone instrument was given the attention it deserved at the
Philadelphia Centennial of 1876, the inventor wrote triumphantly to his
parents: "Now I shall have the money to promote the teaching of speech
to deaf children."

James Stewart, the Scotch boy who became a famous missionary in South
Africa, was fifteen years old when, one day while following the plow in
Perthshire, he began to brood over the future. "What was it to be?" The
question flashed across his mind, "Might I not make more of my life than
by remaining here?" Then he said, "God helping me, I will be a
missionary." At another time, while hunting with a cousin, he said "Jim,
I shall never be satisfied till I am in Africa with a Bible in my pocket
and a rifle on my shoulder, to supply my wants."

James Robertson was a school teacher in Canada when he became a
Christian. On the Sunday he was to take his vows as a follower of
Christ, he walked two miles to church with a friend who has told of his
memories of the day thus:

"As we went along the Governor's Road there was a bush, 'Light's Woods,'
on the south side of the road. Robertson sugge