ttention to Robert Owen, who
spent a great fortune and a long life in endeavoring to show workingmen
how to improve their condition by cooeperation. A more benevolent spirit
never animated a human form than his; his very failures were more
creditable than some of the successes which history vaunts.

At the age of ten years, Robert Owen, the son of a Welsh saddler,
arrived in London, consigned to the care of an elder brother, to push
his fortune. His school-days were over, and there was nothing for him
but hard work in some lowly occupation. At the end of six weeks he found
a situation as shop-boy in a dry-goods store at Stamford, in the east of
England; wages, for the first year, his board and lodging; for the
second year, eight pounds in addition; and a gradual increase
thereafter. In this employment he remained four years, and then,
although very happily situated, he made up his mind to return to London
to push his fortune more rapidly.

Being large and forward for his age, a handsome, prompt, active,
engaging youth, he soon obtained a situation in a dry-goods store on old
London Bridge, at a salary of twenty-five pounds a year and his board.
But he had to work unreasonably hard, often being obliged to sit up half
the night putting away the goods, and sometimes going to bed so tired
that he could hardly crawl up stairs. All the clerks had to be in the
store ready for business at eight in the morning. This was about the
year 1786, when men were accustomed to have their hair elaborately
arranged.

"Boy as I was," he once wrote, "I had to wait my turn for the
hair-dresser to powder and pomatum and curl my hair--two large curls on
each side and a stiff pigtail. And until this was all nicely done no one
thought of presenting himself behind the counter."

The lad endured this painful servitude for six months, at the end of
which he found a better situation in Manchester, the seat of the rising
cotton trade, and there he remained until he was nearly nineteen. He
appeared to have had no "wild oats" to sow, being at all times highly
valued by his employers, and acquiring in their service habits of
careful industry, punctuality, and orderliness. He must have been a
young man both of extraordinary virtues and more extraordinary
abilities; for when he was but nineteen, one of his masters offered to
take him as an equal partner, to furnish all the capital, and leave him
the whole business in a few years. There was also an agre