in
curves impress nobody. If poor grammar were a sin against decency, or an
attempt to poison the minds of the people, it might be wise enough to
hire men to protect the well of English from defilement. But a
stationary language is a dead one--moving water only is pure--and the
well that is not fed by springs is a breeding-place for disease. Let men
express themselves in their own way, and if they express themselves
poorly, look you, their punishment shall be that no one will read them.
Oblivion, with her smother-blanket, waits for the writer who has nothing
to say and says it faultlessly. In the making of hare-soup, I am told
the first requisite is to catch your hare. The literary scullion who has
anything to offer a hungry world will doubtless find a way to fricassee
it.

* * * * *

When seventeen, Herbert Spencer was apprenticed to a surveyor on the
London and Birmingham Railway. The pay was meager--board and keep and
five pounds for the first year, with ten pounds the second year "if he
deserved it." However, school-teachers and clergymen are used to small
reward, and to make a living for one's self was no small matter to the
Spencers. The youth who has gotten his physical growth should earn his
own living, this as a necessary factor in his further mental evolution.

Neither William George Spencer, Herbert's father, nor Thomas, his uncle,
seemed ever to anticipate that they were helping to develop the greatest
thinker of his time. They themselves were obscure men, and quite happy
therein, and if young Herbert could attain to a fair degree of physical
health, make his living as an honest surveyor or as a teacher of
mathematics, it would be all one could reasonably hope for. And thus
they lived out the measure of their days, and passed away unaware that
this boy they claimed in partnership was to be the maker of an epoch.

Young Spencer began his surveying work by carrying a flag, and soon he
was advanced to "chainman." His skill in mathematics made his services
valuable, and his willingness to sit up nights and work out the
measurements of the day, so pleased his employer that the letter of the
contract was waived and he was paid ten pounds for his first year's
work, instead of five. He invented shorter methods for bridges and
culverts, and I believe was the first engineer to build a cantilever
railroad-bridge in England.

When he was twenty-one he had so thoroughly mastered the wo