"
"Handle your tools without mittens; remember, a cat in gloves catches
no mice."
"There is much to be done, and perhaps you are weak-handed; but stick
to it steadily, and you will see great effects, for constant dropping
wears away stones, and by diligence and patience the mouse ate into
the cable."
We have spoken of what the printer-boy accomplished as remarkable. And
yet it is not remarkable when we consider the work some men have done
in leisure hours alone. Just here is one of the most important lessons
to be learned from the example and life of Benjamin Franklin. A
similar example is before us here in New England; that of Charles G.
Frost, of Brattleboro', Vermont, who was a shoemaker by trade. He died
a few years since. He wrote of his own life:
"When I went to my trade, at fourteen years of age, I formed a
resolution, which I have kept till now--extraordinary preventives only
excepted--that I would faithfully devote _one hour each day_ to
study, in some useful branch of knowledge."
Here was the secret of his success--one hour a day. Almost any boy can
have that. He was forty-five when he wrote the above, a married man,
with three children, still devoting one hour a day, at least, to
study, and still at work at his trade. He had made such attainments in
mathematical science, at forty-five, it was claimed for him that not
more than ten mathematicians could be found in the United States in
advance of him.
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