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Chimiiey Corner 
 Graduates 
 
 ^% 
 
 B y 
 
 JAME,S LANE, ALLEN 
 
 Author of The Kentucky Cardinal^ Aftermath^ Summer 
 
 in Arcady, The Choir Invisible, The 
 
 Reign of Law, etc. 
 
 COMPLIMENTS OF 
 THE, HOME, CORRESPONDENCE. 
 SCHOOL 
 
 SPRINGFIELD, MASSACHUSETTS 
 
 L ____>_ 
 
'h:^ 
 
 THE f^6«ARY OF 
 Tv<o Cut»l6B Keceivec 
 
 m. 31 1902 
 
 CLASS CL ^^^1 ^' 
 
 JEntered according' to Act of Congress, in the year 
 
 IQOO, hy The King Richardson Company, 
 
 in the Office of the Librarian of 
 
 Congress, at Washington. 
 
I 
 
 jUNDREDS of young men 
 in this country, because 
 they cannot go to college, 
 give up the thought of 
 ever becoming educated, relinquish 
 the happiness, honors, and useful- 
 ness which education can alone 
 bring, and enter upon early man- 
 hood as self-accepted failures. 
 
 I should like to link my arm 
 within that of each of these young 
 men and walk out with him some 
 night when the heavens are clear. 
 Then for every star that he could 
 point out to me, beginning with 
 the brightest, I would undertake 
 to point out for him some shining 
 name among the living or the dead, 
 who, without college or teacher, 
 transformed his inner darkness into 
 light, his ignorance into knowledge, 
 and is now set, either as a greater 
 or as a lesser light, in the firmament 
 of the world's benefactors. The 
 dawn would break and we should 
 still be talking ; and for nights 
 
4 CHIMNEY CORNER GRADUATES 
 
 to come there would be no end 
 for the names, as there would be 
 no number for the stars. 
 
 Not lack of schools and teach- 
 ers, nor want of books and friends ; 
 not the most despised rank or call- 
 ing; not poverty nor ill health nor 
 deafness nor blindness; not hunger, 
 cold, weariness, care, nor sickness 
 of heart, have been able to keep 
 men and women in this life from 
 self-education. 
 
 What is it that you want to 
 learn and cannot? 
 
 Is it writing? Remember Mur- 
 ray, the linguist, who made a pen 
 for himself out of a stem of heather, 
 sharpening it in the fire, and for a 
 copy book used a worn-out wool 
 card. 
 
 Is it English grammar ? Re- 
 member Cobbett, who learned it 
 while he was making sixpence a 
 day, often with no light but winter 
 fire light, and often crowded away 
 from this and reduced almost to 
 starvation if he spent a penny for 
 pens or paper. 
 
 Have you no money to buy 
 
B y JAMES LANE ALLEN 5 
 
 books ? Remember More, who 
 borrowed Newton's Principia and 
 copied it for himself. 
 
 Is it the multiplication table 
 you wish to learn ? Remember 
 Biddle, the poorest of boys, after- 
 ward known throughout the world, 
 who learned it up to a million by 
 means of peas, marbles, and a bag 
 of shot. 
 
 Is it music ? Remember Watt, 
 the inventor of the steam engine, 
 who, with no ear for music, mas- 
 tered harmonies for himself because 
 he had determined to build an 
 organ. 
 
 Is it Latin? Remember the 
 son of a poor jeweler, afterward Sir 
 Samuel Romilly, who learned it 
 untaught. 
 
 Is it Greek or Hebrew? Re- 
 member the dull carpenter appren- 
 tice, Lee, afterwards master of 
 many tongues and professor at 
 Cambridge, who began by buying 
 a Latin grammar, sold his Latin 
 books and bought Greek ones, sold 
 his Greek books to buy Hebrew 
 ones, always teaching himself. 
 
6 CHIMNEY CORNER GRADUATES 
 
 Is it geology? Remember 
 Hugh Miller, who learned in a 
 stone quarry. 
 
 There is little taught in the 
 schools that men have not tauorht 
 themselves amid difficulties and 
 despite obstacles greater, perhaps, 
 than you have ever known. 
 
II 
 
 jRE you hindered and dis- 
 heartened by your position 
 in life and the sort of trade 
 you follow ? 
 
 Weil, what then, in heaven's 
 name are you ? A barber ? So 
 was Arkwright, founder of the cot- 
 ton manufacture of England, who 
 began by shaving people in a cellar 
 at a penny a shave. 
 
 Are you a coal miner ? So was 
 Bewick, founder of wood engrav- 
 ing. 
 
 Are you the son of a poor 
 farmer? So was Sir Isaac Newton, 
 the sun itself in the heaven of 
 science. 
 
 A bricklayer ? So was Ben 
 Johnson, one of the most illustrious 
 names in English literature. 
 
 A tailor? So was brave Hob- 
 son, admiral of the navy. 
 
 A butcher? So was Wolsey, 
 the most illustrious cardinal of 
 England. 
 
8 CHIMNEY CORNER GRADUATES 
 
 The fireman of an engine ? So 
 was Stephenson, inventor of the 
 locomotive. 
 
 A shoemaker? So was Ed- 
 wards, the profound naturaHst. 
 
 A bookbinder ? So was Fara- 
 day, afterwards lecturer on chem- 
 istry before the Royal Institution. 
 
 From every human craft men 
 have started out in quest of knowl- 
 edge and found wisdom. 
 
Ill 
 
 jOU say. Ah ! These were 
 extraordinary men ; 1 am 
 ordinary and cannot do 
 what they did. Certainly 
 not. You miss the lesson : do 
 what you can with your powers and 
 opportunities as faithfully as they 
 did what they could with theirs. 
 Then perhaps you will find your- 
 self no longer ordinary. 
 
 For what made these men ex- 
 traordinary ? Genius ? Don't you 
 believe it. 
 
 If you could collect them into 
 one august company and bid each 
 rise and state the secret of his suc- 
 cess, perhaps not one would say, 
 my genius. 
 
 One would say, my patience; 
 another, hard work; another, en- 
 ergy ; another, perseverance ; an- 
 other, memory ; another, common 
 sense; another, self-reliance; an- 
 other, the habit of attention; an- 
 other, not wasting time; another, 
 the capacity to take infinite pains. 
 
lo CHIMNEY CORNER GRADUATES 
 
 All the answers would be the 
 simplest; and these are the old, 
 old answers that have been given 
 since the world was made and must 
 be given while the world shall 
 stand. 
 
 Nor can anything new be said 
 to you that has not been repeated to 
 every generation seeking knowl- 
 edge this side of the youthful 
 priests of Egypt and the calm 
 scholars of Greece, except this one 
 thing, that self-education is more 
 practicable in the United States at 
 the present time than in any land 
 in the past. 
 
 There are four reasons for this : 
 books are cheaper than ever before; 
 text-books are now made simple 
 and easy to meet the wants of stu- 
 dents at home ; much of the knowl- 
 edge taught in the universities is 
 nov/ put within reach of the chim- 
 ney-corner student in a popular 
 form through correspondence in- 
 struction, newspapers, weekly and 
 monthly publications; and in every 
 village, so widespread has education 
 become, vdll be found some per- 
 sons to whom the solitary, earnest 
 
By JAMES LANE ALLEN ii 
 
 toiler can apply for suggestion and 
 guidance. 
 
 These advantages the self-edu- 
 cated men of the past never en- 
 joyed. 
 
 What is your further necessary 
 outfit? It is very simple: a few 
 hours of leisure out of every twen- 
 ty-four ; a little money ; and the 
 determination to act as teacher to 
 the powers of your own mind ; 
 single-handed if need be, but un- 
 der competent guidance, personal 
 or otherwise, if you can secure it. 
 
 Yes, that is the whole truth ; 
 teach yourself. Tou Can ; If Ever 
 Educated^ IVhether In College Or 
 Notj Tou Must. For what is a 
 college? A place where a set of 
 men will train the powers of your 
 mind for you and require vou to 
 absorb knowledge. 
 
 No. I was thrown with many 
 hundreds of young men in my uni- 
 versity; afterwards 1 taught hun- 
 dreds of others. 
 
 It is my firm conviction that 
 the greatest number of those who 
 failed did so from this mistaken 
 idea of a college as a place where 
 
12 CHIMNEY CORNER GRADUATES 
 
 they would be trained and be taught. 
 
 But A College Is Mainly a 
 Place Where Tou Train Yourself 
 And Teach Yourself — under guid- 
 ance and with certain advantages. 
 
 In a gymnasium who carries on 
 your muscular education ? You. 
 You tug, you expand your chest, 
 you push, pull, strike, run. 
 
 A teacher in a college no more 
 trains your mind than one in a gym- 
 nasium trains your body. He 
 gives out from day to day mental 
 work for you to train your powers 
 upon. You go off to your chim- 
 ney corner and do this or not. 
 Then you go back to him and he 
 finds out what you have done ; 
 whether you have trained memory, 
 patience, self-reliance, attention, ca- 
 pacity for work, and capacity to 
 take pains. 
 
 But all the teachers in the world 
 cannot train these powers for you. 
 They only guide, encourage, in- 
 spire, as you draw these things out 
 of your own nature, toiling in some 
 chimney corner of solitary effort. 
 
 But if you must train them in 
 college, can you not train them 
 
By JAMES LANE ALLEN 13 
 
 out of college ? Life is the answer. 
 
 Life, the world, trains every 
 power to the highest exercise and 
 efficiency in persons who never saw 
 a college or had a teacher, save that 
 of a dominating purpose. 
 
 Here, then, perhaps, we reach 
 your greatest difficulty ; you believe 
 you can attend to the training of 
 your powers, but for guiding them 
 in the pursuit of knowledge a 
 teacher is indispensable. 
 
 True. But now make your 
 greatest discovery of the goodness 
 and wisdom of nature, who realized 
 that while few of the myriads of 
 her human creatures could ever pay 
 for a teacher, all of them needed to 
 be taught, and so bestowed upon 
 the human mind not only the power 
 to learn but also the power to teach 
 itself. 
 
 She has made you to yourself 
 both pupil and teacher, school child 
 and school master. 
 
 If you will only learn well all 
 that your mind can teach you, your 
 education will never lack breadth 
 and depth and sublimity. 
 
 Who taught the first astrono- 
 
14 CHIMNEY CORNER GRADU ATES 
 
 mer? Who the most advanced one 
 living to-day ? 
 
 Who taught Gray American 
 botany, or Audubon American or- 
 nithology, or Franklin science, or 
 Edison invention ? 
 
 Who in every age and land has 
 taught those who knew more of 
 any subject than all others ? 
 
 Who taught these teachers in 
 colleges ? 
 
 All have been taught by the 
 teacher you possess — the teacher 
 within. 
 
 On going to college a young 
 man's first astounding discovery is 
 often this : that every teacher there 
 sets him to teaching himself. 
 
 The better college student you 
 are, the more independent you will 
 be of every other teacher than your- 
 self. 
 
 If in college you cannot teach 
 yourself at all, you fail and educa- 
 tion becomes impossible. 
 
 But if you have to teach your- 
 self in college, cannot you do this 
 out of college ? Especially when 
 modern correspondence methods 
 bring all the guiding influences of 
 
By JAMES LANE ALLE N 15 
 
 school and college and teacher to 
 your very door? 
 
 The builders of our govern- 
 mental machinery little thought 
 that the postal service was to per- 
 form so beneficent a function in the 
 cause of popular education. 
 
 Teaching by Mail makes every 
 home, every shop, every place 
 where there are human hearts to 
 aspire, a centre of education, and 
 brings possibilities of the com- 
 pletest development. 
 
 It is beyond the power of mind 
 to comprehend in its fullness the 
 good done the country in this way. 
 
 Do you ask verification ? Study 
 the world about you ; life is the 
 answer. Life, the world, is self- 
 taught in a thousand cases where it 
 is college-bred in one. 
 
 Thus, whether you go to col- 
 lege or not, all education is essen- 
 tially self-education ; and in the 
 truest, noblest sense of patient, 
 energetic self-reliance every gradu- 
 ate is a chimney corner graduate. 
 
iAN. St t902