Self Help by Samuel Smiles (desktop ebook reader txt) 📖

was a place where a new comer at once

felt that a great and earnest work was going forward. Every pupil

was made to feel that there was a work for him to do; that his

happiness, as well as his duty, lay in doing that work well. Hence

an indescribable zest was communicated to a young man’s feeling

about life; a strange joy came over him on discerning that he had

the means of being useful, and thus of being happy; and a deep

respect and ardent attachment sprang up towards him who had taught

him thus to value life and his own self, and his work and mission

in the world. All this was founded on the breadth and

comprehensiveness of Arnold’s character, as well as its striking

truth and reality; on the unfeigned regard he had for work of all

kinds, and the sense he had of its value, both for the complex

aggregate of society and the growth and protection of the

individual. In all this there was no excitement; no predilection

for one class of work above another; no enthusiasm for any one-sided object: but a humble, profound, and most religious

consciousness that work is the appointed calling of man on earth;

the end for which his various faculties were given; the element in

which his nature is ordained to develop itself, and in which his

progressive advance towards heaven is to lie.” Among the many

valuable men trained for public life and usefulness by Arnold, was

the gallant Hodson, of Hodson’s Horse, who, writing home from

India, many years after, thus spoke of his revered master: “The

influence he produced has been most lasting and striking in its

effects. It is felt even in India; I cannot say more than THAT.”

 

The useful influence which a right-hearted man of energy and

industry may exercise amongst his neighbours and dependants, and

accomplish for his country, cannot, perhaps, be better illustrated

than by the career of Sir John Sinclair; characterized by the Abbe

Gregoire as “the most indefatigable man in Europe.” He was

originally a country laird, born to a considerable estate situated

near John o’ Groat’s House, almost beyond the beat of civilization,

in a bare wild country fronting the stormy North Sea. His father

dying while he was a youth of sixteen, the management of the family

property thus early devolved upon him; and at eighteen he began a

course of vigorous improvement in the county of Caithness, which

eventually spread all over Scotland. Agriculture then was in a

most backward state; the fields were unenclosed, the lands

undrained; the small farmers of Caithness were so poor that they

could scarcely afford to keep a horse or shelty; the hard work was

chiefly done, and the burdens borne, by the women; and if a cottier

lost a horse it was not unusual for him to marry a wife as the

cheapest substitute. The country was without roads or bridges; and

drovers driving their cattle south had to swim the rivers along

with their beasts. The chief track leading into Caithness lay

along a high shelf on a mountain side, the road being some hundred

feet of clear perpendicular height above the sea which dashed

below. Sir John, though a mere youth, determined to make a new

road over the hill of Ben Cheilt, the old let-alone proprietors,

however, regarding his scheme with incredulity and derision. But

he himself laid out the road, assembled some twelve hundred workmen

early one summer’s morning, set them simultaneously to work,

superintending their labours, and stimulating them by his presence

and example; and before night, what had been a dangerous sheep

track, six miles in length, hardly passable for led horses, was

made practicable for wheel-carriages as if by the power of magic.

It was an admirable example of energy and well-directed labour,

which could not fail to have a most salutary influence upon the

surrounding population. He then proceeded to make more roads, to

erect mills, to build bridges, and to enclose and cultivate the

waste lands. He introduced improved methods of culture, and

regular rotation of crops, distributing small premiums to encourage

industry; and he thus soon quickened the whole frame of society

within reach of his influence, and infused an entirely new spirit

into the cultivators of the soil. From being one of the most

inaccessible districts of the north—the very ultima Thule of

civilization—Caithness became a pattern county for its roads, its

agriculture, and its fisheries. In Sinclair’s youth, the post was

carried by a runner only once a week, and the young baronet then

declared that he would never rest till a coach drove daily to

Thurso. The people of the neighbourhood could not believe in any

such thing, and it became a proverb in the county to say of an

utterly impossible scheme, “Ou, ay, that will come to pass when Sir

John sees the daily mail at Thurso!” But Sir John lived to see his

dream realized, and the daily mail established to Thurso.

 

The circle of his benevolent operation gradually widened.

Observing the serious deterioration which had taken place in the

quality of British wool,—one of the staple commodities of the

country,—he forthwith, though but a private and little-known

country gentleman, devoted himself to its improvement. By his

personal exertions he established the British Wool Society for the

purpose, and himself led the way to practical improvement by

importing 800 sheep from all countries, at his own expense. The

result was, the introduction into Scotland of the celebrated

Cheviot breed. Sheep farmers scouted the idea of south country

flocks being able to thrive in the far north. But Sir John

persevered; and in a few years there were not fewer than 300,000

Cheviots diffused over the four northern counties alone. The value

of all grazing land was thus enormously increased; and Scotch

estates, which before were comparatively worthless, began to yield

large rentals.

 

Returned by Caithness to Parliament, in which he remained for

thirty years, rarely missing a division, his position gave him

farther opportunities of usefulness, which he did not neglect to

employ. Mr. Pitt, observing his persevering energy in all useful

public projects, sent for him to Downing Street, and voluntarily

proposed his assistance in any object he might have in view.

Another man might have thought of himself and his own promotion;

but Sir John characteristically replied, that he desired no favour

for himself, but intimated that the reward most gratifying to his

feelings would be Mr. Pitt’s assistance in the establishment of a

National Board of Agriculture. Arthur Young laid a bet with the

baronet that his scheme would never be established, adding, “Your

Board of Agriculture will be in the moon!” But vigorously setting

to work, he roused public attention to the subject, enlisted a

majority of Parliament on his side, and eventually established the

Board, of which he was appointed President. The result of its

action need not be described, but the stimulus which it gave to

agriculture and stock-raising was shortly felt throughout the whole

United Kingdom, and tens of thousands of acres were redeemed from

barrenness by its operation. He was equally indefatigable in

encouraging the establishment of fisheries; and the successful

founding of these great branches of British industry at Thurso and

Wick was mainly due to his exertions. He urged for long years, and

at length succeeded in obtaining the enclosure of a harbour for the

latter place, which is perhaps the greatest and most prosperous

fishing town in the world.

 

Sir John threw his personal energy into every work in which he

engaged, rousing the inert, stimulating the idle, encouraging the

hopeful, and working with all. When a French invasion was

threatened, he offered to Mr. Pitt to raise a regiment on his own

estate, and he was as good as his word. He went down to the north,

and raised a battalion of 600 men, afterwards increased to 1000;

and it was admitted to be one of the finest volunteer regiments

ever raised, inspired throughout by his own noble and patriotic

spirit. While commanding officer of the camp at Aberdeen he held

the offices of a Director of the Bank of Scotland, Chairman of the

British Wool Society, Provost of Wick, Director of the British

Fishery Society, Commissioner for issuing Exchequer Bills, Member

of Parliament for Caithness, and President of the Board of

Agriculture. Amidst all this multifarious and self-imposed work,

he even found time to write books, enough of themselves to

establish a reputation. When Mr. Rush, the American Ambassador,

arrived in England, he relates that he inquired of Mr. Coke of

Holkham, what was the best work on Agriculture, and was referred to

Sir John Sinclair’s; and when he further asked of Mr. Vansittart,

Chancellor of the Exchequer, what was the best work on British

Finance, he was again referred to a work by Sir John Sinclair, his

‘History of the Public Revenue.’ But the great monument of his

indefatigable industry, a work that would have appalled other men,

but only served to rouse and sustain his energy, was his

‘Statistical Account of Scotland,’ in twenty-one volumes, one of

the most valuable practical works ever published in any age or

country. Amid a host of other pursuits it occupied him nearly

eight years of hard labour, during which he received, and attended

to, upwards of 20,000 letters on the subject. It was a thoroughly

patriotic undertaking, from which he derived no personal advantage

whatever, beyond the honour of having completed it. The whole of

the profits were assigned by him to the Society for the Sons of the

Clergy in Scotland. The publication of the book led to great

public improvements; it was followed by the immediate abolition of

several oppressive feudal rights, to which it called attention; the

salaries of schoolmasters and clergymen in many parishes were

increased; and an increased stimulus was given to agriculture

throughout Scotland. Sir John then publicly offered to undertake

the much greater labour of collecting and publishing a similar

Statistical Account of England; but unhappily the then Archbishop

of Canterbury refused to sanction it, lest it should interfere with

the tithes of the clergy, and the idea was abandoned.

 

A remarkable illustration of his energetic promptitude was the

manner in which he once provided, on a great emergency, for the

relief of the manufacturing districts. In 1793 the stagnation

produced by the war led to an unusual number of bankruptcies, and

many of the first houses in Manchester and Glasgow were tottering,

not so much from want of property, but because the usual sources of

trade and credit were for the time closed up. A period of intense

distress amongst the labouring classes seemed imminent, when Sir

John urged, in Parliament, that Exchequer notes to the amount of

five millions should be issued immediately as a loan to such

merchants as could give security. This suggestion was adopted, and

his offer to carry out his plan, in conjunction with certain

members named by him, was also accepted. The vote was passed late

at night, and early next morning Sir John, anticipating the delays

of officialism and red tape, proceeded to bankers in the city, and

borrowed of them, on his own personal security, the sum of

70,000l., which he despatched the same evening to those merchants

who were in the most urgent need of assistance. Pitt meeting Sir

John in the House, expressed his great regret that the pressing

wants of Manchester and Glasgow could not be supplied so soon as

was desirable, adding, “The money cannot be raised for some days.”

“It is already gone! it left London by to-night’s mail!” was Sir

John’s triumphant reply; and in afterwards relating the anecdote he

added, with a smile of pleasure, “Pitt was as much startled as if I

had stabbed him.” To the last this great, good man worked on

usefully and cheerfully, setting a