wrote to his sister: "If the children of Israel were pressed for 'gear' half as hard as I have been, I do not wonder that they were willing to worship the golden calf. It is a long, long time since my last ninepence bade good-bye to its brethren; and I suspect that the last two parted on no very friendly terms, for they have never since met together. Poor wretches! Never did two souls stand in greater need of consolation!"

If he did not make fun of poverty, it did not make fun of him.

The incident reminds us of young Garfield, when he trudged off to Geauga Seminary, with no clothes except the poor ones on his back, and a solitary ninepence in his pocket. "It is having a lonely time," he said to his two companions, in a tone of pleasantry. The next Sabbath, when the contribution box was passed, he dropped into it the lonely ninepence "that it might have company," as he said.

Notwithstanding Horace Mann spent but six months in preparing for college, and then entered a year in advance, he at once rose to the highest rank, and was graduated valedictorian of his class. His heroic purpose and intense application found its reward in early distinction as an educator and statesman. He succeeded John Quincy Adams in Congress, where he served six years with great ability. Then he was nominated for governor of Massachusetts; and, at the same time, was appointed president of Antioch College. Preferring a literary to a political life and being deeply interested in the education of young men and women, he declined the former and accepted the latter offer. His career confirms the remark of Disraeli, "Mastery of a subject is attainable only through continuous application."

Often the dull, plodding pupil, faithful in his place, and doing the best he can, in the long run leaves his brilliant, talented companion far in the rear. In the lapse of years, his persistent application, seconded by its invincible purpose, makes for him a place and name. For the want of these elements of strength, ten talents often fail in the race of life.

We recall the brilliant collegian who might have stood at the head of his class, but who, for the want of application, stood nearer to the foot. He went forth into the world and adopted the legal profession, in which he made a signal

failure, and finally went down to his grave without leaving a ripple on the surface of life.

The young architect who spent his evenings in hard study was ridiculed by his fellow-associates for his efforts at selfimprovement. "The boss will never give you any credit for it," they said; "we won't bother our brains so." But he still bent all his energies to master his calling, and, ere his apprenticeship closed, he won the prize of two thousand dollars for the best plan for a state house, offered by a New England commonwealth. The result confounded his young associate architects, who undervalued his application.

It is this spirit of consecration to a noble purpose that bids defiance to perils, hardships, and difficulties of every sort. It led Locke to live on bread and water in a Dutch garret ; Franklin to dine on a small loaf, with book in hand, while his companions in the printing office were absent a whole hour at dinner; Alexander Murray to learn to write on an old wool card, with a burnt heather stem for a pen, and Gideon Lee to go barefoot in winter, half-clothed and half-fed. It was the price they were willing to pay for success.

"A smooth sea never made a skillful navigator," as a smooth road never leads to success.

Says another: "The idle warrior, cut from a shingle, who fights the air on the top of the weathercock, instead of being made to turn some machine commensurate with his strength, is not more worthless than the man who dissipates his labor on several objects, when he ought to concentrate it on some great end."

CHAPTER VIII.

CHARLES ARNETTE TOWNE.

ON THE QUALIFICATIONS THAT ASSURE SUCCESS — SOME MORAL AND MENTAL TRAITS HIS EARLY LIFE-SCHOOL DAYS COLLEGE CAREER

FIRST EFFORT IN POLITICS

TION TO CONGRESS

REVOLT AGAINST MACHINE METHODS — ELECHIS ELOQUENT PLEA ON THE MONEY QUESTION LEADER OF THE SILVER REPUBLICANS NOMINATED FOR VICE-PRESIDENT APPOINTMENT TO THE UNITED STATES OPPORTUNITY.

BY THE POPULIST CONVENTION

SENATE RETIREMENT FROM POLITICAL LIFE.

Success, as commonly understood, it seems to me, may be regarded as the result of a happy combination of opportunity

and qualification. I assign, therefore, a certain function to that which we call "luck"; for while qualification may improve original opportunities and may make secondary ones, it can never create the first one. Since, moreover, no man is responsible for his own inheritances, there is still another element of luck in that equipment of genius, talent, habit, and mental and moral predilections with which his conscious life commences.

The qualifications that chiefly assure success may be grouped as physical, temperamental, mental and moral good health, cheerfulness, intelligence, sincerity. With these a man will aim at right ends, study their requirements, persevere in their achievement, and make a noble use of results.

Downl

HE best type of successful manhood is not necessarily that which accumulates the greatest wealth or occupies the most exalted position. A pirate, whether of the Spanish Main in old buccaneering days, or on the Stock Exchange of modern times, where men may rob and steal

without exposure to physical danger, may acquire great riches, and all too often the thrifty and shifty politician, who takes advantage of every changing public sentiment to advance a selfish interest, is landed in high office; but success so obtained never appeals to the higher and nobler nature in mankind. No poet who loves truth, and sings of justice and humanity, chants the praises of the success attendant upon the betrayal of either friends or principles, or glorifies the thrift that follows fawning.

In the struggle of life to the man of high aims and pure impulses, the greater measure of success may lie in present defeat, and the victory ultimately belong to the vanquished.

These statements seem commonplace enough, but no correct estimate of the life, labors, and achievements of Charles A. Towne can be made unless judgment is founded upon the basis of high ideals, a love of truth and justice, and a lofty and disinterested patriotism.

Possessed of great ability as an organizer, an advocate and a logician, with an intellect that can at once "snatch the essential grace of meaning" out of a business proposition, an involved question in the law, or detect a false thesis in political economy; a mind that deals in fundamental principles and conducts discussions on lofty grounds and for noble purposes; thus superbly equipped for a successful business career, he has rather chosen to cast his lot with the minority, and has devoted the best years of his life to the advancement of those ideas of government and public morality that seem to him essential to the preservation of the Republic.

The story of his life is the not uncommon one of the struggles and trials of a lad from poverty to a position of leadership in a great nation. Charles Judson Towne and Laura Fargo, his wife, were farmers in Oakland county, Michigan, in 1858, and here, in what was in those early days one of the substantial farmer homes of the community, Charles Arnette Towne was introduced to the world. Born at a time when human slavery was the burning topic of the day; when orators like Phillips, writers like Mrs. Stowe and Horace Greeley, poets like Whittier and Lowell, statesmen like Lincoln, and patriots like John Brown were stirring the conscience of the nation, focusing thought upon the great problem of the rights and privileges of human beings in their relations to each

other. The father was a follower of John C. Fremont "to the glorious defeat of 1856," one of the pioneers of the Republican party. Charles was literally born into the heat of that great contest, with all of his immediate surroundings influencing the development of his character. This may, to some extent, be responsible for that fine sense of justice, that regard for the rights of others, that sympathy for the oppressed, and the high ideals of honor and honesty that have been leading characteristics of his manhood.

In his school days, Charles was numbered among the best students in his books, but was always the acknowledged leader in declamation and amateur theatricals. Little Charlie Towne was ever in demand at church entertainments, and was the chief number at school exhibitions. So pronounced was this talent for public speaking, that at an early age people predicted a public career and a seat in Congress; but, coupled with a glib tongue and an easy presence before an audience, young Towne possessed that much rarer quality, a capacity for intense application to the task at hand. When lessons were hard the night would find him sitting with classics and mathematics, his open book upon his mother's lapboard, and a wet towel bound about his head to assist by its cooling influence in keeping the mind at work.

He was graduated from the Owosso High School in 1875. His graduating oration was on agriculture, this being the last of several he had prepared, and it was pushed through under high pressure during the last days of the term. This faculty of speedy preparation has distinguished his work through life; the ability to formulate in a brief time the study and thought of years. His exhaustive speech on the currency, made the summer following his election to Congress, was prepared in four days, and his famous speech in the Senate on January 28, 1901, was written in forty-eight hours.

Towne's course in college was not markedly brilliant in scholarship, though he was a good, all-round student, especially good in the classics, and leading his section in history and political economy. It was as a debater and an organizer that he won his chief laurels. Like many of the great men of the nation, his reading was careful and his selection wise. The library held much more of value to him than the class room; indeed, the class work was supplemented by library