Lives of Poor Boys Who Became Famous

He offered his services to a mission school as a teacher. "He was welcome, if he would bring his own scholars," they said. The next Sunday, to their astonishment, young Moody wa...

He was keeping up courage, because he was writing a book! He told his mother, with his high dreams of young authorship, that he should bring home all his old shirts and stocking...

He was now twenty-seven years old. Since his father had taken him when a mere boy to Rome, he had longed for and prayed over his distracted Italy. He saw what the Eternal City m...

Although a Protestant, accounted now the greatest living sculptor, he was made president of the Academy of St. Luke, a position held by Canova when he was alive, and was commiss...

Mr. Mason never forgot his laborers. When he established copper-smelting works in Wales, he built neat cottages for the workmen, and schools for the three hundred and fifty chil...

His first five pictures were placed for exhibition in the shop of an acquaintance, and were sold at eight dollars apiece. Through the courtesy of a gentleman who purchased three...

One day a man on trial for murder had secured the able lawyer, John A. Breckenridge, to defend him. Abraham listened as he made his appeal to the jury. He had never heard anythi...

He could go to school no longer, and must now support himself. From earliest childhood he had determined to be a printer; so, when eleven years of age, he walked nine miles to s...

Near by are his well-filled stables, his favorite horse, Rivoli, being often used for his model. He is equally fond of dogs, and has several expensive hounds. How strange all th...

He received now a pension of fifteen hundred dollars a year, for his valuable services to literature, but never used more than four hundred dollars for himself. He took care of...

But his mother planned to some purpose. She said to M. Menier, the chocolate-maker, "I have a son of great promise, whom I want to send to Paris against his father's will to stu...

The history of inventors is generally the same old struggle with poverty. Sir Richard Arkwright, the youngest of thirteen children, with no education, a barber, shaving in a cel...

Two months later, the battle of Chattanooga redeemed the defeat of Chickamauga. Near the town rises Lookout Mountain, abrupt, rocky cliffs twenty-four hundred feet above the lev...

Mr. Smith arose and grasped him cordially by the hand, saying, "Cornell, you are the very man I want to see. I have been trying to explain to neighbor Robertson a machine that I...

He was now twenty-six, famous and above want. What more fitting than that he should marry pretty Felicie Villeminot, and share with her the precious life she had saved? They wer...

At last the penniless printer boy had determined to see Europe. For two years he had read every thing he could find upon travels abroad. His good mother mourned over the matter,...

Sir Henry died on the fifteenth of March, 1898, leaving an immense fortune, which, nevertheless, was not inordinate when compared with the services rendered by him to mankind; a...

For sixteen years she was an invalid, so that he carried her often in his arms like a child. Now he took her to New Haven for treatment, and improved what time he could spare by...

And now came twenty years in science that made Faraday the wonder and ornament of his age. Elected an F.R.S., he began at once twelve lectures in Chemical Manipulation before th...

Perhaps he would like to build tables and chairs better, so he was apprenticed to a cabinet-maker; but here he was no more satisfied than with the monotony of sewing leather. At...

These characters have been chosen from various countries and from varied professions, that the youth who read this book may see that poverty is no barrier to success. It usually...

On Nov. 19, of this year, this battle-field was dedicated, with solemn ceremonies, as one of the national cemeteries. Mr. Lincoln made a very brief address, in words that will l...