Stories of Achievement, Volume III | Page 5

were not ignorant what way their true interest pointed, but each of them
had the evils of war before his eyes; for their Phocian wounds were still
fresh upon them. However, the powers of the orator, as Theopompus
tells us, rekindled their courage and ambition so effectually that all
other objects were disregarded. They lost sight of fear, of caution, of
every prior attachment, and, through the force of his eloquence, fell

with enthusiastic transports into the path of honour.
So powerful, indeed, were the efforts of the orator that Philip
immediately sent ambassadors to Athens to apply for peace. Greece
recovered her spirits, whilst she stood waiting for the event; and not
only the Athenian generals, but the governors of Boeotia, were ready to
execute the commands of Demosthenes. All the assemblies, as well
those of Thebes as those of Athens, were under his direction: he was
equally beloved, equally powerful, in both places; and, as Theopompus
shows, it was no more than his merit claimed. But the superior power
of fortune, which seems to have been working at revolution, and
drawing the liberties of Greece to a period at that time, opposed and
baffled all the measures that could be taken. The deity discovered many
tokens of the approaching event.

ELIHU BURRITT
(1810-1879)
"THE LEARNED BLACKSMITH"
This man's career is the star example of the pursuit of knowledge under
difficulties. For years, while earning his living at the forge, he denied
himself all natural pleasures that he might devote every possible minute
to cramming his head with seemingly useless scraps of knowledge.
The acquisition of knowledge merely for its own sake is of course
foolishness, but it is a very rare kind of foolishness. Nearly always the
learned man pays his debt to society in full measure, if we but give him
time enough. So it was with "The Learned Blacksmith." From his deep
learning, Elihu Burritt at last drew the inspiration which made him a
powerful advocate in the cause of the world's peace.
From "Captains of Industry," by James Parton. Houghton, Mifflin &
Co., 1884.
Elihu Burritt, with whom we have all been familiar for many years as

the Learned Blacksmith, was born in 1810 at the beautiful town of New
Britain, in Connecticut, about ten miles from Hartford. He was the
youngest son in an old-fashioned family of ten children. His father
owned and cultivated a small farm, but spent the winters at the
shoemaker's bench, according to the rational custom of Connecticut in
that day. When Elihu was sixteen years of age his father died, and the
lad soon after apprenticed himself to a blacksmith in his native village.
He was an ardent reader of books from childhood up, and he was
enabled to gratify this taste by means of a very small village library,
which contained several books of history, of which he was naturally
fond. This boy, however, was a shy, devoted student, brave to maintain
what he thought right, but so bashful that he was known to hide in the
cellar when his parents were going to have company.
As his father's long sickness had kept him out of school for some time,
he was the more earnest to learn during his apprenticeship--particularly
mathematics, since he desired to become, among other things, a good
surveyor. He was obliged to work from ten to twelve hours a day at the
forge, but while he was blowing the bellows he employed his mind in
doing sums in his head. His biographer gives a specimen of these
calculations which he wrought out without making a single figure:
"How many yards of cloth, three feet in width, cut into strips an inch
wide, and allowing half an inch at each end for the lap, would it require
to reach from the centre of the earth to the surface, and how much
would it all cost at a shilling a yard?"
He would go home at night with several of these sums done in his head,
and report the results to an elder brother, who had worked his way
through Williams College. His brother would perform the calculations
upon a slate, and usually found his answers correct.
When he was about half through his apprenticeship he suddenly took it
into his head to learn Latin, and began at once through the assistance of
the same elder brother. In the evenings of one winter he read the
Aeneid of Virgil; and, after going on for a while with Cicero and a few
other Latin authors, he began Greek. During the winter months he was

obliged to spend every hour of daylight at the forge, and even in the
summer his leisure minutes were few and far between. But he carried
his Greek grammar in his hat, and often found