When his great printing
house burned down, the giant perseverance which he had learned in those
hours of _overwork_, made him able to raise, from the ashes, a larger
and finer one.
Instead of watching till his employer's back was turned, and saying,
"Come, boys, let's go home; we've done enough for one day," and
sauntering off with a cigar in his mouth, his cry was, "Let's do a
little _overwork_."
That _overwork_ which frightens boys nowadays out of good places, and
sends them out West, on shipboard, anywhere, eating husks, in search of
a spot where money can be had without work, laid the foundation of the
apprentice boy's future greatness.
Such busy boys were only too glad to go to bed and sleep soundly. They
had no time nor spare strength for dissipation, and idle thoughts, and
vulgar conversation.
Almost the last words that James Harper uttered were appropriate to the
end of such a life, and ought to be engraven upon the mind of every boy
who expects to make anything of himself: "_It is not best to be studying
how little we can work, but how much_."
[Illustration: It is not best to study how little we can work, but how
much.]
Boys, make up your minds to one thing,--the future great men of this
country are doing just what those boys did.
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