New Orleans daily crescent. [volume] ([New Orleans, La.]) 1851-1866, 1860-01-30
.The Grit Bare-Legged Laddle.,.

Sixty years ago stout bony youth Of eighteen
years DID, who had been known among his neigh
borhood as 90 grit bare-legged laddie,i called on
poor village schoomaster, and said
Is would like to attend your evening school,
sir.''
What do you wish to study?" asked the
teacher.
u want to learn to read and write, replied the
lad.
The teacher looked into the lads face with a
somewhat scornful glance, shrugged his shoulders,
and said:
VERY well, you can attend.n
Now il that bony lad had said to the teacher 60 !
mean to become great inventor, to be the COM
panion of rich and noble men, to hold conversation
with kings, and to write my name among the great
men of the world dare say the teacher would
have called the boy fool, for cherishing such
wild dreams. Yet that poor bony lad, who at
eighteen did not know the alphabet, did all those
things before he died. +
Who was he? His name was George Stephen
son, the great railway pioneer
1t was not the fault of young George that he was
ignorant, il was only his misfortune. His parents
were too poor to send him to school, He was the
SON Of fireman OF pumping engine III colliery.
His birthplace was cottage with clay floor,
mud wall, and bare rafters. He had to help earn
his living from his earliest years, first by herding
COWS and barring up the gates Of the mine at
night, Next he was put to picking stones from
the coal, and after that to driving horse, which
hauled coal from the pit. By-and-by he was
made assistant fireman TO his father. When he
was seventeen he was made pugman OF a pump
ing engine-a higher post than his father ,s-and
had climbed, as it seemed, to the top of his lad
der. What hope was there for youth who could
not read at seventeen2
But George had hope in his breast His engine
was d lesson-book to him. He took it apart and
putt together again, studied it, loved it, aud when
he was told that there were books which told
ahont engines, he made up his mind to go TO
school.
70 school lie went and soon learned all that the
village masters could teach. When twenty years
old he was made brakeman, and began to think
about inYenting better engines than he saw about
him.
Thus working thinking, reading, he kept on,
avoiding all bad habits, until he built loeomo-
tive that travelled four miles an hour on a team
way. This was great affair at that time.
His next work was a railway eight miles in
length, and from this point he went until he
WAS known as the great railway pioneer OF the
wirld.
George was often laughed at by men who thought
themselves much wiser than he. One day he was
proposing to build engine to run twelve miles
an hour. grave looking gentleman, thinking to
put him down. said:
:. Suppose one of those engines to be going along
railroad at the rate of nine ten miles an hour
| and cow were to stray upon the line, would not
that be very awkward eircumstance?a
Yes replied Mr.. Stephenson, every awkward
indeed--for the COW =
Thus, by his own industry, did the grit bare
legged laddie' climb to very high place among
men. Great men, and even kings sought his ad.
vice, wealth flowed into his purse, his name was
honored, his character respected At a ripe age
| he died and went to his eternal reward.