The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1901-03-24
REVIEWS Of NEN BOOKS
WHAT SOME OF THE PUBLICATIONS
RECENTLY OFFERED THE PUB
Inc ARE ABOUT
CHANCES FOR POOR BOYS
"North Carolina Sketches a Clever
Little Work-Literary Notes
of Authors and Their
Works.
NPoor BOYS, Chances.o

Poor Boys Chances" by John Hab-
berton. Henry Altemus company,
Philadelphia.
A modest little book is this of Mr. Hah-
berton's, but in point of interest it Is I'M
measurably the other way The life
sketches of a score of men who started
with nothing, but by perseverance ac-
qu1red honorable and lasting fame, and
III some instances immense fortunes, fur
nish reading that will please any one.
The young man starting in life who reads
this volume will find any hopes he has
of success strengthened by it's perusal.
Julian Hawthorne in a recent issue of
the Philadelphia North American, re-
views at length the book and comments
on the author. OF the latter he says
that he (Mr. Habberton) is an optimist
is only what we should expect; his in
sight is too clear and his observation too
acute for him to be otherwise. He does
not agree with the common saying that
the chances for young men nowadays
are not as good as they used to be. Lazy
boys, he remarks, 'cowardly boys,
thoughtless boys and boys who are in
haste to become rich are as apt as some
men at complaining that nowadays there
are no opportunities, no 'streaks of luck"
no good chances such as there used to be.
1t is true that feW-a very few-of the
old time chances are gone, but it is also
true that for every one that has disap-
peared there are a hundred new ones.
What boys have done boys may
do. And again he says: Success in life
does not depend on a mans chances;
but on the man himself. Chances offer
themselves daily to millions Of men,
but are lost through mental blindness or
carelessness. All of nv heroes
found their chances where they had least
expected them. but, even then it was not
the chance, but the man, that achieved
COR hn ho6 1lr DIV
himself to make the most of whatever
chance presented itself.
This is the keynote of the writer's at
titude towards his topic but it is rein
forced and expanded on every page with
solid nuggets of sense and manly coun-
sci. An entire ethical philosophy of the
Soundest and sweetest sort is to be found
scattered through these pages, rising to
expression as the occasion demands,
never perfunctorily or of malice afore-
thought The facts themselves of the BIZ
ographies are stimulating; but at every
point they are enveloped in the wise and
genial thought of the biographer and
gain significance and beauty from their
environment AS mere study in history,
the book is valuable for persons of anv
age; often light is shed upon tn ngs here
tofore obscure, or what had seemed in
coherent is brought into connection with
its surroundings. And throughout there
are the intonatfons of a human sympathy.
making an inner music through the story.
THE choice of names is admirable:
none OF the twenty could be spared,
though others might have been added We
nave Ben Franklin and Lincoln Wash
ington and Grant, Edison and Aston Gil
rard and Peabody Hamilton and Peter
Cooper, Jay Gould and Horace Mann.
Garfield and Whitney are here; Commo-
dore Vanderbilt and Stonewall Jackson.
All these, and the others, were poor and
unfriended at the start, but they made
themselves masters of their fate; and
what boys have done boys may do''