The object of the book briefly is, to re-inculcate these old-fashioned but wholesome
lessons-which perhaps cannot be too often urged, that youth must work in order to
enjoy,-that nothing creditable can be accomplished without application and diligence,-that
the student must not be daunted by difficulties, but conquer them by patience and
perseverance,-and that, above all, he must seek elevation of character, without which
capacity is worthless and worldly success is naught. If the author has not succeeded in
illustrating these lessons, he can only say that he has failed in his object.
"Heaven helps those who help themselves" is a well-tried maxim, embodying in
a small compass the results of vast human experience. The spirit of self-help is the root
of all genuine growth in the individual; and, exhibited in the lives of many, it
constitutes the true source of national vigour and strength. Help from without is often
enfeebling in its effects, but help from within invariably invigorates. Whatever is
donefor men or classes, to a certain extent takes away the stimulus and necessity of doing
for themselves; and where men are subjected to over-guidance and over-government, the
inevitable tendency is to render them comparatively helpless.
Even the best institutions can give a man no active help. Perhaps the most they can do
is, to leave him free to develop himself and improve his individual condition. But in all
times men have been prone to believe that their happiness and well-being were to be
secured by means of institutions rather than by their own conduct. Hence the value of
legislation as an agent in human advancement has usually been much over-estimated. To
constitute the millionth part of a Legislature, by voting for one or two men once in three
or five years, however conscientiously this duty may be performed, can exercise but little
active influence upon any man's life and character. Moreover, it is every day becoming
more clearly understood, that the function of Government is negative and restrictive,
rather than positive and active; being resolvable principally into protection-protection
of life, liberty, and property. Laws, wisely administered, will secure men in the
enjoyment of the fruits of their labour, whether of mind or body, at a comparatively small
personal sacrifice; but no laws, however stringent, can make the idle industrious, the
thriftless provident, or the drunken sober. Such reforms can only be effected by means of
individual action, economy, and self-denial; by better habits, rather than by greater
rights.
The Government of a nation itself is usually found to be but the reflex of the
individuals composing it. The Government that is ahead of the people will inevitably be
dragged down to their level, as the Government that is behind them will in the long run be
dragged up. In the order of nature, the collective character of a nation will as surely
find its befitting results in its law and government, as water finds its own level. The
noble people will be nobly ruled, and the ignorant and corrupt ignobly. Indeed all
experience serves to prove that the worth strength of a State depend far less upon the
form of its institut,011S than upon the character of its men. For the nation is only an
aggregate of individual conditions, and civilization itself is but a question of the
personal improvement of the men, women, and children of whom society is composed.
National progress is the sum of individual industry, energy, and uprightness, as
national decay is of individual idleness, selfishness, and vice. What we are accustomed to
decry as great social evils, will, for the most part, be found to be but the outgrowth of
man's own perverted life; and though we may endeavour to cut them down and extirpate them
by means of Law, they will only spring up again with fresh luxuriance in some other form,
unless the conditions of personal life and character are radically improved. If this view
be correct, then it follows that the highest patriotism and philanthropy consist, not so
much in altering laws and modifying institutions, as in helping and stimulating men to
elevate and improve themselves by their own free and independent individual action. . . .
All nations have been made what they are by the thinking and the working of many
generations of men. Patient and persevering labourers in all ranks and conditions of life,
cultivators of the soil and explorers of the mine, inventors and discoverers,
manufacturers, mechanics and artisans, poets, philosophers, and politicians, all have
contributed towards the grand result, one generation building upon another's labours, and
carrying them forward to still higher stages. This constant succession of noble
workers-the artisans of civilisation has served to create order out of chaos in industry,
science, and art; and the living race has thus, in the course of nature, become the
inheritor of the rich estate provided by the skill and industry of our forefathers, which
is placed in our hands to cultivate, and to hand down, not only unimpaired but improved,
to our successors.
The spirit of self-help, as exhibited in the energetic action of individuals, has in
all times been a marked feature in the English character, and furnishes the true measure
of our power as a nation. Rising above the heads of the mass, there were always to be
found a series of individuals distinguished beyond others, who commanded the public
homage. But our progress has also been owing to multitudes of smaller and less known men.
Though only the generals' names may be remembered in the history of any great campaign, it
has been in a great measure through the individual valour and heroism of the privates that
victories have been won. And life, too, is "a soldiers' battle,"-men in the
ranks having in all times been amongst the greatest of workers. Many are the lives of men
unwritten, which have nevertheless as powerfully influenced civilisation and progress as
the more fortunate Great whose names are recorded in biography. Even the humblest person,
who sets before his fellows an example of industry, sobriety, and upright honesty of
purpose in life, has a present as well as a future influence upon the well-being of his
country; for his life and character pass unconsciously into the lives of others, and
propagate good example for all time to come.
Daily experience shows that it is energetic individualism which produces the most
powerful effects upon the life and action of others, and really constitutes the best
practical education. Schools, academies, and colleges, give but the merest beginnings of
culture in comparison with it. Far more influential is the life-education daily given in
our homes, in the streets, behind counters, in workshops, at the loom and the plough, in
counting-houses and manufactories, and in the busy haunts of men. This is that finishing
instruction as members of society, which Schiller designated 1he education of the human
race," consisting in action, conduct, self-culture, self-control,-all that tends to
discipline a man truly, and fit him for the proper performance of the duties and business
of life,-a kind of education not to be learnt from books, or acquired by any amount of
mere literary training. With his usual weight of words Bacon observes, that "Studies
teach not their own use; but that is a wisdom without them, and above them, won by
observation;" a remark that holds true of actual life, as well as of the cultivation
of the intellect itself. For all experience serves to illustrate and enforce the lesson,
that a man perfects himself by work more than by reading,-that it is life rather than
literature, action rather than study, and character rather than biography, which tend
perpetually to renovate mankind.
Biographies of great, but especially of good men, are nevertheless most instructive and
useful, as helps, guides, and incentives to others.
Some of the best are almost equivalent to gospels-teaching high living, high thinking,
and energetic action for their own and the world's good. The valuable examples which they
furnish of the power of self-help, of patient purpose, resolute working, and steadfast
integrity, issuing in the formation of truly noble and manly character, exhibit in
language not to be misunderstood, what it is in the power of each to accomplish for
himself; and eloquently illustrate the efficacy of self-respect and self-reliance in
enabling men of even the humblest rank to work out for themselves an honourable competency
and a solid reputation.
