Part 6 (1/2)
First, about his industry. He thoroughly did the work connected with his curacy. The Sabbath was in all respects regarded by him as a holy day.
After morning and evening service, he devoted the evening to reading the Scriptures and family prayer. On weekdays, he taught the children of the parish, charging nothing for the education, but only taking so much as the people chose to give him. The parish church was his school; and while the children were repeating their lessons by his side, he was, like Shenstone's schoolmistress, engaged in spinning wool. He had the right of pasturage upon the mountains for a few sheep and a couple of cows, which required his attendance. With this pastoral occupation he joined the labours of husbandry, for he rented two or three acres of land in addition to his own acre of glebe, and he also possessed a garden,--the whole of which was tilled by his own hand. The fuel of the house consisted of peat, procured by his labour from the neighbouring mosses. He also a.s.sisted his paris.h.i.+oners in haymaking and shearing their flocks,--in which latter art he was eminently dexterous. In return, the neighbours would present him with a hayc.o.c.k, or a fleece, as a general acknowledgment of his services.
After officiating as curate of Leathwaite for about twenty years, the annual value of the living was increased to seventeen pounds ten s.h.i.+llings. His character being already well known and highly appreciated, the Bishop of Carlisle offered Mr. Walker the appointment of the adjoining curacy of Ulpha; but he conscientiously refused it, on the ground that the annexation ”would be apt to cause a general discontent among the inhabitants of both places, by either thinking themselves slighted, being only served alternately, or neglected in the duty, or attributing it to covetousness in me; all which occasions of murmuring I would willingly avoid.” Yet at this time Mr. Walker had a family of eight children. He afterwards maintained one of his sons at Trinity College Dublin, until he was ready for taking Holy Orders.
The parish pastor was, of course, a most economical man. Yet no act of his life savoured in the least degree of meanness or avarice. On the other hand, his conduct throughout life displayed the greatest disinterestedness and generosity. He knew very little of luxuries, and he cared less. Tea was only used in his house for visitors. The family used milk, which was indeed far better. Excepting milk, the only other drink used in the house was water--clear water drawn from the mountain spring. The clothing of the family was comely and decent; but it was all home-made: it was simple, like their diet. Occasionally one of the mountain sheep was killed for purposes of food; and towards the end of the year, a cow was killed and salted down for provision during winter.
The hide was tanned, and the leather furnished shoes for the family. By these and other means, this venerable clergyman reared his numerous family; not only preserving them, as he so affectingly says, ”from wanting the necessaries of life,” but affording them ”an unstinted education, and the means of raising themselves in society.”[1]
Many men, in order to advance themselves in the world, and to raise themselves in society, have ”scorned delights and lived laborious days.”
They have lived humbly and frugally, in order to accomplish greater things. They have supported themselves by their hand labour, until they could support themselves by their head labour. Some may allege that this is not justifiable--that it is a sin against the proletariat to attempt to rise in the world,--that ”once a cobbler always a cobbler.” But, until a better system has been established, the self-application of individuals is the only method by which science and knowledge can be conquered, and the world permanently advanced.
Goethe says, ”It is perfectly indifferent within what circle an honest man acts, provided he do but know how to understand and completely fill out that circle;” and again, ”An honest and vigorous will could make itself a path and employ its activity to advantage under every form of society.” ”What is the best government?” he asks: ”That which teaches us to govern ourselves!” All that we need, in his opinion, is individual liberty, and self-culture. ”Let every one,” he says, ”only do the right in his place, without troubling himself about the turmoil of the world.”
[Footnote 1: The best account of Mr. Walker is to be found in the Appendix to the Poems of Wordsworth. The poet greatly appreciated the clergyman's character, and noticed him in his ”Excursion,” as well as in the Notes to the Sonnets ent.i.tled ”The River Duddon.”]
At all events, it is not by socialism, but by individualism, that anything has been done towards the achievement of knowledge, and the advancement of society. It is the will and determination of individual men that impels the world forward in art, in science, and in all the means and methods of civilization.
Individual men are willing to deny themselves, but a.s.sociated communities will not. The ma.s.ses are too selfish, and fear that advantage will be taken of any sacrifices which they may be called upon to make. Hence it is amongst the n.o.ble band of resolute spirits that we look for those who raise and elevate the world, as well as themselves.
The recollection of what they have done, acts as a stimulus to others.
It braces the mind of man, reanimates his will, and encourages him to further exertions.
When Lord Elcho addressed the East Lothian colliers, he named several men who had raised themselves from the coalpit; and first of all he referred to Mr. Macdonald, member for Stafford. ”The beginning of my acquaintance with Mr. Macdonald,” he said, ”was, when I was told that a miner wanted to see me in the lobby of the House of Commons. I went out and saw Mr. Macdonald, who gave me a pet.i.tion from this district, which he asked me to present. I entered into conversation with him, and was much struck by his intelligence. He told me that he had begun life as a boy in the pit in Lanarks.h.i.+re, and that the money he saved as a youth in the summer, he spent at Glasgow University in the winter; and that is where he got whatever book-learning or power of writing he possesses. I say that is an instance that does honour to the miners of Scotland.
Another instance was that of Dr. Hogg, who began as a pitman in this county; worked in the morning, attended school in the afternoon; then went to the University for four years and to the Theological Hall for five years; and afterwards, in consequence of his health failing, he went abroad, and is now engaged as a missionary in Upper Egypt. Or take the case of Mr. (now Sir George) Elliot, member for North Durham, who has spoken up for the miners all the better, for having had practical knowledge of their work. He began as a miner in the pit, and he worked his way up till he has in his employment many thousand men. He has risen to his great wealth and station from the humblest position; as every man who now hears me is capable of doing, to a greater or less degree, if he will only be thrifty and industrious.”
Lord Elcho might also have mentioned Dr. Hutton, the geologist, a man of a much higher order of genius; who was the son of a coal-viewer. Bewick, the wood engraver, is also said to have been the son of a coal-miner.
Dr. Campbell was the son of a Loanhead collier: he was the forerunner of Moffat and Livingstone, in their missionary journeys among the Bechuanas in South Africa. Allan Ramsay, the poet, was also the son of a miner.
George Stephenson worked his way from the pithead to the highest position as an engineer. George began his life with industry, and when he had saved a little money, he spent it in getting a little learning.
What a happy man he was, when his wages were increased to twelve s.h.i.+llings a week. He declared upon that occasion that he was ”made a man for life!” He was not only enabled to maintain himself upon his earnings, but to help his poor parents, and to pay for his own education. When his skill had increased, and his wages were advanced to a pound a week, he immediately began, like a thoughtful, intelligent workman, to lay by his surplus money; and when he had saved his first guinea, he proudly declared to one of his colleagues that he ”was now a rich man!”
And he was right. For the man who, after satisfying his wants, has something to spare, is no longer poor. It is certain that from that day Stephenson never looked back; his advance as a self-improving man was as steady as the light of sunrise. A person of large experience has indeed stated that he never knew, amongst working people, a single instance of a man having out of his small earnings laid by a pound, who had in the end become a pauper.
When Stephenson proposed to erect his first locomotive, he had not sufficient means to defray its cost. But in the course of his life as a workman, he had established a character. He was trusted. He was faithful. He was a man who could be depended on. Accordingly, when the Earl of Havensworth was informed of Stephenson's desire to erect a locomotive, he at once furnished him with the means for enabling him to carry his wishes into effect.
Watt, also, when inventing the condensing steam-engine, maintained himself by making and selling mathematical instruments. He made flutes, organs, compa.s.ses,--anything that would maintain him, until he had completed his invention. At the same time he was perfecting his own education--learning French, German, mathematics, and the principles of natural philosophy. This lasted for many years; and by the time that Watt developed his steam-engine and discovered Mathew Boulton, he had, by his own efforts, become an accomplished and scientific man.
These great workers did not feel ashamed of labouring with their hands for a living; but they also felt within themselves the power of doing head-work as well as hand-work. And while thus labouring with their hands, they went on with their inventions, the perfecting of which has proved of so much advantage to the world. Hugh Miller furnished, in his own life, an excellent instance of that practical common sense in the business of life which he so strongly recommended to others. When he began to write poetry, and felt within him the growing powers of a literary man, he diligently continued his labour as a stone-cutter.
Horace Walpole has said that Queen Caroline's patronage of Stephen Duck, the thresher poet, ruined twenty men, who all turned poets. It was not so with the early success of Hugh Miller. ”There is no more fatal error,” he says, ”into which a working man of a literary turn can fall, than the mistake of deeming himself too good for his humble employments; and yet it is a mistake as common as it is fatal. I had already seen several poor wrecked mechanics, who, believing themselves to be poets, and regarding the manual occupation by which they could alone live in independence as beneath them, and become in consequence little better than mendicants,--too good to work for their bread, but not too good virtually to beg it; and looking upon them as beacons of warning, I determined that, with G.o.d's help, I should give their error a wide offing, and never a.s.sociate the idea of meanness with an honest calling, or deem myself too good to be independent.”
At the same time, a man who feels that he has some good work in him, which study and labour might yet bring out, is fully justified in denying himself, and in applying his energies to the culture of his intellect. And it is astonis.h.i.+ng how much carefulness, thrift, the reading of books, and diligent application, will help such men onward.
The author in his boyhood knew three men who worked in an agricultural implement maker's shop. They worked in wood and iron, and made carts, ploughs, harrows, drilling-machines, and such-like articles. Somehow or other, the idea got into their heads that they might be able to do something better than making carts and harrows. They did not despise the lot of hand-labour, but they desired to use it as a step towards something better. Their wages at that time could not have exceeded from eighteen to twenty s.h.i.+llings a week.
Two of the young men, who worked at the same bench, contrived to save enough money to enable them to attend college during the winter. At the end of each session they went back to their hand-labour, and earned enough wages during the summer to enable them to return to their cla.s.ses during the winter. The third did not adopt this course. He joined a mechanics' inst.i.tute which had just been started in the town in which he lived. By attending the lectures and reading the books in the library, he acquired some knowledge of chemistry, of the principles of mechanics, and of natural philosophy. He applied himself closely, studied hard in his evening hours, and became an accomplished man.
It is not necessary to trace their history; but what they eventually arrived at, may be mentioned. Of the first two, one became the teacher and proprietor of a large public school; the other became a well-known dissenting minister; while the third, working his way strenuously and bravely, became the princ.i.p.al engineer and manager of the largest steams.h.i.+p company in the world.
Although mechanics' inst.i.tutes are old inst.i.tutions, they have scarcely been supported by working men. The public-house is more attractive and more frequented. And yet mechanics' inst.i.tutes--even though they are scarcely known south of Yorks.h.i.+re and Lancas.h.i.+re--have been the means of doing a great deal of good. By placing sound mechanical knowledge within the reach of even the few persons who have been disposed to take advantage of them, they have elevated many persons into positions of great social influence. ”We have heard a distinguished man say publicly, that a mechanics' inst.i.tution had _made him_; that but for the access which it had afforded him to knowledge of all kinds, he would have occupied a very different position. In short, the mechanics' inst.i.tution had elevated him from the position of a licensed victualler to that of an engineer.