Читать книгу How They Succeeded: Life Stories of Successful Men Told by Themselves онлайн

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When, one day, I was privileged to meet Miss Gould at Woody Crest, I saw a hundred children scattered around the lawn in front of the stately mansion. It had been an afternoon of labor and anxiety on her part, for she felt the responsibility of entertaining and caring for so many little ones. As she finally cooled herself on the piazza and looked at her little charges romping around on the lawn, I asked her if she thought any of the little ones before her would ever make their mark in the world.

“That’s hard to say,” she replied, after a moment’s hesitation, “but no one can tell what may be in children until they have grown up and developed. But the hardest thing to me is to see genius struggling under obstacles and in surroundings that would discourage almost anybody. I do not see, for my part, how any child from the poorest tenements could ever grow up and develop into strong, successful men or women. Many of them, of course, have no gifts or endowments to do this, but even if they had, the surroundings are enough to stifle every spark of ambition in them. It is a mystery to me how they can preserve such bright and eager faces. What would we do if we were brought up in such environments! I know I should never be able to survive it, and would never succeed in rising above my surroundings. And it is harder on the girls than the boys! The boys can go forth into the world and probably secure a position which in time will bring them different companionship and surroundings; but the poor girls have so few opportunities. They must drudge and drag along for the bare necessities of life. My heart aches sometimes for them, and I wish I had the power to lighten the burdens of everyone.”