But despite all the disadvantages of environment and mental traits by which he was handicapped, he was bound by the force of certain other traits to be a winner in the battle of life.  The quality to which his success is chiefly owing is revealed by the words of a school-fellow, who, in spite of Jackson’s slender physique and lack of physical strength at that time, felt the force of his iron will.  Speaking of their wrestling matches at school, this boy said, “I could throw him [Jackson] three times out of four, but he never would stay throwed.  He was dead game and never would give up.”

A boy who “never would stay throwed,” and “never would give up” would succeed though the whole world tried to bar his progress.

When, at the age of fifteen, he found himself alone in the world, homeless and penniless, he adapted himself to anything he could find to do.

Worker in a saddler’s shop, school-teacher, lawyer, merchant, judge of the Supreme Court, United States senator, soldier, leader, step by step the son of the poor Irish immigrant rose to the highest office to which his countrymen could elect him—­the presidency of the United States.

Rash, headstrong, and narrow-minded, Andrew Jackson fell into many errors during his life, but, notwithstanding his shortcomings, he persistently tried to live up to his boyhood’s motto, “Ask nothing but what is right—­submit to nothing wrong.”

SIR HUMPHRY DAVY’S GREATEST DISCOVERY, MICHAEL FARADAY

He was only a little, barefooted errand boy, the son of a poor blacksmith.  His school life ended in his thirteenth year.  The extent of his education then was limited to a knowledge of the three “R’s.”  As he trudged on his daily rounds, through the busy streets of London, delivering newspapers and books to the customers of his employer, there was little difference, outwardly, between him and scores of other boys who jostled one another in the narrow, crowded thoroughfares.  But under the shabby jacket of Michael Faraday beat a heart braver and tenderer than the average; and, under the well-worn cap, a brain was throbbing that was destined to illuminate the world of science with a light that would never grow dim.

Less than any one else, perhaps, did the boy dream of future greatness.  For a year he served his employer faithfully in his capacity of errand boy, and, in 1805, at the age of fourteen, was apprenticed to a bookseller for seven years, as was the custom in England, to learn the combined trades of bookbinding and book-selling.