James B. Eads was born in Indiana in 1820. He is slender in form, neat in dress, genial, courteous, and over sixty years of age. In 1833, his father started down the Ohio River with his family, proposing to settle in Wisconsin. The boat caught fire, and his scanty furniture and clothing were burned. Young Eads barely escaped ashore with his pantaloons, shirt, and cap. Taking passage on another boat, this boy of thirteen landed at St. Louis with his parents; his little bare feet first touching the rocky shore of the city on the very spot where he afterwards located and built the largest steel bridge in the world, over the Mississippi,--one of the most difficult feats of engineering ever performed in America. At the age of nine, young Eads made a short trip on the Ohio, when the engineer of the steamboat explained to him so clearly the construction of the steam-engine, that, before he was a year older, he built a little working model of it, so perfect in its parts and movements, that his schoolmates would frequently go home with him after school to see it work. A locomotive engine driven by a concealed rat was one of his next juvenile feats in mechanical engineering. From eight to thirteen he attended school; after which, from necessity, he was placed as clerk in a dry-goods store. How few young people of the many to whom poverty denies an education, either understand the value of the saying, "knowledge is power," or exercise will sufficient to overcome obstacles. Willpower and thirst for knowledge elevated General Garfield from driving canal horses to the Presidency of the United States. Over the store in St. Louis, where he was engaged, his employer lived. He was an old bachelor, and, having observed the tastes of his clerk, gave him his first book in engineering. The old gentleman's library furnished evening companions for him during the five years he was thus employed. Finally, his health failing, at the age of nineteen he went on a Mississippi River steamer; from which time to the present day that great river has been to him an all-absorbing study.