This is the true secret of making a man. What would Columbus, or Washington and Franklin, or Webster and Clay, have accomplished had they proceeded on the principle of John Easy? No youth can rationally hope to attain to eminence in any thing who is not ready to "open the gate" for _himself_. And then, poor Mrs. Easy, how _she_ did misjudge! Better for her son, had she dismissed her servants--or rather had she directed them to some more appropriate service, and let Master John have remained at the gate day and night for a month, unless willing, before the expiration of that time, to have opened it for himself, and by his own strength. Parents in their well-meant kindness, or, perhaps, it were better named, thoughtless indulgence, often repress energies which, if their children were compelled to put forth, would result in benefits of the most important character. It is, indeed, painful to see boys, as we sometimes see them, struggling against "wind and tide;" but watch such boys--follow them--see how they put forth strength as it accumulates--apply energies as they increase--make use of new expedients as they need them, and by-and-by where are they? Indeed, now and then they are obliged to lift at the gate pretty lustily to get it open; now and then they are obliged to turn a pretty sharp corner, and, perhaps, lose a little skin from a shin-bone or a knuckle-joint, but, _at length_, where are they? Why, you see them sitting _in_ "the gate"--a scriptural phrase for the post of honor. Who is that judge who so adorns the bench? My Lord Mansfield, or Sir Matthew Hale, or Chief Justice Marshall? Why, and from what condition, has he reached his eminence? That was a boy who some years since was an active, persevering little fellow round the streets, the son of the poor widow, who lives under the hill. She was poor, but she had the faculty of infusing her own energy into her boy, Matthew or Tommy; and now he has grown to be one of the eminent men of the country. Yes; and I recollect there was now and then to be seen with Tommy, when he had occasionally a half hour of leisure--but that was not often--there was one John Easy, whose mother always kept a servant to wait upon him, to open and shut the gate for him, and almost to help him breathe. Well, and where is John Easy? Why there he is, this moment, a poor, shiftless, penniless being, who never loved to open the gate for himself, and now nobody ever desires to open a gate to him.