To illustrate this, the case of the great philosopher Mencius is described with some minuteness. It appears that he had a mother who was a woman of great force of character. She was determined that her son should grow up to be a great man, but in order to secure this it was essential that his surroundings should be such as would be helpful to the carrying out of this ambition of the mother's heart. Three times did she remove from the localities she had chosen for her home, because the neighbours were not up to the moral standard that would qualify them to be proper examples for her son. At length having found the home that satisfied her, she discovered to her sorrow that Mencius was not inclined to work up to her ideal. He was a high-spirited lad and full of animal spirits, and preferred to be flying kites or spinning tops, or tossing the shuttlecock from one to another with the side of his shoe, to serious study with his books. She was a brave woman was this mother of the future philosopher. She was quite alone in the world, for her husband was dead and her relatives lived far away, and her only source of livelihood was the loom on which she wove the webs that she disposed of in the nearest market town. At length the crisis came. One day she had been begging and entreating her son to be a good boy and give his heart to his studies. He did not seem moved, however, by her passionate appeals, and in her agony of spirit, and feeling that life had no charm for her, she grasped a knife that lay by and began to cut and mangle the web she was weaving. Mencius was so horrified at this proceeding of his mother, and so cut to the heart that his conduct should have driven her to such an act of despair, that with tears in his eyes he promised that he would never trouble her again with any misconduct of his. From that day he was completely changed. With heart and soul he entered into his studies. He became a distinguished scholar, and finally produced works that have moulded and influenced the thinkers of this nation from his own times (B.C. 372-289) down to the present. Other examples are given in this famous school-book of men who, desiring to conform to the high principles that lie embedded in the soul of every child at birth, have fought manfully against external circumstances and have come out successful in the end. It is told of one man who subsequently became very distinguished, that when he was a young man he was so poor that he had no money to buy oil with which to study after dark. So determined, however, was he that his evenings should not be wasted, that he hit upon the ingenious plan of catching a number of fireflies, and from the light they threw out he kept up his reading as late into the night as he desired. Another man equally poor used to take his book out on a winter's night, and by the lights of the snow that fell on it pursue his studies after all the rest of the family were buried in slumber.