E-text prepared by Al Haines Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustration. See 18597-h.htm or 18597-h.zip: (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/8/5/9/18597/18597-h/18597-h.htm) or (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/8/5/9/18597/18597-h.zip) STORIES OF ACHIEVEMENT, VOLUME III Orators and Reformers Edited by ASA DON DICKINSON Orators and Reformers DESMOSTHENES ELIHU BURRITT JOHN B. GOUGH FREDERICK DOUGLASS HENRY WARD BEECHER BOOKER T. WASHINGTON BEN. B. LINDSEY [Frontispiece: Henry Ward Beecher] Garden City ---- New York Doubleday, Page & Company 1925 Copyright, 1916, by Doubleday, Page & Company All Rights Reserved ACKNOWLEDGMENT In the preparation of this volume the publishers have received from several houses and authors generous permissions to reprint copyright material. For this they wish to express their cordial gratitude. In particular, acknowledgments are due to the Houghton Mifflin Company for the extract concerning Elihu Burritt; to George W. Jacobs & Co. for the extract from Booker T. Washington's "Frederick Douglass"; to P. B. Bromfield for permission to use passages from "The Biography of Henry Ward Beecher"; to the late Booker T. Washington for permission to reprint extracts from "Up From Slavery"; to Judge Ben. B. Lindsey for permission to reprint from "The Beast." CONTENTS ORATORS AND REFORMERS DEMOSTHENES The Orator Who Stammered ELIHU BURRITT "The Learned Blacksmith" JOHN B. GOUGH The Conquest of a Bad Habit FREDERICK DOUGLASS The Slave Who Stole Freedom HENRY WARD BEECHER The Boy Who Half-heartedly Joined the Church BOOKER T. WASHINGTON The Boy Who Slept Under the Sidewalk BEN. B. LINDSEY The Man Who Fights the Beast DEMOSTHENES (384-322 B. C.) THE ORATOR WHO STAMMERED Modern critics are fond of discriminating between talent and genius. The fire of _genius_, it seems, will flame resplendent even in spite of an unworthy possessor's neglect. But the man with _talent_ which must be carefully cherished and increased if he would attain distinction by its help--that man is the true self-helper to whom our hearts go out in sympathy. Every schoolboy knows that Demosthenes practised declamation on the seashore, with his mouth full of pebbles. This description of the unlovely old Athenian with the compelling tongue is Plutarch's contribution to the literature of self-help. From Plutarch's "Lives of Illustrious Men."