奥里森·马登/Orison Marden
“Fifty years ago,”said Hezekiah Conan, the millionaire manufacturer and philanthropist of Pawtucket, R. I.“I persuaded my father to let me leave my home in Dudley, Mass.and strike out for myself. So one morning in May，1845，the old farm horse and wagon was hitched up, and, dressed in our Sunday clothes, father and I started for Worcester. Our object was to get me the situation offered by an advertisement in the Worcester County Gazette as follows：”
Boy Wanted.
Wanted Immediately. At the Gazette Offce, a well disposed boy, able to do heavy rolling.
Worcester, May 7.
“The financial inducements were thirty dollars the first year, thirty-fve the next, and forty dollars the third year and board in the employer's family. These conditions were accepted, and I began work the next day. The Gazette was an ordinary four-page sheet. I soon learned what heavy rolling meant for the paper was printed on a Washington hand-press, the edition of about 2000 copies requiring two laborious intervals of about ten hours each, every week. The printing of the outside was generally done Friday and kept me very busy all day.”
“The inside went to press about three or four o'clock Tuesday afternoon, and it was after three o'clock on Wednesday morning before I could go to bed, tired and lame from the heavy rolling. In addition, I also had the laborious task of carrying a quantity of water from the pump behind the block around to the entrance in front, and then up two flights of stairs, usually a daily job. I was at first everybody's servant. I was abused, called all sorts of nicknames, had to sweep out the offce, build fres in winter, run errands, post bills, carry papers, wait on the editor, in fact I led the life of a genuine printer's devil；but when I showed them at length that I had learned to set type and run the press, I got promoted, and another boy was hired to succeed to my task, with all its decorations. That was my frst success, and from that day to this I have never asked anybody to get me a job or situation, and never used a letter of recommendation；but when an important job was in prospect the proposed employers were given all facilities to learn of my abilities and character. If some young men are easily discouraged, I hope they may gain encouragement and strength from my story. It is a long, rough road at frst, but, like the ship on the ocean, you must lay your course for the place where you hope to land, and take advantage of all favoring circumstances.”