Page:A history of booksellers, the old and the new.djvu/307

267 CHAMBERS, KNIGHT, AND CASSELt. 26? JOHN CASSELL, though of a family originally Kentish, was born at Manchester on 23rd January, 1817. The child of poor parents, his school education was very simple and elementary, and at an early age he adopted the trade of carpentry. In most lads of that class, education, such as it is, is totally ended when once they leave the school-house to follow some manual calling ; but from the day that Cassell took his first serious step in life he determined to educate himself, to break down the trammels of class ignorance, first of all in his own case, and, that once accomplished, to assist with all the energy he possessed, his brother workmen to do the same. At first he found his evening studies, after a hard day's work at the bench, somewhat irksome and painful ; but by degrees his reading became less and less elementary, and eventually he acquired, not only a considerable knowledge of English literature, but a fund of general information which, on the platform, as well as in private life, stood him in good stead ; and he also attained sufficient pro- ficiency in French to be afterwards essentially service- able in his repeated visits to the Continent. But, after all, his most valuable knowledge was acquired in the carpenter's shop, and among his fellow- workmen ; for here he gained an insight into the inner life the struggles, privations, and miseries, as well as the hopes and ambitions of the working classes ; and this knowledge was carefully stored up until he should, at a future time, see some way of firing their minds and ameliorating their condition. In 1833 the total abstinence movement was com- menced in Lancashire, under the active leadership of Mr. Joseph Livesey, of Preston, and known as "The Temperance Movement," went through the length and 172