Page:How to Get Strong (1899).pdf/420

 the public trials, said that 'This reaper will be worth more to the farmers of England than the whole cost of the fair.' The Royal Agricultural Society regarded it as 'the most important addition to farming machinery that has been invented since the threshing machine first took the place of the flail.' In 1859 Reverdy Johnson said that the McCormick invention was then worth fifty-five million dollars a year to the people of the United States, and must increase throughout all times. In 1878, at the Paris exposition, he was elected a member of the French Academy, as having done more for the cause of agriculture than any other living man. Its sale is now world-wide, and everywhere in Europe, Persia, India, South Africa, and South America."—America's Successful Men.

And he had a grand body. One look at it shows that it was a fit companion of that powerful mind. One who knew him well says: "Endowed with a strong constitution, inheriting from both parents a large frame, he worked on his father's farm till nearly twenty-five; working, as he did at everything else, with all his might." His native outfit; that blacksmith-shop; that farm-work; and ceaseless labor afterwards, rounded this master-mechanic into a man of immense shoulders and great chest; with head and neck set on them as if of Hercules—a roomy, capable, powerful man of the large, well-put-together type, to whom the tasks of ordinary men are light and easy; and who happily found a field worthy of his great ability and energy, and one which he not only filled, almost as no other could have done, but in which he became one of the world's benefactors as well. No wonder America is proud of such sons.

"If you trust in God and yourself, you can surmount every obstacle."—

Born at Schönhausen, Prussia, April 1, 1815; son of a country squire; studied at Göttingen, Berlin, and Greitswald; entered the