Anecdotes of public men; by John W. Forney.

OUR FUTURE LEADERS. 351
LXXVIII.
"OUR future leaders-where are they to come from?" was
the question of a friend, a short time ago, after an interesting
discussion on the necessity of securing the best material in the
management of government, society, and business. We were
looking out of the window of my editorial room in Philadelphia.
I answered, pointing to the newsboys and bootblacks congregated at the corner of Seventh and Chestnut Streets, "There
are your future leaders. That little fellow with the curly hair
is an embryo merchant; that one with torn trowsers is the sapling of a sturdy politician; that black-eyed lad is saving his
money to pay for a collegiate education." And has it not been
so of most of the strong men of our times? On the Pacific
coast many of the great houses grew from just such seeds.
Sargent, the United States Senator elect, visited Philadelphia
twenty-five years ago to get work as a journeyman printer, and
failed; Latham, the millionaire, who has been in both houses
of Congress and Governor of the State, began life very poor;
Broderick was in New York a Bowery boy in i847; and the
railroad kings, most of them, began life as low down as the little Bohemians at our corner. The sons of the rich, the educated darlings of the great families, are nowhere. All their
gifts were so many fatal temptations, and they themselves are
forgotten, like bad copies of good pictures. "It is the rough
brake that virtue must go through."
A recent writer insists that a grandfather is no longer a social institution. Men do not live in the past. They rarely
look back. "Forward!" is the universal cry. Perhaps our
reverence for our ancestors suffers, but such a thing as a great
family in this country helps nobody. Even the Adamses of the
present day make little out of their former generations of greatness. Thomas Hughes struck the key-note when he said that