James Nasmyth

The arrangement we greatly preferred was to employ intelligent, well-conducted young lads, the sons of labourers or mechanics, and advance them by degrees according to their merits.

In all well-conducted concerns the law of "selection of the fittest" sooner or later comes into happy action, when a loyal and attached set of men work together harmoniously for their own advantage as well as for that of their employers.

Time passed by. I had furnished steam hammers to the principal foundries in England. I had sent them abroad, even to Russia. At length it became known to the Lords of the Admiralty that a new power in forging had been introduced.

We may fill our purses, but we pay a heavy price for it in the loss of picturesqueness and beauty.

Everything connected with war and warlike exploits is interesting to a boy.

Our history begins before we are born. We represent the hereditary influences of our race, and our ancestors virtually live in us.