Samuel Smiles
Posts in The Copybook credited to ‘Samuel Smiles’
It is not educational institutions and methods that advance science or the arts, but people.
Holding a degree or some other officially-recognised paper qualification is not really a guarantee of very much; as Samuel Smiles repeatedly observed, there is no substitute for hands-on experience, the quirks of an interesting personality, and sheer determination.
An aristocratic statesman was choked with emotion as he reflected on Britain’s creative social mobility.
The Industrial Revolution increased social mobility beyond all measure. Some shook their heads, but for most people, from ordinary working men to aristocratic statesmen, it was a matter of celebration and pride.
Benjamin Disraeli did not make a promising start to his Parliamentary career - but he did start with a promise.
Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881), Queen Victoria’s favourite Prime Minister, oversaw the expansion of the electorate as well as a range of social reforms aimed at improving the living and working conditions of the poorer classes. He was also an accomplished novelist, though his first attempts had been cruelly mocked by the critics, and his early political career fared little better.
The future hero of Waterloo dealt with political ambush as comfortably as he dealt with the military kind.
Arthur Wellesley spent the years 1797 to 1804 in India. He went out as a Colonel in the British Army’s 33rd regiment of Foot, and was soon being addressed as General Sir Arthur. On 23rd September 1803, he secured a significant victory over the Maratha Empire at Assaye in the state of Maharashtra, western India.
A young man from the Italian city on the Adige River demonstrates that class has nothing to do with wealth.
Samuel Smiles’s ‘Self-Help’ enthusiastically encouraged working men to take advantage of Britain’s entrepreneurial economy. Yet he never once promised riches; he promised dignity and self-respect, and told this tale to illustrate their superiority.