There was a poor man out of work living in Hingham,Massachusetts.He lounged around the house until one day his wife told him to get out and work,and,as he lived in Massachusetts,he obeyed his wife.He went out and sat down on the shore of the bay,and whittled a soaked shingle into a wooden chain.His children that evening quarreled over it,and he whittled a second one to keep peace.While he was whittling the second one aneighbor came in and said："Why don't you whittle toys and sell them?You could make money at that.""Oh,"he said,"I would not know what to make.""Why don't you ask your own children right here in your own house what to make?""What is the use of trying that?"said the carpenter."My children are different from other people's children."（I used to see people like that when I taught school.）But he acted upon the hint,and the next morning when Mary came down the stairway,he asked,"What do you want for a toy?"She began to tell him she would like a doll's bed,a doll's washstand,a doll's carriage,a little doll's umbrella,and went on with a list of things that would take him a lifetime to supply.So,consulting his own children,in his own house,he took the firewood,for he had no money to buy lumber,and whittled those strong,unpainted Hingham toys that were for so many years known all over the world.That man began to make those toys for his own children,and then made copies and sold them through the boot-and-shoe store next door.He began to make a little money,and then a little more,and Mr.Lawson,in his Frenzied Finance says that man is the richest man in old Massachusetts,and I think it is the truth.And that man is worth a hundred millions of dollars to-day,and has been only thirty-four years ****** it on that one principle-—that one must judge that what his own children like at home other people'schildren would like in their homes,too;to judge the human heart by oneself,by one's wife or by one's children.It is the royal road to success in manufacturing."Oh,"but you say,"didn't he have any capital?"Yes,a penknife,but I don't know that he had paid for that.
I spoke thus to an audience in New Britain,Connecticut,and a lady four seats back went home and tried to take off her collar,and the collar-button stuck in the buttonhole.She threw it out and said,"I am going to get up something better than that to put on collars."Her husband said："After what Conwell said tonight,you see there is a need of an improved collar-fastener that is easier to handle.There is a human need;there is a great fortune.Now,then,get up a collar-button and get rich."He made fun of her,and consequently made fun of me,and that is one of the saddest things which comes over me like a deep cloud of midnight sometimes-although I have worked so hard for more than half a century,yet how little I have ever really done.Notwithstanding the greatness and the handsomeness of your compliment tonight,I do not believe there is one in ten of you that is going to make a million of dollars because you are here tonight;but it is not my fault,it is yours.I say that sincerely.What is the use of my talking if people never do what I advise them to do?When her husband ridiculed her,she made up her mind she wouldmake a better collar-button,and when a woman makes up her mind"she will,"and does not say anything about it,she does it.It was that New England woman who invented the snap button which you can find anywhere now.It was first a collar-button with a spring cap attached to the outer side.Any of you who wear modern waterproofs know the button that simply pushes together,and when you unbutton it you simply pull it apart.That is the button to which I refer,and which she invented.She afterward invented several other buttons,and then invested in more,and then was taken into partnership with great factories.Now that woman goes over the sea every summer in her private steamship-—yes,and takes her husband with her!If her husband were to die,she would have money enough left now to buy a foreign duke or count or some such title as that at the latest quotations.
Now what is my lesson in that incident?It is this：I told her then,though I did not know her,what I now say to you,"Your wealth is too near to you.You are looking right over it"；and she had to look over it because it was right under her chin.
I have read in the newspaper that a woman never invented anything.Well,that newspaper ought to begin again.Of course,I do not refer to gossip-—I refer to machines-—and if I did I might better include the men.That newspaper could never appear if women hadnot invented something.Friends,think.Ye women,think!You say you cannot make a fortune because you are in some laundry,or running a sewing-machine,it may be,or walking before some loom,and yet you can be a millionaire if you will but follow this almost infallible direction.
When you say a woman doesn't invent anything,I ask,Who invented the Jacquard loom that wove every stitch you wear?Mrs.Jacquard.The printer's roller,the printing-press,were invented by farmers'wives.Who invented the cotton-gin of the South that enriched our country so amazingly?Mrs.General Greene invented the cotton-gin and showed the idea to Mr.Whitney,and he,like a man,seized it.Who was it that invented the sewing-machine?If I would go to school to morrow and ask your children they would say,"Elias Howe."
