The Story of the House of Cassell
when intermediate schools were unknown in Wales, and largely helped to make him what he was.
Cassell's office was flooded with letters of gratitude from all sorts of people, and in after years fascinating accounts came in of the harvest of success which had been reaped where Cassell had sown. "To the 'Popular Educator' alone my intellectual and worldly progress is to be attributed." So wrote one of the merchant princes of the nineteenth century. Each in his own locution, so wrote the Professor of Moral Philosophy in Glasgow University, who was a cobbler till Cassell came to his aid, the Arch-Druid who had been a railway porter, the policeman's son who became Vice-Chancellor of the University of Wales.
Here is a striking contrast. From one end of the social scale: The venerable Dr. Alexander Whyte wrote in 1913: "There is no House I would rather praise than Cassell's. Many, many years ago, as an apprentice boy in Kirriemuir (Thrums), I bought, when published, John Cassell's Working Man's Friend, and as John Cassell went on to publish I went on to buy and read the 'Popular Educator.' Yes, the Working Man's Friend, the 'Popular Educator,' the 'Biblical Educator,' and 'The Pathway,' were invaluable to me in my early days, and John Cassell's name is deeply written in my heart. I could not say more, and I cannot say less."
From the other end: A man wrote to the late Mr. F. J. Cross, publicity manager at La Belle Sauvage, stating that he was just out of prison. While serving his term he had studied the "Popular Educator," and had mastered many of its lessons, including some foreign languages. Now he wanted advice about his future, and he appealed to the publishers of the work which had awakened his higher instincts. Mr. Cross invited him to call at the Yard, and had the satisfaction of knowing that the man was shortly able to get a job in which his new knowledge was useful, and to restore himself to a reputable life.
The success of the "Popular Educator" in the field
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