itself in the way in which he has fought difficulties since he left college, and in the way in which he has climbed steadily to success. Whenever a boy balks at a difficult task or begins to lose confidence in his ability to make good, I tell him of Gordon.
Dinwiddie had two ambitions when he came to college; one was to become a good engineer and the other was to make the baseball team. He got a good room over-looking the athletic field so that he could get the inspiration from seeing other athletes out practicing, and would need to waste little time in getting into the game when his turn came. He had a good mind, and he was not afraid of work, so that there seemed very little difficulty in the accomplishment of his first ambition, but the second was not so easy to attain. He had been the star player in the little country town from which he came, it is true, but that is a very different matter from playing left field on the varsity. He went out on the first cut from the squad in his freshman year, but he kept on with his practice with his class team and with his fraternity nine. He hung on a little longer in his sophomore year.
"Give it up, kid, and try croquet," some of his pessimistic friends suggested; but he had no intention of giving it up; it was one of the things for which he had come to college, and he was not going to be turned from his purpose. During his junior year he was kept on the squad during the season, but he got no active participation in the game; all his rivals for the position which he wanted to play seemed just a trifle better than he, and he sat silently on the bench all season, waiting eagerly to be called
