142 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS time for their turn, but each one was met with as much sym- pathy and interest after a long day of seeing all sorts and conditions of men with all sorts and conditions of need as if he had been the only one seen that day. He makes this one of the fundamental principles of successful living: doing the thing in hand as if it were the most important thing in life. One of the first to come for advice as to how to fit himself better for the part he was taking in this great work that was so rapidly developing, was a young man, the oldest son of a minister's widow, who was helping to support her and her three younger children. He felt the need of more education. Ultimately he desired to follow in his father's footsteps and be a minister. He told his pastor there were other young men in the church who felt the same way. There were no schools of any kind in Philadelphia at that time where young men or women could get any courses of study outside of the regular school hours except a very few disorderly night schools where only the most elementary instruction was given. The busy preacher, who was also still lecturing to help raise funds for the rapidly developing work, offered to meet the young men for one class on Saturday evenings. This first class was a class in oratory. The night this first group met in December, 1884, in the tiny study of their pastor, no one dreamed, unless it was the pastor himself, who often saw visions long before they were revealed to others, that that night a great university was being founded. The foundation course was oratory. This first class has nobly repaid its first teacher by the splendid work nearly every member of it has since done in the world. Very soon both teacher and scholars realized that in order to be successful orators these young people needed more than instruction in oratory, and so to make them better ora- tors classes were formed in English, in literature, in history, with volunteer tei^chers at first. As the demand for more and more classes increased, paid teachers had to be secured. At first the classes were free, but soon to help defray the ex- penses and to eliminate the unstable element that is ever ready to try any new experiment a small fee was charged.
