Who are the great inventors of the world?
Again this lesson comes before us. The great
inventor sits next to you, or you are the person
yourself. ``Oh,'' but you will say, ``I have never
invented anything in my life.'' Neither did the
great inventors until they discovered one great
secret. Do you think it is a man with a head like a
bushel measure or a man like a stroke of lightning?
It is neither. The really great man is a plain,
straightforward, every-day, common-sense man.
You would not dream that he was a great inventor
if you did not see something he had actually done.
His neighbors do not regard him so great. You
never see anything great over your back fence.
You say there is no greatness among your neighbors.
It is all away off somewhere else. Their
greatness is ever so simple, so plain, so earnest,
so practical, that the neighbors and friends never
recognize it.
True greatness is often unrecognized. That is
sure. You do not know anything about the
greatest men and women. I went out to write
the life of General Garfield, and a neighbor, knowing
I was in a hurry, and as there was a great
crowd around the front door, took me around to
General Garfield's back door and shouted, ``Jim!
Jim!'' And very soon ``Jim'' came to the door
and let me in, and I wrote the biography of one
of the grandest men of the nation, and yet he
was just the same old ``Jim'' to his neighbor.
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