SUCCESSFUL SELFCULTURE.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXII, Issue LXII, 30 January 1912, Page 6

SUCCESSFUL SELFCULTURE.

What can be done in the way of selfculture on less than" thirty shillings a week is shown by the achievements of a postman is Rochester, England, who has, in his spare time, acquired an astonishing knowledge, of languages. Mr W. J. Saunders was the eldest of thirteen children who were brought up on from twenty to twenty-five shillings a week. The father was a book-lover, but twenty-five shillings a week did not leave much.margin for books, so his library consisted mainly of such cheap publications as the "Penny Magazine " and the "People's Journal." The boy left school at fourteen, and became a telegraph messenger. He devoured all the books of adventure he could find in the local library, and when that closed, turned to his father's shelves, and there acquired a taste for more solid reading. When the library was re-opened he went in for an ambitious course of study. In six months he taught himself French sufficiently well to read it, and then took up Italian, German, and Spanish with a similar success. Then, becoming interested in the higher crticisni) he taught himself something of Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. It was hard work, but lie knows enough of these languages now. ('tK) go to the original for the" meaning of a verge if I want to." "You can't do everything with only four hours ..off-a.day," he remarked io an interviewer, but he has done far more thajl most men do with more time at itt&ir disposal. After a while he turned his attention to original work, and wrote a book on a new Utopia. As no publisher would take it, and he was entirely dissatisfied with it, he re-wrote it. The book has been published at his own expense, the enterprise absorbing most of his savings. Mr Saunders is a traveller as well as a student. He has walked through a great part of England, and been to France, Germany, Switzerland, and Norway. And even now he gets only 29s a week, and is looking forward to a rise of a shilling. One is struck,-.on reading his statement of his achievements, with his quiet contentment. There is no' sign of any kicking against the fate that consigned ..him to long hours and a low wage. He has his work_ and his hobbies, and apparently he is not made unhappy by a desire to carve out a career for himself.