○  russell conwell : acres of diamonds  ○

gin of the south that enriched our country so amazingly? mrs. general green invented the cotton gin and showed the idea to mr. whitney, and he like a man, seized it. who was it that invented the sewing-machine? if i would go to school tomorrow and ask your children they would say, “elias howe.” 

he was in the civil war with me, and often in my tent, and i often heard him say that he worked fourteen years to get up that sewing-machine. but his wife made up her mind one day they would starve to death if there wasn’t something or other invented pretty soon, and so in two hours she invented the sewing-machine. of course he took out the patent in his name. men always do that. who was it that invented the mower and the reaper? according to mr. mccormick’s confidential communication, so recently published, it was a west virginia woman, who, after his father and he had failed altogether in making a reaper and gave it up, took a lot of shears and nailed them together on the edge of a board, with one shaft of each pair loose, and then wired them so that when she pulled the wire the other way it opened them, and there she had the principle of the mowing-machine. if you look at a mowing-machine, you will see it is nothing but a lot of shears. if a woman can invent a mowing-machine, if a woman can invent a jacquard loom, if a woman can invent a cotton-gin, if a woman can invent a trolley switch-as she did and made the trolleys possible; if a woman can invent, as mr. carnegie said, the great iron squeezers that laid the foundation of all the steel millions of the united states, “we men” can invent anything under the stars! i say that for the encouragement of the men.

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 t

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