Excerpt from Men of Might: Studies of Great Characters These biographies were compiled to read to small sets of boys, varying in age from fifteen to eighteen: it was found that many boys appreciated a certain literary precision, which could hardly be attained in discourses delivered extempore from notes; and the time at our disposal being necessarily somewhat short, it was found difiicult to secure harmony and preportion in bio graphical lectures, unless the limits were carefully laid down beforehand. But it is intended that the lectures should be assisted by oral explanation and questions from time to time and if a teacher were to see that any set of boys found interest in a particular biography, the sources from which it can be illustrated and supplemented are easily available. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.