The poor mother educated her boys as best she could.

One became a professor in a Southern college, another a physician, and the third a clergyman.

What a lesson for boys who plead "no chance" as an excuse for wasted lives! Sam Cunard, the whittling Scotch lad of Glasgow, wrought many odd inventions with brain and jack-knife, but they brought neither honor nor profit until he was consulted by Burns & McIvor, who wished to increase their facilities for carrying foreign mails.

The model of a steamship which Sam whittled out for them was carefully copied for the first vessel of the great Cunard Line, and became the standard type for all the magnificent ships since constructed by the firm.
The new Testament and the speller were Cornelius Vanderbilt's only books at school, but he learned to read, write, and cipher a little.
He wished to buy a boat, but had no money.

To discourage him from following the sea, his mother told him if he would plow, harrow, and plant with corn, before the twenty-seventh day of the month, ten acres of rough, hard, stony land, the worst on his father's farm, she would lend him the amount he wished.