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Page 11
So everybody was happy, and Edward Bok, as a full-fledged reporter, had
begun his journalistic career.
It is curious how deeply embedded in his nature, even in his earliest
years, was the inclination toward the publishing business. The word
"curious" is used here because Edward is the first journalist in the
Bok family in all the centuries through which it extends in Dutch
history. On his father's side, there was a succession of jurists. On
the mother's side, not a journalist is visible.
Edward attended the Sunday-school of the Carroll Park Methodist
Episcopal Church, in Brooklyn, of which a Mr. Elkins was
superintendent. One day he learned that Mr. Elkins was associated with
the publishing house of Harper and Brothers. Edward had heard his
father speak of _Harper's Weekly_ and of the great part it had played
in the Civil War; his father also brought home an occasional copy of
_Harper's Weekly_ and of _Harper's Magazine_. He had seen _Harper's
Young People_; the name of Harper and Brothers was on some of his
school-books; and he pictured in his mind how wonderful it must be for
a man to be associated with publishers of periodicals that other people
read, and books that other folks studied. The Sunday-school
superintendent henceforth became a figure of importance in Edward's
eyes; many a morning the boy hastened from home long before the hour
for school, and seated himself on the steps of the Elkins house under
the pretext of waiting for Mr. Elkins's son to go to school, but really
for the secret purpose of seeing Mr. Elkins set forth to engage in the
momentous business of making books and periodicals. Edward would look
after the superintendent's form until it was lost to view; then, with a
sigh, he would go to school, forgetting all about the Elkins boy whom
he had told the father he had come to call for!
But what with helping his mother, tending the baker's shop in
after-school hours, serving his paper route, plying his street-car
trade, and acting as social reporter, it soon became evident to Edward
that he had not much time to prepare his school lessons. By a supreme
effort, he managed to hold his own in his class, but no more.
Instinctively, he felt that he was not getting all that he might from
his educational opportunities, yet the need for him to add to the
family income was, if anything, becoming greater. The idea of leaving
school was broached to his mother, but she rebelled. She told the boy
that he was earning something now and helping much. Perhaps the tide
with the father would turn and he would find the place to which his
unquestioned talents entitled him. Finally the father did. He
associated himself with the Western Union Telegraph Company as
translator, a position for which his easy command of languages
admirably fitted him. Thus, for a time, the strain upon the family
exchequer was lessened.
But the American spirit of initiative had entered deep into the soul of
Edward Bok. The brother had left school a year before, and found a
place as messenger in a lawyer's office; and when one evening Edward
heard his father say that the office boy in his department had left, he
asked that he be allowed to leave school, apply for the open position,
and get the rest of his education in the great world itself. It was
not easy for the parents to see the younger son leave school at so
early an age, but the earnestness of the boy prevailed.
And so, at the age of twelve, Edward Bok left school, and on Monday,
August 7, 1876, he became office boy in the electricians' department of
the Western Union Telegraph Company at six dollars and twenty-five
cents per week.
And, as such things will fall out in this curiously strange world, it
happened that as Edward drew up his chair for the first time to his
desk to begin his work on that Monday morning, there had been born in
Boston, exactly twelve hours before, a girl-baby who was destined to
become his wife. Thus at the earliest possible moment after her birth,
Edward Bok started to work for her!
CHAPTER III
THE HUNGER FOR SELF-EDUCATION
With school-days ended, the question of self-education became an
absorbing thought with Edward Bok. He had mastered a schoolboy's
English, but six years of public-school education was hardly a basis on
which to build the work of a lifetime. He saw each day in his duties
as office boy some of the foremost men of the time. It was the period
of William H. Vanderbilt's ascendancy in Western Union control; and the
railroad millionnaire and his companions were objects of great interest
to the young office boy. Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas A. Edison
were also constant visitors to the department. He knew that some of
these men, too, had been deprived of the advantage of collegiate
training, and yet they had risen to the top. But how? The boy decided
to read about these men and others, and find out. He could not,
however, afford the separate biographies, so he went to the libraries
to find a compendium that would authoritatively tell him of all
successful men. He found it in Appleton's _Encyclopaedia_, and,
determining to have only the best, he saved his luncheon money, walked
instead of riding the five miles to his Brooklyn home, and, after a
period of saving, had his reward in the first purchase from his own
earnings: a set of the _Encyclopaedia_. He now read about all the
successful men, and was encouraged to find that in many cases their
beginnings had been as modest as his own, and their opportunities of
education as limited.
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