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"I Will Make a Man Out of Myself"

Long ago an ambassador to Germany, Andrew White, who was the president of Cornell University and later taught at the University of Michigan, had a student who was impudent--a smart aleck, always mouthing off to him in the classroom. But White endeavored to support him, to stand by him, to encourage him. And he won the student's friendship. That student however, was later expelled from college because he was connected indirectly with a tragic happening in which another student was killed. That student came to President White and said, "I thank you for what you've tried to do for me, and I tell you this: I will make a man out of myself yet." He had the support. He had the help.

Later on in the Civil War, which was just breaking out, he enlisted. Then came Gettysburg, and there was a brigadier general at Gettysburg, a brigadier general who had just been awarded that office due to gallantry and bravery and fidelity. A command was given this brigadier general to attack the Confederate Army. It was an impossible command; it was a hopeless command; and it was a mistaken command. Yet this brigadier general led a gallant charge into impossible odds and fell with nobility and bravery in the Confederate lines. That officer's name was General E. J. Farnsworth, the same student who had been expelled from the university yet encouraged and supported by Dr. White. Farnsworth had made good his promise that he would make a man out of himself yet.

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