In the year 1879, there was a sixteen year old boy living in the country near Detroit, Michigan. He was not fond of farm work but nevertheless he did his share in helping his father, who was a thrifty farmer. Day after day, this boy trudged back and forth two and one-half miles each way to the school house. In his spare hours when he was not farming, he had fitted up a work shop for his own use. There was a vise, a bow-string driven lathe and a rudely built forge. He had made these tools himself and was very proud of them. When he was only a small boy, he had made his first tool by taking one of his grandmother’s knitting needles, heating it red hot and plunging it into a bar of soap as he bent it into shape. Then he added a wooden handle that he had whittled and the tool was done.

As soon as he had something with which to work, he began to take to pieces all manner of things just for the fun of putting them together again. He says: “I must have taken apart and put together more than a thousand clocks and watches.” He thought it would be a fine thing to be able to make many good watches, and to make them all alike. He never realized this dream, but in later life he did make a good automobile, he made many of them, and he made them all alike.

His first step towards this great business undertaking happened before he was seventeen years of age, when he left his father’s farm and went to Detroit to work as a mechanic in a shop. He never returned to the farm, although for a time he lived on some land his father had given to him, and conducted a lumber business. All the time he was experimenting, and he wanted to make something that would go. By the time he was twenty-one years of age, he had built a farm locomotive mounted on cast-iron wheels taken from a mowing machine. It was not designed for any particular use, but was to serve as a general farm tractor, and he had great sport running it up and down the meadow while the cows fled in terror.

From that time his chief interest was in building wagons to be run by motors. His health was always good, he worked unceasingly, and slept just as little as possible, and at last, in 1893, he made what people called then, a wagon driven by gas; today we call it an automobile. It ran but was not a great success, and the public made fun of the inventor. This wagon driven by gas was the first Ford automobile and the man who invented it was Henry Ford. He had married and lived in a little house in Bagley Street, Detroit, Michigan. He was employed by the Edison Company, but he had a workshop of his own in his barn. There he built his first motor car. For material he used nothing but junk, as he had no money with which to buy costly materials for experiments.

Henry Ford does not know the word discouragement, so after his first failure he built another car and in 1898 128 placed it on the road. It was better than the first one, but there were still difficulties to be overcome. People laughed more than ever, and Detroit thought him mildly insane on the subject of “little buggies driven by gas,” as the newspapers called them. Then one day, when no one was paying any especial attention to him, Henry Ford made a car that would run on level ground, would run up and down hill, and go backward and forward. His problem was solved, and he began to make automobiles. Today he is the head of the Ford Motor Company which has its largest factory in Highland Park, a suburb of Detroit, Michigan, not more than fifteen miles from his birthplace.

At the Highland Park plant, one thousand times a day a newborn car pushes open a door by itself and goes out into the world. At once these cars are loaded on trains and sent away, for the plant has no storage and there are always more orders than can be filled. The Ford cars are used by many persons, they are all made alike and they are made in large numbers. Henry Ford’s old dream about making watches has come true, only he makes automobiles instead of timepieces.

In his great factory the most improved machinery is used, and the business is run on a profit-sharing plan, which means that the daily pay of the men in his employ increases as the profit of the plant increases. A just amount is paid to each workman and Mr. Ford says: “If a man can make himself of any use at all, put him 129 on, give him his chance and if he tries to do the right thing, we can find a living for him any way.” Eight hours is the length of the working day with extra pay for overtime work. The wages in the Ford factories have always been above what is generally paid so there are always many persons who want to work there.

However, Henry Ford has two other great interests besides automobiles. They are boys and birds. His only child is a bright and earnest boy but Mr. Ford does not forget other boys in doing for his own. There are always a dozen or more boys that he is training and helping to prepare for life, thus giving to the world strong, helpful citizens.

As for birds, he has built two hundred bird houses in the grounds of his home. They are heated with electricity in winter so as to keep the birds’ drinking water from freezing, and by a clever arrangement of tubes, food can be sent electrically to each little house. Recently Mr. Ford brought from England three hundred and eighty song birds not native to the United States. They settled down and built nests in his trees and shrubbery. He hopes to have them increase and add to the beauty of our natural life.

His interest in birds and out of door life has been strengthened by his long friendship with John Burroughs, the naturalist, and the two have had many tramps and camping trips together. These excursions are Mr. Ford’s vacations and he likes to take them with this 130 great nature lover or with his other good friend, Thomas A. Edison, with whom he is most congenial.

Having no bad habits, perfect health, never being tired, willing to listen to others, able to decide quickly, and world-wide in his interests, Henry Ford is one of the twentieth century’s greatest public-spirited business men. No better illustration can be found than the fact that although Mr. Ford did not believe in war and was a man of peace, yet when the United States entered the World War, he hastened to Washington, offered his great factory to the government to make war supplies, and began running night and day to furnish our country with war-time necessities. If some one wished to choose for him a coat of arms they should select, “A file and hammer crossed, a warm, glowing heart placed above them,” while the words,

should be written underneath. This should be sufficient to describe the nature of the kindly, frank and unassuming man, who, with a large amount of money coming in each month, cares nothing for it as money but wishes to use it to promote the good will of the world.