Standing on the Shoulders of Ordinary Men

John Watson continues with his narrative on the ordinary man:

Bunyan gave us the Pilgrims Progress, but we do not know the names of the good old women whom he heard talking about religion as they sat in the sun, and whose words gave a new direction to his life. Lord Shaftesbury will long be held in honour in England for the social reformation that he wrought; but place, if you please, Lord Shaftesbury's nurse, who taught the lonely child the principles of godliness. The hall rings with applause when a distinguished scholar obtains his degree, but what of the country school master who first inspired him with the passion for learning? The multitude talk of a distinguished career; they do not think of the man's father, who toiled and saved and sacrificed himself that the lad might have his opportunity.

What of the great man's mother, whose name is not buzzed about in the market place? A very ordinary woman, yet she was the mother of this distinguished man. She nursed him, she trained him, she comforted him, she inspired him; it is possible that this ordinary woman, as you judge her, gave him his brains. He stands upon her shoulder, and is seen of all men, while she is unseen. Every famous life is raised upon the lives of others, as a Venetian palace rests upon the piles beneath the water. What, also, one may ask, could the extraordinary people do without the ordinary? It is the enthusiasm of a nation which places a statesman in power and enables him to carry out beneficent laws.