Thus working as hard as though he were doing nothing else, and studying as hard as though he were not working, Russell made his way through two terms of the academic year.  Nobody knows or ever will know, all he suffered.  Often almost on the point of starvation, yet too proud and sensitive to ask for help, he toiled on, working by day and studying by night.  He never thought of giving up the fight and going back to the farm.  But funds completely ran out for the spring term and he yielded the struggle for a brief while, returning to help his father, or to earn what he could teaching school, or working on neighboring farms, saving every cent like a very miser for the coming year’s tuition.  In addition, he kept up with his studies, so that when he returned the next fall, he went on with his class the same as if he had attended for the entire year.

The second year was a repetition of the first, work and study, grinding poverty, glorious perseverance.  Again the spring term found him out of funds, and this time he replenished by teaching school at Blandford, Massachusetts.  Among his pupils here was a bully of the worst type, whose conduct had caused most of the former teachers to resign.  In fact, he was quite proud of his ability to give the school a holiday, and as on former occasions, made his boasts that it wouldn’t be long before the new teacher would take a vacation.  The other pupils watched with eager curiosity for the conflict.  In due course of time it came.  Russell at first dealt with him kindly.  It hadn’t been so many years since he himself had been the cause of numerous uproars at school.  But this youth was not of the kind to be impressed by good treatment.  He simply took it as a showing of the white feather on the part of the new teacher and became bolder in his misconduct.  On a day, when he was unruly beyond all pardon, Russell took down the birch and invited him up before the school to receive the usual punishment.  The great occasion had come.  The children waited with bated breath.  The boy refused openly, sneeringly.  The next moment, he thought lightning had struck him.  He was grabbed by the neck, held with a grip of iron despite all his struggles, whipped before the gaping school, taken to the door and kicked out in the snow.  Then the school lessons proceeded.  It made a sensation, of course.  Some of the parents wanted to request the new teacher to resign.  But others rallied to his support and protested to the school board that the right man had been found at last.  And so Russell held the post until the school term was over.  Thirty-five years after, Russell Conwell, pastor of the Baptist Temple, was asked to head a petition to get this same evil doer out of Sing Sing prison.