Page:Famous Living Americans, with Portraits.djvu/380

northern point of the earth : the latter quality enabled him to reach it."

When Robert was only three years old his father died and his mother returned to Portland, Maine. Here he spent his youth. With woods and fields near at hand he became an explorer of the hills and forest. He was a steady shot and swam and rowed the "wild waters of Casco Bay." He was a natural boy, not preococious or unusal except that he was singularly thorough and persevering in what he attempted.

The saying that every great man had a great mother is almost proverbial and was true in Peary's case. Mary Wiley Peary was a wonderful mother. She went to college with her son and was his chum and most intimate, confidential friend. Perhaps it was this association which developed the unfailing consideration for others, the gentleness, and the patience which Peary's co-workers often mention as his chief chararteristics. His helpers all agree in the sentiment expressed by one of them who said : "In all the years I have worked for Commander Peary I have never heard him speak an impatient word to any living thing."

He graduated at the acre of twenty-one from "Bowdoin College, ranking second in a class of fifty-one. After graduation he became a land surveyor and in 1879 was given a position in Washington on the Coast and Geodetic Survey. After two years of service he began energetic preparation for a competitive examination soon to be given by the navy department for the admission of civil engineers. Forty men took this examination but only four passed, and "Robert E. Peary was the youngest of the four. He was appointed a member of the navy department with the rank of lieutenant.

During his first year's service he was asked to report on plans for a pier at Key West, Florida, which the contractors said could not be built at the estimated cost. He reported that it could be built for twenty-five thousand dollars less than the estimate and was instructed to build it. Though failure had been predicted he finished the work at a saving of thirty-thousand dollars below the first estimate.

He was then sent to Nicaragua as sub-chief of the Inter-