Samuel Smiles gave his advice to the public by publishing his first book Self-Help in 1859. Self-Help consisted of a series of opinionated essays by Smiles; the book became exceedingly popular almost instantaneously. In his book, Smiles maintained the common theme that "heaven helps those who help themselves," which means that with some help from God, men and women are able to decide their own destinies. Most people from the upper-middle class, at that time, felt empowered when reading Self-Help. However, the book did receive a broad span of reviews mainly because, in expressing his beliefs, Smiles used a few harsh words. When Smiles wrote Self-Help, during the industrial revolution, people were still being born into certain social classes. Therefore when he says that it is the poor's fault that they are poor, the lower class people may have gotten insulted because that may not have been the case at all. In Smiles' book he does not take any external hardships into account. The lower-class people may be poor because they got robbed, or their house burned down, or their parents died. There are many reasons why lower-class people could have been poor with help from external sources. Also, back then it was extremely difficult to jump to different social classes, therefore with Smiles saying that everyone has the power to achieve their goals and move up in life, it may seem a bit insulting to all of the hardworking people who could not move up a class even though they were trying remarkably hard, it just so happened that they were not getting paid very much at all.
Although, in my opinion, Smiles’ view on life was rather unattainable during the late 1800s, I believe that Smiles’ philosophy pertains to present day. There are numerous opportunities for people in the 21st century; if a person wants something more than anything, there are no rules that say that he or she cannot achieve that goal. Especially since there are not set social groups, and no one is born into a certain group of people. With public schools present in every town, poor people all over are able to get educations. After all, everything can be stripped away from a person; everything, other than his or her education. Therefore, as long as a person has an education, he or she can build him or herself up from scratch with the confident, determined mindset that he or she can achieve any goal.
