Samuel SmilesSamuel Smiles was a British author and politician who lived from December 23, 1812, to April 16, 1904. While running for office on a Chartist platform, he pushed the idea that new attitudes, not new laws, would lead to more growth. In his most importnt book, Self-Help (1859), he urged people to be thrifty and said that most poverty was caused by bad habits. He also criticized materialism and a government that didn't do much. It changed the way people in Britain thought about politics for a long time and has been called "the bible of mid-Victorian liberalism." Samuel Smiles of Haddington and Janet Wilson of Dalkeith had a son named Smiles. He was born in Haddington, East Lothian, Scotland. He was one of eleven children who lived. He wasn't a strict Reformed Presbyterian like his family was, but they were. He went to a nearby school and dropped out when he was 14. Dr. Robert Lewins taught him how to be a doctor. Because of this deal, Smiles was able to study medicine at the University of Edinburgh in 1829. He learned more about politics there and became a strong backer of Joseph Hume. His father died in the cholera outbreak of 1832, but Smiles was able to keep studying because his mother paid for it. Read More Read Less