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Horatio Alger, the 19th century American author, was famous for his novels for children — Ragged Dick, Tattered Tom, Luck and Pluck,and Strive and Succeed — that shared a theme: with hard work and the right attitude comes prosperity.

In Alger’s 1909 novel Telegraph Boy we meet a 15-year-old sitting on a bench in New York. An orphan, he has arrived from Hartford by boat. He is flat broke:

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“‘Twenty-five cents to begin the world with,’ reflected Frank Kavanagh, drawing from his vest pocket two ten-cent pieces and a nickel. ‘That isn’t much, but it will have to do.’”

This past Tuesday at a lunch on Toronto’s Bay Street, after the operatic group, The Tenors, sang the anthem, Prem Watsa, chief executive of Fairfax Financial Holdings Ltd., took the podium. He wore a navy pinstripe suit and baby blue tie. He had his own Horatio Alger story to tell. It was his own.

“I was an immigrant myself 43 years ago,” Watsa, 64, reminded a crowd that included Bruce Heyman, the U.S. ambassador to Canada, astronaut Chris Hadfield, Issy Sharp, the chairman of Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts, and John Tory, the mayor, former prime minister Brian Mulroney, and Rick Waugh, retired CEO of Bank of Nova Scotia. “I benefited myself from a good education,” he added. The event, after all, was to award scholarships to business students — the association, with a $10 million endowment, delivers 80 annual scholarships of $5,000 each and another 10 of double that. Fairfax also sponsors 45 scholarships of its own, which the association will be administering from now on.