SKETCH OF JAMES N AS MYTH. 117 



SKETCH OF JAMES NASMYTH. 



JAMES NASMYTH was pre-eminently a self-made man. 

 Though, taught in the schools, he worked out his own way 

 without regard to the teaching he had received, and by methods 

 peculiarly his own. He was a master engineer, an astronomer 

 whose discoveries and conclusions attracted the attention of 

 learned societies and were admired by the great, and a successful 

 manager of men. " There can be no doubt," says Nature, in a 

 sketch of him, "that he stands in the front rank of those who 

 have advanced the material interests of mankind by the applica- 

 tion of science to industrial methods," 



Mr. Nasmyth was born in Edinburgh, August 19, 1808, the 

 next to the youngest child of a family of eleven, and died in Lon- 

 don, May 7, 1890. He was the son of Alexander Nasmyth, an 

 artist of considerable distinction, and reckoned in his ancestry 

 two or three successive generations of architects and builders. 

 Mention is made of his exercise of his observing powers in very 

 early infancy. The conditions of his childhood life, although it 

 was passed in the city, gave him opportunities to become ac- 

 quainted with l^ature. Many workshops were in operation near 

 Calton Hill, where the nurses took the children to play, and he 

 was one of the throng of little boys who were interested in 

 watching the proceedings of the workmen. Having tools at 

 home in his father's shop, he tried to imitate what he had seen 

 done. He became skilled in making things for himself, and was 

 called " a little Jack of all trades." He was taught by his eldest 

 sister, then sent to a teacher of such a character that he con- 

 tracted " a hatred against grammatical rules," and was enrolled 

 in the Edinburgh High School in 1817. The teaching here was 

 of the old routine sort, and aroused little interest in the pupil ; 

 but he did his tasks punctually and cheerfully, "though they 

 were far from agreeable." 



A different condition prevailed in the shop, where his father 

 directed his attention to the action of the tools and to all the pro- 

 cesses required for turning out the best work ; and gradually he 

 had planted in his mind "the great fundamental principles on 

 which the practice of engineering in its grandest forms is based." 

 Nasmyth became famous in the school for the perfect spinning 

 tops, or " peeries," he could make, for his accurate construction of 

 kites, and for his paper balloons. He cast, bored, and mounted 

 small brass cannon, and made guns of cellar keys. With the fine 

 steels he made he was able to buy the monitors off from the too 

 strict enforcement of the assigned tasks. But he learned little of 

 what the school taught " a mere matter of rote and cram." He 



