BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF THOMAS EDWARD. 599 



" Well, now," said the master, after he was reduced to his last effort, 

 " did you bring it ? " " No, sir, I did not ! " The master sat down ex- 

 hausted. " Well," said lie, " you are certainly a most provoking and 

 incorrigible devil." He ordered Tom to get his slate and books and 

 quit the school. And with this third expulsion Thomas Edward fin- 

 ished his "education" at the age of about seven years. 



And let us not be hard on the Scotch system of education. To be 

 sure, the schools did but little to encourage a taste for natural history, 

 but we have a great many pretentious educational establishments now 

 that are not a whit in advance of them. And our state system has no 

 place for little enthusiastic nuisances like Tom Edward. A teacher 

 in a Brooklyn institution of high claims, thinking, not long ago, that 

 the book " natural history " might be somewhat alleviated by a little 

 acquaintance with the real objects about which the pupils were learn- 

 ing lessons, encouraged them to collect some natural-history speci- 

 mens. A few cocoons were accordingly brought in, and hung up in 

 the class-room, and watched with much eagerness until the pupils 

 began to fear nothing would ever come of them. But one morning it 

 was observed that a large and beautiful moth was emerging from a 

 chrysalis, and the class became much excited with interest at the novel 

 and curious spectacle. But for such excitement, from so strange a 

 cause, there was no provision in the order of the school. And when 

 the grammarian came in to take the class, they did not enter into his 

 stupefying processes with the customary facility, at which he was so 

 shocked that he reported his difficulty to the governing authority, and 

 a score of the children were kept after school as a punishment for the 

 interest they had taken in an insect metamorphosis ! 



School being done, young Edward went to work. He first got a 

 place in a tobacco-factory at fourteen pence a week. Here he staid 

 two years, having risen through the grades of responsibility until he 

 got eighteen pence a week, but his master happened to be a bird-fan- 

 cier, and favored Tom's tastes in catching animals. Leaving this place, 

 he got a situation in a woolen-factory, at some distance from home, 

 receiving at first three and at last six shillings a week. Besides, he 

 got on as a night-hand, and thus had much of the day to himself for 

 rambling in the woods, and getting acquainted with the flowers, 

 insects, and birds. These were happy times. Tom was at the factory 

 two years, and was then taken away that he might be bound as an 

 apprentice to a trade. The happy genius of his father selected for him 

 as a life-occupation the intellectual and ennobling craft of the shoe- 

 maker. He was indentured at the age of eleven to Charles Begg, who 

 was to teach him for six years the art and mystery of making shoes, 

 at eighteen pence a week for the first year, with sixpence a week ad- 

 vance each succeeding year aprons and shoes to be supplied time, 

 six in the morning until nine at night ; specialty, pump-making, in 

 which Begg excelled. 



