112 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Another incident of this summer must be noted. He fell into a 

 small rivulet, wet his clothes, and remained out while they dried. He 

 caught a severe cold, and was sent home to die of consumption. 



His school education began when he was five or six years old. The 

 schoolroom was small, low in ceiling, and crowded with children. In 

 the course of the summer his strength gave out. He says : 



From nine to twelve I could see to read; but in the afternoon, from one to 

 three, the letters were hazy and I could not distinguish them. I told the teacher 

 my condition and was sent home. When I told the family why I left school 

 there was great wonderment. My brother John thought I was shamming. He 

 put pieces of wheaten bread and oat-cake of similar size and appearance before 

 me and asked which was which. I could not tell. He then gave me the aid of 

 my father's spectacles, and I at once named the crumbs correctly. He thought 

 he had now caught me, for he said, " A young person can not see clearly with an 

 old person's spectacles." I protested my truthfulness, and was mortified at being 

 suspected of deceit. But my mother came to the rescue, and said she did not 

 think I was feigning. She took me from school and put me to sea-bathing. In 

 fact, there was nothing anomalous in my seeing with my father's spectacles: he 

 was little past middle life, and they were of low power. I was probably as 

 much debilitated in brain and eye as an aged man, and the spectacles might suit 

 my condition as well as his. But it is difficult for me to describe the grief and 

 indignation which the suspicions of the family roused within me. 



He had a pleasant summer by the sea ; the ships sailing up and 

 down the Frith of Forth, and the fishing-boats which studded the water 

 for miles were objects of vivid wonderment and interest to him. 



His next schooling is thus described : 



Mr. Campbell, who kept a school near by, taught me to read and spell after 

 the fashion of those days; i. e., I spelled and pronounced the vowels without 

 once dreaming that the words had a meaning. The idea that English words in 

 a printed book were signs of feeling did not dawn upon me till years afterward. 

 I knew only broad Scotch, and an English book was as unintelligible as a Latin 

 book. 



As to his religious education at this period he says : 



I went regularly to church, but never understood one word of the sermon. 

 This gave rise to a habit of inattention to spoken as well as written language. 

 AYhenever I was out of reach of my father's foot and hand I fell asleep, the 

 refreshment of which was the only advantage of my church-going. 



When he was six or seven years old he was again sent to the sea- 

 side, and left with a family of old people who had no sympathy with, 

 children. The months he spent there were full of wretchedness. He 

 thus refers to them : 



I slept on a "shake-down " in the garret, and the mice careered over me in 

 the night. During the day I wandered in the harbor, but there were no ships 

 in it ; climbed the banks above the town, where were only corn-fields ; built 

 castles of wet sand and knocked them down again, all alone ; and wearily, 

 Avearily did day pass away after day, bringing no change. I was a shy boy, or I 

 might have found acquaintances in the street. 



