The Curies 63 



to think for themselves, he taught them to love nature, 

 and to try to get their knowledge first-hand. Pierre and 

 his brother Jacques were very happy boys and very good 

 chums. 



Jacques was a man of action, but Pierre was a thinker 

 and a mathematician. We may say here that you cannot 

 be a sound scientist unless you are fairly good at mathe- 

 matics. In his spare time Pierre liked wandering in the 

 country, and sometimes he would spend half the night 

 alone in the woods, savouring the sweet smells and 

 revelling in the beauties around him. 



When he was only nineteen Pierre got his degree in 

 physics, and became an assistant in the Sorbonne. He 

 was interested in electricity; he and Jacques together 

 did some good work in this direction. Four years later 

 we find that Pierre Curie had risen to be chief of the 

 laboratory at the new School of Industrial Physics in 

 Paris, and that he had earned a reputation as a first-class 

 teacher who was extremely popular with his pupils. So 

 he carried on for thirteen years, enjoying a very friendly, 

 happy, and busy life. Then came a great change, for he 

 fell in love with one of his pupils. 



This lady was of Polish birth, and her maiden name was 

 Marie Sklodowska. She was born in Warsaw in 1867. 

 Her father was a teacher of Science, but the laboratory in 

 which he worked was very poorly equipped. The college 

 authorities in those days thought little of Science, and 

 Marie's father had actually to pay for a good deal of the 

 apparatus out of his own pocket. This left him so badly 

 off that he could not afford an assistant, and he was grate- 

 ful to his little girl when she insisted on coming in and 

 washing test-tubes and tidying up for him. The child 

 grew up in the laboratory, and soon began to take the 

 keenest interest in her father's work. Even when she 

 went to school during the day she always came to the 

 laboratory in the evenings to help. 



