1886.] Professor Tyndall on Thomas Young. 553 



WEEKLY EVENING MEETING, 



Friday, January 22, 1886. 



Sir William Bowman, Bart. LL.D. F.R.S. Vice-President, 



in the Chair. 



Professor Tyndall, D.C.L. LL.D. F.R.S. M.B.L 



Thomas Young. 



Early Lite and Studies. 



Four great names are indissolubly associated with the establishment 

 in which we are now assembled. Its founder, Benjamin Thompson, 

 better known as Count Eumford ; its Chemical Professor, Humphry 

 Davy ; its Professor of Natural Philosophy, Thomas Young ; and, 

 finally, the man whom so many of us have the privilege to remember, 

 Michael Faraday. Of the character and achievements of the third of 

 the great men here named, less seems to be publicly known than 

 ought to be known. Even a portion of this audience may possibly 

 have some addition made to its knowledge by reference to the labours 

 of a man who served the Institution in the opening of the present 

 century. I therefore thought that such a brief account of him as I 

 could compress into an hour might not be without interest and 

 instruction at the present time and place. 



Thomas Young was born at Milverton, in Somersetshire, on the 

 13th of June, 1773. His parents were members of the Society of 

 Friends. Nearly seven years of his childhood were spent with his 

 maternal grandfather. He soon evinced a precocity which might have 

 been expected to run to seed and die rapidly out. When two years 

 old he was able to read with considerable fluency, and before he had 

 attained the age of four years, he had read the Bible twice through. 

 At the age of six he learnt by heart the whole of Goldsmith's 

 'Deserted Village.' His first formal teachers were not successful, 

 and his aunt in those early days appears to have been more useful 

 to him than anybody else. When not quite seveu years of age, he 

 was placed at what he calls a miserable boarding school at Stapleton 

 near Bristol. But he soon became his own tutor, distancing in his 

 studies those who were meant to teach him. 



In March 1782, he was sent to the school of Mr. Thompson, 

 at Compton, in Dorsetshire, of whose liberality and largeness of 

 mind Young spoke afterwards with affectionate recognition. Here 

 he worked at Greek and Latin, and read a great many books in both 

 languages. He also studied mathematics and book-keeping. Of preg- 

 nant influence on his future life was the reading of Martin's ' Lectures 

 on Natural Philosophy,' v^nd Ryland's ' Introduction to the Newtonian 



