Life and Character of Nathaniel Bowditch. 3 
He learnt amazing fast, for his mind was fully given to it. He ~ 
did not seem like other ‘childrens he a better. His mother 
was a beautiful, nice woman.” 
The third old lady said that “ Nat. was a little, still creature ; 
and his mother a mighty free, good-natured woman. She used 
to say, ‘ Who should n’t be cheerly if a Christian should n’t?’? Her 
children took after her, and she had a particular way of guarding 
them against evil.” 
These I testify to be their very words, as I pencilled them 
down’ at the time. And they show, I think, very clearly, the in- 
fluence of the mother’s mind and heart upon the character of her 
son. Of that mother, in after life, and to its close, he often spoke 
in terms of the highest admiration and the strongest affection, and 
in his earnest manner would say—“ My mother loved me—idol- 
ized me—worshipped me.” 
After leaving the dame’s school, the only other instruction. he 
ever received was obtained at the schools of his . 
which were wholly inadequate to furnish even th 
likewise been told by one who lived in Salem at the Pane, that the 
master of this school, a person of violent temper, gave young Bow- 
ditch, when he was shout five or six years old, a very difficult sum 
in arithmetic to perform. His scholar went to his desk, and soon 
afterwards brought up his slate with the question Uolvea: The 
master, surprised at the suddenness of his return, asked him whe 
had been n doing the sum for him ; and on answeri wering ‘“ Nobo 
qance’ Kee 50 > difficult aquestion. - 3 
But the advantages of school, such as hays were, We reapeblled 
to forego at the early age of ten years, “his poverty and not his 
will consenting,” that he might go into-his father’s shop and help 
: a the eatity He was soon, however, transferred as an 
oa ee ee - ee : ft We -d 
became a clerk in a 
and: 
ge ae ot r; 
large € xt Of the same kind,” “where he continued until 
he went to sea. It was whilst he was an apprentice in the ship- 
chandler’ s shop that he first — that strong bent, or what 
