502 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA. 



ert Owen to make inquiries into the practical workings of Mr. 

 Owen's proposed new social system, as it was then being tried 

 at New Lanark. He was entertained several days in Braxfield 

 House, and took a great fancy to little " Dale," played with 

 him, and begged to be allowed to adopt the child, and take him 

 to Russia for life, but Mr. Owen refused. Years afterward, 

 when Nicholas had ascended the Romanoff throne, and the 

 little white-haired boy had emigrated to the wilds of Posey 

 County, Indiana, and had made a national reputation in geol- 

 ogy, he sent to the autocratic Czar a set of his voluminous 

 reports of our Northwest territories. The Czar in his own 

 hand acknowledged the receipt of the volumes, and heartily 

 congratulated his former little favourite whom he had fondled 

 on the hills of Scotland. 



David Dale Owen's early education, which was received 

 from a private tutor, included the English branches, the rudi- 

 ments of Latin, and a course in architectural drawing. He 

 was also trained in the use of carpenter's tools in the me- 

 chanical department connected with his father's mills. He 

 was for a time a pupil in the grammar school, or academy, at 

 New Lanark. His father, while travelling on the continent 

 of Europe, had visited the celebrated educational institution 

 of Emanuel von Fellenberg, at Hofwyl, Switzerland, and was 

 so much pleased with the system pursued in it neither moral, 

 physical, nor intellectual development being neglected that 

 he sent there first his two oldest sons Robert Dale and Wil- 

 liam for a three years' course, and after their return sent 

 David Dale and his younger brother Richard in 1824, also for 

 three years. The studies of the more advanced classes were 

 partly elective, and David Dale and his brother chose chem- 

 istry, drawing, and modern languages in addition to the pre- 

 scribed mathematical and literary course. Dale Owen's first 

 interest in science was aroused during his school-boy excur^ 

 sions over the mountains of Switzerland, while a pupil at Hof- 

 wyl. Robert Dale Owen, the eldest brother of the subject of 

 this sketch, describes in his autobiography, Threading my Way, 

 those excursions down into sunny Italy, over into the Tyrol, 

 France, and Germany, which Fellenberg's pupils most heartily 

 enjoyed. 



David Dale and Richard returned to Scotland in September, 

 1826, the former being then nineteen years old. They entered 



