ATOMIC THEORY. S91 



small, proprietors, formerly called statesmen a name that 

 still lingers, we believe, in the northern parts of England. 

 His father appears to have been a weaver as well as yeoman ; 

 but of slender means in both capacities. He had two sons 

 and a daughter. John, the second one, was placed at the 

 village schools at Eaglesfield and in the neighbourhood ; but 

 derived more aid from the talents with which he was born 

 than from any help which such schools could give. He 

 speedily nurtured his own faculties into activity, and the 

 slight memorials of his youth are the miniature of the man 

 in later life. This miniature becomes more exact as we 

 follow him forward to his early positions in the world ; first, 

 as a schoolmaster himself at Eaglesfield, when only twelve 

 years old ; next, as assistant and principal successively, at a 

 boarding school at Kendal. Simple as were, and still are, 

 the functions of a village schoolmaster, it is extraordinary that 

 a boy of twelve years should be able to fulfill them; and 

 that, after a year of intermediate labour in husbandry, he 

 should have been called, when yet but fifteen, to the larger 

 duties of the Kendal school. That inborn faculty of silent 

 self-labour and patient study, which remained with him 

 through life, can alone explain this. 



Some of the moral peculiarities of Dalton's character come 

 out curiously in this part of his career, as derived from the 

 recollections of one or two persons yet living, who were his 

 scholars at Kendal. Apart indeed from such information, 

 we could readily have conjectured that he must have made 

 a very indifferent schoolmaster. His own early self-ac- 

 quired knowledge did not give him the power of instilling 

 the same into others of his age. At no period had he any 

 command of language or facility of explanation. Equally 

 was he unfitted to comprehend those mental diversities of 

 temper as well as intellect, which show themselyes in the 

 very dawn of life. Whether that uniformity of plan, which 



