392 LIFE OP DALTOIS T : 



is in some sort inevitable in the gathering together of youth 

 in schools and colleges, be not on the whole better in result 

 than the teaching upon vague views of individual character, 

 is a question we cannot here discuss. It is enough to say 

 that Dalton, as a schoolmaster, could have had but one 

 method, and that founded on his own peculiar temperament 

 and habits. 



At the Kendal school, where there were some sixty boys 

 and girls educated at from ten to fifteen shillings a quarter, 

 he was associated, while master, with his brother Jonathan, 

 a hard and severe man by nature. The surviving pupils 

 describe John as of gentler temper ; but nevertheless cold, 

 abstracted, and uncouth in his ways. The school, at best, 

 seems never to have been very popular under the manage- 

 ment of these two young brothers. 



While residing at Kendal John Dalton engaged himself 

 in frequent contributions to the < Gentlemen's and Ladies' 

 Diaries ; ' two periodical works which, at that time of scanty 

 literature in the country parts of England, earned repute and 

 circulation by their prize questions in mathematics and 

 general philosophy. When Westmoreland was some days' 

 journey from London, instead of the eight hours of present 

 travel, such periodicals, with a weekly newspaper circulated 

 among neighbours, were probably treasured more than the 

 superfluity of publications now spread throughout every 

 corner of the kingdom. In 1787 we find that Dalton, 

 being then twenty-one, correctly solved thirteen out of 

 fifteen mathematical questions in these diaries; and in 1790 

 gained the highest prize for his ' masterly solution of the 

 prize question.' He meddled a little also with the moral 

 queries propounded in these works ; and his answers, though 

 somewhat formal and vapid, are at least as good as the ques- 

 tions deserve. 



Dalton began his career of physical research while at 



