482 CHARACTER PROFESSIONAL TRAINING. PART VIII. 



poor peasant's hut in Eskdale to Westminster Abbey, 

 was nobly and valorously won. The man was diligent 

 and conscientious ; whether as a working mason hewing 

 stone blocks at Somerset House, as a foreman of builders 

 at Portsmouth, as a road surveyor at Shrewsbury, or 

 as an engineer of bridges, canals, docks, and harbours. 

 The success which followed his efforts was thoroughly 

 well deserved. He was laborious, pains-taking, and 

 skilful ; but, what was better, he was honest and upright. 

 He was a most reliable man ; and hence he came to be 

 extensively trusted. Whatever he undertook, he endea- 

 voured to excel in. He would be a first-rate hewer, 

 and he became so. He was himself accustomed to attri- 

 bute much of his success to the thorough way in which 

 he had mastered the humble beginnings of this trade. 

 He was even of opinion that the course of manual 

 training he had undergone, and the drudgery, as some 

 would call it, of daily labour first as an apprentice, 

 and afterwards as a journeyman mason had been of 

 greater service to him than if he had passed through 

 the curriculum of a University. Writing to his friend, 

 Miss Malcolm, respecting a young man who desired 

 to enter the engineering profession, he in the first 

 place endeavoured to dissuade the lady from encourag- 

 ing the ambition of her protege, the profession being 

 overstocked, and offering very few prizes in proportion 

 to the large number of blanks. " But," he added, " if 

 civil engineering, notwithstanding these discourage- 

 ments, is still preferred, I may point out that the way 

 in which both Mr. Eennie and myself proceeded, was to 

 serve a regular apprenticeship to some practical employ- 

 ment he to a millwright, and I to a general house- 

 builder. In this way we secured the means, by hard 

 labour, of earning a subsistence ; and, in time, we ob- 

 tained by good conduct the confidence of our employers 

 and the public ; eventually rising into the rank of what 

 is called Civil Engineering. This is the true way of 



