CHAP. III. LEARNS TO READ. 29 



ment failed. The incident, however, serves to show 

 that the inquiring mind of the youth was fairly at 

 work. 



Another of his favourite occupations continued to 

 be the modelling of clay engines. He not only made 

 models of engines which he had seen, but he also tried 

 to make models of others which were described to him. 

 These attempts no doubt showed considerable improve- 

 ment upon his first trials in the clay of Dewley 

 Burn bog, when occupied there as a herd-boy. He was 

 told, however, that all the wonderful engines of Watt 

 and Boulton, about which he was so anxious to know, 

 were to be found described in books, and that he must 

 satisfy his curiosity by searching them for a complete 

 description of the machines which he desired to model. 

 But, alas ! Stephenson could not read ; he had not yet 

 learnt even his letters. 



Thus he shortly found, when gazing wistfully in the 

 direction of knowledge, that to advance further as a 

 skilled workman, he must master this wonderful art of 

 reading the key to so many other arts. Only thus 

 could he gain an access to books, the depositories of 

 the wisdom and experience of the past. Although a 

 grown man and doing the work of a man, he was not 

 ashamed to confess his ignorance, and go to school, big 

 as he was, to learn his letters. Perhaps, too, he foresaw 

 that, in laying out a little of his spare earnings for this 

 purpose, he was investing money judiciously, and that, 

 in every hour he spent at school, he was really working 

 for better wages. He determined, therefore, to learn 

 this useful art of reading, and to make a beginning a 

 small beginning, it is true, but still a right one, and 

 a pledge and assurance that he was in earnest in the 

 work of self-culture. He desired thus to open for him- 

 self a road into knowledge ; and no man can sincerely 

 desire this but he will eventually succeed in finding it. 



His first schoolmaster was Robin Cowens, a poor I 



