THE ROYAL INSTITUTION. [CHAP. 



, 



A small inheritance from his grandfather helped 

 to support and to educate the boy. By the law of 

 Massachusetts everyone had a good grammar-school 

 education, and the village school teacher at Woburn 

 was then a graduate of Harvard College and taught a 

 little Latin. From his earliest years the boy was 

 fickle and careless. He neglected regular work, but 

 liked arithmetic. He was full of energy and quick to 

 make what he wanted. When eleven he went to a 

 better school in the neighbouring town of Medford. 

 When thirteen Benjamin Thompson appeared unlikely 

 to make a farmer. He was therefore apprenticed to 

 an importer of British goods and a dealer in everything' 

 at Salem, on October 14, 1766. 'Instead of watching 

 for customers over the counter, he busied himself with 

 totals arid/ instruments under it.' When he could he 

 played his fiddle, and played it well. When only fourteen 

 ihis'lriastei'; allowed, 'him to make small ventures in 

 shipping goods that were paid for by a relative. He 

 was clever at drawing and cutting names, and he 

 thought he had ' invented a machine for making 

 motion perpetual.' When the repeal of the Stamp Act 

 occurred, he blew himself up with fireworks, and was 

 in great danger of death. His master signed the 

 non-importation agreement. Thus his apprentice 

 became useless. When sixteen he returned to his 

 mother. To an elder school-fellow, L. Baldwin, at 

 this time he wrote questions on light, heat, and the 

 wind. 



In 1769, when seventeen, he was apprentice and 

 clerk to a drygoods dealer at Boston. There he went 



