102 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



Peb. 



was ignorant, it was only his misfortune. His 

 parents were too poor to send him to school. He 

 was the son of the fireman of a pumping engine in 

 a colliery. His birthplace was a cottage with a 

 clay floor, mud wall and bare rafters. He had to 

 help earn his living from his earliest years, first 

 by herding cows and barring up the gates of the 

 mine at night. Next he was put to picking stones 

 from the coal, and after that to driving a horse, 

 which hauled coal from the pit. By-and-bye he 

 was made assistant fireman to his fother. When 

 he was seventeen he was made plugman of a 

 pumping engine — a higher post than his father's, 

 and had climbed, as it seemed, to the top of his 

 ladder. What hope was there for a youth who 

 could not read at seventeen ? 



But George had hope in his breast. His engine 

 was a lesson-book to him. He took it apart and 

 put it together again, studied it, loved it, and 

 when he was told that there were books which 

 told about engines, he made up his mind to go 

 to school. 



To school he went, and soon learned all that 

 the vilkige masters could teach. When twenty 

 years old he was made brakesman, and began to 

 think about inventing better engines than he saw 

 about him. 



His next work was a railway eight miles in 

 length, and from this point he went on until he 

 was known as the great railway pioneer of the 

 world. 



George was often laughed at by men who 

 thought themselves much v,iser than he. One 

 day he was proposing to build an engine to run 

 twelve miles an hour. A grave-looking gentle- 

 man thinking to put him down, said : 



"Suppose one of these engines to be going 

 along a railroad at the rate of nine or ten miles 

 an hour, and that a cow were to stray upon the 

 line, would not that be a very awkward circum- 

 stance P" 



*'Yes," replied Mr. Stephenson, "very awk- 

 ward indeed — for the cow !" 



Thus, l,iy his own industry, did the "grit bare- 

 legged laddie" climb to a very high place among 

 men. Great men, and even kings, sought his ad- 

 vice, wealth flowed into his purse ; his name was 

 honored, his character respected. At a ripe age 

 he died and went to his eternal reward. 



Let this sketch cheer on the boys and girls to 

 patient effort in the path of duty. Learn some- 

 thing every day. Press forward ! Be good, and you 

 will prosper. 



GBEAT MEN WHO ROSE FROM THE 

 RANKS. 



From the barber's shop rose Sir Richard Ark- 

 wi'ight, the invento» of the spinning jenny, and 

 the founder of the cotton manufacture of Great 

 Britain ; liOrd Tenterden, one of the most distin- 

 guished of English Lord Cliief Justices ; and Tur- 

 ner, the very greatest among landscape painters. 

 No one knows to a certainty what Shakspeare 

 was ; but it is unquestionable that he sprang from 

 a very humble trade. The common class of day- 

 laborers has given us Brindley, the engineer ; 

 Cook, the navigator ; and Burns, the poet. Ma- 

 sons and bricklayers can boast of Ben Johnson, 

 who worked at the building of Lincoln's Inn, with 

 a trowel in his hand, and a book in his pocket; 

 Eflwatds and Telford, the ens^ineers ; Huch Mil- 



ler, the geologist ; and Allan Cunningham, the 

 MTiter and sculptor ; whilst amongst distinguished 

 carpenters we find the name of Inigo Jones, the 

 architect ; Harrison, the chronometer maker ; 

 John Hunter, the physiologist ; Romney and Opie, 

 the painters ; Professor Lee, the Orientalist ; and 

 John Gibson, the sculptor. From the weaver class 

 have sprung Simpson, the mathematician ; Bacon, 

 the sculptor ; the two Milners, Adam W'alker, 

 John Foster, Wilson, the ornithologist ; Dr. I-iv- 

 ingstone, the missionary traveller ; and Tannahill, 

 the poet. Shoemakers have given us Sturgeon, 

 the electrician ; Samuel Drew, the essayist ; Gif- 

 ford, the editor of the Quarterhj Review ; Bloom- 

 field, the poet, and William Carey, the missiona- 

 ry ; whilst Morrison, another laborious missiona- 

 ry, Avas a maker of shoe lasts. Within the last 

 year, a pi'ofound naturalist has been discovered in 

 the person of a shoemaker at Banff", who, while 

 maintaining himself by his trade, has devoted his 

 leisure to the study of natural science in all its 

 branches, his researches in connection with the 

 smaller Crustacea? having been rewarded by the 

 discovery of a new species, to which the name of 

 Praniza Edwardsii has been given by naturalists. 



Nor have tailors been altogether undistinguish- 

 ed, Jackson, the painter, having worked at that 

 trade, until he reached manhood. But what is, 

 perhaps, more remarkable, one of the gallantest 

 of British seamen. Admiral Hobson, who broke 

 the boom at Vigo in 1702, originally belonged to 

 this calling. He was working as a tailor's appren- 

 tice near Bonchurch, in the Isle of Wight, when 

 the news flew through the village that a squadron 

 of men-of-war were sailing off the island. He 

 sprang from the shop-board, and ran down with 

 his comrades to the beach to gaze upon the glori- 

 ous sight. The tailor boy was suddenly inflamed 

 with the ambition to be a sailor, and, springing 

 into a boat, he rowed oft' to the squadron, gained 

 the admiral's ship, and was accepted as a volun- 

 teer. Years after he returned to his native village, 

 full of honors, and dined of bacon and eggs in the 

 cottage where he had worked as a tailor's appren- 

 tice. Cardinal Wolsey, De Foe, Akenside, and 

 Kirke White, were the sons of butchers ; Bunyan 

 was a tinker, and Joseph Lancaster, a basket- 

 maker. Among the great names identified with 

 the invention of the steam-engine are those of 

 Newcomen, Watt, and Stephenson ; the first a 

 blacksmith, the second a maker of mathematical 

 instruments, and the third an engine fireman. Dr. 

 Hutton, the geologist, and Bewick, the father of 

 wood-engraving, were coal-miners. Dodsley was 

 a footman, and Holcroft a groom. Bufhn, the 

 navigator, was a common seaman, and Sir Cloudes- 

 ley Shovel, a cabin-boy. Herschel played the oboe 

 in a military band. Chan trey was a journeyman 

 carver, Etty a journeyman printer ; and Su* Thom- 

 as Lawrence the son of a tavern-keeper. 



Michael Faraday, the son of a poor blacksmith, 

 was in early life apprenticed to a book-binder, and 

 woi'ked at that trade until he reached his twenty- 

 second year ; he now occupies the very first rank 

 as a philosopher, excelling even his master, Sir 

 Humphrey Davy, in the art of lucidly expounding 

 the most difficult and abstruse points in natural 

 science. Not long ago. Sir Roderick Murchison 

 discovered, at Thurso, in the far north of Scotland, 

 a profound geologist, in the ])crson of a baker 

 named Robert Dick. "Wlien Sir Roderick called 



