200 Literary and Philosophical Society. 



in Cumberland, having begun in 1778, when he was twelve 

 years old , the school was held in the Friends' Meeting 

 House. His grandfather had joined the Society of Friends, 

 and he never left that community. His father was poor, 

 living in a house with two small rooms, and weaving in a 

 shop attached to the house in the old-fashioned way ; still 

 he was an educated man, and taught his son mensuration 

 and navigation. His brother's death brought to him at a 

 later period a small family estate, raising him out of 

 labour. 



Dalton at twelve was probably not small for his age, 

 as he grew to be a powerful man ; he had many struggles 

 in the school, where he tried to maintain order among 

 pupils older than himself, who challenged him to fight in 

 the graveyard. Let us think of him helping Mr. Bewley 

 in Kendal, becoming the friend of Mr. Gough there, and 

 learning from him to make meteorological observations as 

 well as to take an interest in the science, if it could then 

 be called one. In Kendal he began to give lectures ; this 

 programme of lectures, given when he was 21 years old, 

 would suit a whole college of professors. In after life, 

 when by chance the circular containing the list of subjects 

 fell in his way, he burst out into a loud laugh, and the 

 laugh described to us reminds of Carlyle's, except that it 

 was the only Dalton laugh we have recorded, of a violent 

 kind ; we can easily imagine the wonder he felt at his own 

 early presumption. 



His uncle, Mr. Greenup, barrister in London, discouraged 

 the attempt to learn a profession such as that of the Bar 

 or of medicine, being disinclined to help him, so John 

 Dalton set himself to an independent study of nature, and 

 worked his school and his studies with an assiduity which 



