VII 



KNOWLEDGE AND INVENTIONS 



Hungry for Knowledge — Borrowing Books — Paternal 

 Opposition — Snatched Moments — Early Rising proves a 

 Way out of Difficulties — The Cellar Workshop — Inven- 

 tions — An Early-Rising Machine — Novel Clocks — Hy- 

 grometers, etc. — A Neighbor's Advice. 



1 LEARNED arithmetic in Scotland with- 

 out understanding any of it, though I had 

 the rules by heart. But when I was about 

 fifteen or sixteen years of age, I began to grow 

 hungry for real knowledge, and persuaded 

 father, who was willing enough to have me 

 study provided my farm work was kept up, 

 to buy me a higher arithmetic. Beginning at 

 the beginning, in one summer I easily finished 

 it without assistance, in the short intervals 

 between the end of dinner and the afternoon 

 start for the harvest- and hay-fields, accom- 

 plishing more without a teacher in a few scraps 

 of time than in years in school before my mind 

 was ready for such work. Then in succession I 

 [ e4o J 



