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themselves either incapable of doing more than add up two or three days' wages at a few shillings or pence a day, or absolutely ignorant of the most simple arithmetical processes. Of the girls, taken separately, only one in a hundred could work the compound rules with fair accuracy.

We happen to know that the inquiry was conducted with great fairness; that the manufactories selected were certainly not below the average of the manufactories in the town; and that allowance was made for the nervousness which the young people were likely to feel when submitted to examination. The papers, so far as we have had an opportunity of looking through them, confirm our impression of the worthlessness of school instruction received before the age of six or seven, unless the child remains at school till eleven or twelve.

Mr. Mundella, of Nottingham, at whose suggestion this inquiry was made, is obtaining information of a similar kind from other parts of the country; we trust that he will soon be able to publish the results.

It should be remembered that the discouraging percentages we have quoted would be far lower, if the children of vagrants, out-door paupers, and criminals were not altogether excluded from the inquiry. These young people are very far from belonging to the lowest classes of the community.

ART. VI.-(1.) Experimental Researches in Electricity. By MICHAEL
FARADAY, D.C.L., F.R.S. Vol. I. 1839. Vol. II. 1844.
III. 1858. London: Taylor and Francis.

Vol.

(2.) Quarterly Journal of Science, Literature, and the Arts, 1819 -1830.

(3.) Philosophical Transactions, 1831-1855.

(4.) The Life of Sir Humphry Davy, Bart. By J. A. PARIS, M.D. 2 vols. London: Colburn and Bentley. 1831.

(5.) The Subject Matter of a Course of Six Lectures on the NonMetallic Elements. By Professor FARADAY. Arranged by J. Scoffern, M.B. London: Longmans. 1853.

IF a great bell, capable of making itself audible over a whole kingdom were to toll whenever a remarkable spirit passed from earth, all England would assuredly have heard its melancholy boom on the 25th August, 1867. On that day Michael Faraday died. One of our intellectual giants laid down his head as meekly as the humblest of his fellows, and all that was mortal at the man became dust. For half a century he had officiated of one of nature's interpreters, carrying a cluster of her golden keys at his girdle; and with these he had unlocked and explored some of her choicest treasure-chambers, going out and in before she people with privileged foot, and ever bringing forth new truths and magnificent facts for the instruction of mankind

Faraday's Boyhood.

435 That he held a commission for this purpose royally signed and sealed no one could well dispute, for when his knock was heard many a gate of mystery swung open, and secrets till then unknown, or at least unstudied, were drawn forth into the clear light of day. From such inquisitors darkness cannot hide its arcana, and, to such, difficulty cannot say 'nay.' But this chosen priest of nature has gone his way, leaving the grand task of unveiling the phenomena of creation to those upon whom his mantle, not entire perhaps, but parted into many pieces, may in the good providence of God be permitted to alight.

It will ever be a deep problem for us why Heaven should select a child here and there in each generation in order to endow it with intellect or energy upon a princely scale-why one individual should be born to mental opulence, and another doomed to mental penury; one a splendid poet, for example, to whose singing a hundred ages will listen delightedly, the other a miserable poetaster, whose lays cannot attract a single auditor, or keep him for more than a minute, if found. In many countries trades were, and in some still are, hereditary. Offices have run in certain families from the highest-that of a sovereign, to the humblest-that of an executioner. Had genius been confined to particular classes, and had the duty of ministering at the high altar of nature, like the duties of the priesthood in the Levitical family, been transmissible from parents to children, the world would have been very much the worse for such an arrangement. Fortunately, when the insignia of office are to be bestowed, no one can tell upon whom they will devolve: there is not a peasant's hut where the messenger bearing the precious gifts of intellect may not stop and shower them down upon some smiling infant in its unrocked cradle, as the good old fairies used to do in the grand old times of romance.

Just such a beneficent fairy (if we may venture to pursue the fancy for a moment further) paused at the door of a blacksmith in Newington Butts, on the 24th of September, 1791. Silently she lifted the latch, softly she bent over the bed where a newborn infant slept. Unseen she bestowed upon it the mysterious baptism of genius, and straightway little Faraday was consecrated one of the brilliant brotherhood.

At first his prospects were by no means assuring. Judging from there was no reason why he should not pursue appearances, his father's occupation; for the old adage that genius will rise probably contains, like many other time-honoured aphorisms, quite as much error as truth. It does not follow that a strong man confined in a dungeon will escape from it simply because he is strong, nor that talent of a special description will shine

forth in full lustre, unless it comes in contact with the conditions upon which its development depends. Faraday's father, however, like most loving parents, was anxious that his son should take a higher stand in the social scale than himself, and accordingly, after giving him a modest schooling, had him apprenticed to a bookbinder; but though the employment proved uncongenial in itself, it afforded him the privilege of looking into the interior of books as well as of adorning their exterior. An encyclopædia being sent to bind, the youth fastened eagerly upon the article electricity,' and conceived a strong affection for the science in the pursuit of which his greatest triumphs were subsequently won. To most boys, indeed, there is something particularly captivating in the performances of the electric fluid. All its phenomena are brilliant, sparkling, showy, surprising. It charms the youthful imagination to think that it can brew mimic thunder, fill a phial with mock lightning, and manufacture in an exhausted tube an imitation aurora borealis. There is a pleasing horror in contemplating a Leyden jar with its ambushed dangers, and in seeing the fiery element leap forth the moment its lair is approached. Besides, the science has a prankish air, which renders it inexpressibly gratifying to the juvenile heart. To administer a sly shock to a friend or an enemy (the first is preferable on the score of fun, especially considering the air of indignant astonishment with which the outrage is received) is enough to enchant a lad with the machine; but to discharge a whole battery through the body of some unfortunate dog-penitently we plead guilty to the perpetration of a similar atrocity-throws him into paroxysms of delight, and almost suffices to make an electrician of him for life.

In a far more philosophical spirit, however, young Faraday began to experiment for himself, constructing such implements as he required out of the homeliest materials at command. Just as the boy Davy seized upon a superannuated glyster apparatus, and converted it into an air-pump, so his successor in the chieftainship of science raised a medicine phial to the honourable office of a Leyden jar, and a common bottle to the dignity of an electrical machine. All who have worked their way through this introductory stage know that the rude and clumsy contrivances of the tyro afford him far more exquisite enjoyment than instruments of the most costly construction, and of the most consummate workmanship; and that he can wring more pleasure out of a thermometer or electroscope of his own devis ing, than out of apparatus capable of registering phenomena

to a hair.

With this decided bias for science, the young bookbinder

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developed an equally decided 'aversion to trade.' He began to look upon the latter as vicious and selfish,' whilst he fondly fancied that the pursuits of the philosopher must necessarily render him amiable and liberal.' The moral element-mistaken or not in its manifestations-was already 'cropping out' strongly in his character. How to escape from business and to enter into the service of science, became a question of paramount importance for him. A simple but fortunate circumstance suggested the course he should pursue. Having obtained admission to a course of lectures which Sir Humphry Davy (then untitled) was delivering at the Royal Institution, his love of natural philosophy was not only strengthened by what he heard, but converted into an inextinguishable passion. In the remarkable man who had just revolutionized chemistry, who had taken the town by storm as a lecturer, and who had inspired people of all grades with a sudden liking for subjects, which till then had been mostly confined to the laboratory (as anatomy is reserved for the dissecting-room), there was much to fascinate, indeed, indelibly to impress a youth who fondly believed that the ways of science must be ways of pleasantness, and all her paths, paths of honour and of peace. That man-the son of a Cornish carver-had come to London with an uncouth appearance, an unfortunate smirk upon his countenance, and such an unprepossessing manner about him, that a dinner-giving publisher thought it necessary to apologize to the company on one occasion for including him amongst the guests. And yet no sooner had this unpromising young Provincial taken his stand in the theatre of the Royal Institution, than crowds flocked to the place to hear the truths of nature eloquently expounded, and to see her phenomena demonstrated by experiments the most vivid and original. Philosophers hastened to the spot, not knowing but that each day might bring forth some striking discovery; and poets, like Coleridge, went to increase their stock of tropes and metaphors. The sensation created by his first course of ' lectures at the Institution (wrote Mr. Purkis), and the enthu'siastic admiration which they obtained, is at this period scarcely 'to be imagined, Compliments, invitations, and presents were showered upon him in abundance from all quarters; his society was courted by all, and all appeared proud of his acquaintance.' The age, in fact, had just voted a crown of laurel to science, and insisted upon placing it on the head of Davy as her representative.

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But never amongst the Cornishman's auditors was there one who listened with more earnestness than the young bookbinder, * Faraday's Letter to Sir Humphry Davy.

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whose heart yearned towards philosophy, and who longed, above all things, to escape from the trammels of 'trade.' Doubtless it was with a flushed countenance and a bounding pulse that he gazed upon the man who talked of nature as if he were closeted with her daily, and who manipulated her phenomena with an air of mastership which was perfectly bewitching. Why should not Faraday follow in the same track, and dedicate himself, however humbly, to the same ennobling pursuits? But how to obtain footing in the charmed domain of science was the difficulty; for if he went thither at all, it must be in a capacity which would buy him bread, as well as procure him fame or pleasure. He had already tried many experiments, and he was destined to try many more; but probably none ever cost him so much anxiety as the one he now undertook, for the problem before him was how to discover the philosopher's stone, which would convert the leaden duties of trade' into the golden enjoyments of science. At first, it is said, he wrote to Sir Joseph Banks as the official chief of the savans-a man, who for forty years presided over their discoveries though he effected none himself, and whose name, as Cuviér remarked in his éloge, brillera avec éclat dans l'histoire des sciences,' though his works 'se réduisent à quelques feuilles.' But the baronet was too busy or too indifferent to attend to an obscure applicant. Faraday then determined to ask assistance from Davy. It was an adventurous step, for how could he expect that the fashionable philosopher, whose weakness for patrician society was developing itself strongly, and had already exposed him to the charge of tuft hunting, would take the slightest notice of an appeal from a discontented bookbinder? But the attempt was made, Faraday forwarding at the same time a copy of the notes he had taken of some lectures delivered by the renowned Cornishman. Much to his surprise, more to his delight, the reply was prompt and encouraging. The Napoleon of Chemistry would feel gratified if he could be of any service to his correspondent: he hoped it might be in his power: on returning to town at the end of the next month he would be glad to see Mr. Faraday: 'Sir, your most obedient humble servant, H. Davy.' Certainly not a frosty formal rejoinder, written as it were with an icicle, bidding him be warned at an imaginary fire, or clothed at the expense of the parish or the public, but an epistle with promise in it, and better still, with an air of performance about it which subsequent events did not belie. For, in the course of a few weeks the chemist requested an interview with the bookbinder, and told him that the situation of assistant in the laboratory of the Royal Institution was vacant. Would that suit him? If

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