. After his fiftieth year
he devoted two hours a day, snatched from his sleep, to improving
himself in orthography, grammar, and writing.

Michael Faraday was a poor boy, son of a blacksmith, who apprenticed
him at the age of thirteen to a bookbinder in London. Michael laid the
foundations of his future greatness by making himself familiar with the
contents of the books he bound. He remained at night, after others had
gone, to read and study the precious volumes. Lord Tenterden was proud
to point out to his son the shop where his father had shaved for a
penny. A French doctor once taunted Flechier, Bishop of Nismes, who
had been a tallow-chandler in his youth, with the meanness of his
origin, to which he replied, "If you had been born in the same
condition that I was, you would still have been but a maker of candles."

The Duke of Argyle, walking in his garden, saw a Latin copy of Newton's
"Principia" on the grass, and supposing that it had been taken from his
library, called for some one to carry it back. Edmund Stone, however,
the son of the duke's gardener, claimed it. "Yours?" asked the
surprised nobleman. "Do you understand geometry, Latin, and Newton?"
"I know a little of them," replied Edmund. "But how," asked the duke,
"came you by the knowledge of all these things?" "A servant taught me
to read ten years since," answered Stone. "Does one need to know
anything more than the twenty-four letters, in order to learn
everything else that one wishes?" The duke was astonished. "I first
learned to read," said the lad; "the masons were then at work upon your
house. I approached them one day and observed that the architect used
a rule and compasses, and that he made calculations. I inquired what
might be the meaning and use of these things, and I was informed that
there was a science called arithmetic. I purchased a book of
arithmetic and learned it. I was told that there was another science
called geometry; I bought the necessary books and learned geometry. By
reading I found that there were good books on these sciences in Latin,
so I bought a dictionary and learned Latin. I understood, also, that
there were good books of the same kind in French; I bought a
dictionary, and learned French. This, my lord, is what I have done; it
seems to me that we may learn everything when we know the twenty-four
letters of the alphabet."

Edwin Chadwick, in his report to the British Parliament, stated that
children