llustrated them with drawings of the
apparatus used.

After completing his apprenticeship, Faraday began life as a
journeyman bookbinder. He had, however, as he says, "no taste for
trade." His love of science became a consuming desire that he sought
in every way to gratify. Inspired by his longing for scientific
pursuits, he sent his lecture notes to Sir Humphry Davy, with the
request that if opportunity offered he would give him employment at
the Royal Institution. Davy was favorably impressed with the lecture
report, and sent a kindly reply to the young philosopher. Shortly
after this a vacancy did happen to occur at the Institution, and upon
the recommendation of Davy, Faraday was elected to the place. Thus, in
1813, in the humble capacity of an assistant charged with the simple
duty of dusting and caring for the apparatus, Michael Faraday began
the life that was destined to make him the first scientist of the
world and to bring honor to the Institution which had given him his
opportunity.

There is inspiration and encouragement to be found in reading the
story of Faraday's success. He has been called a genius; but his
genius seems to have largely consisted in persistent industry and the
habit acquired in those early days of thinking over his experiments
and reading until he had a clear perception of all there was in them.
He lived in his work, and loved it. In the fifty busy years that
followed his installment at the Royal Institution he digged deep into
nature's secrets, and gave the world many brilliant gems as evidence
of his industry. But of all his discoveries, _electro-magnetic
induction_ is the crowning masterpiece and that for which the world
stands most his debtor.

The principle of conservation of energy, now so well known and
universally accepted, was then but a vague guess in the minds of the
more advanced in science. Faraday was among the first to accept the
new doctrine, and many of his brilliant discoveries were made in his
effort to prove the truth of these important generalizations. He was
acquainted with Sturgeon's method of making magnets by sending a
current of electricity through a wire wound around a bar of iron; and
he reasoned, if electricity will make a magnet, a magnet ought to make
electricity. As early as 1821 his note book contains this suggestion:
"Convert magnetism into electricity." Again and again he attacked the
problem; but it was not until the autumn of 1831 that his efforts t