over to
him, with the sanction of the companies concerned, nearly all the railway
appointments which he held.

Robert Stephenson amply repaid his father's care. The sound education of
which he had laid the foundations at school, improved by his subsequent
culture, but more than all by his father's example of application,
industry, and thoroughness in all that he undertook, told powerfully in
the formation of his character, not less than in the discipline of his
intellect. His father had early implanted in him habits of mental
activity, familiarized him with the laws of mechanics, and carefully
trained and stimulated his inventive faculties, the first great fruits of
which, as we have seen, were exhibited in the triumph of the "Rocket" at
Rainhill. "I am fully conscious in my own mind," said the son at a
meeting of the Mechanical Engineers at Newcastle, in 1858, "how greatly
my civil engineering has been regulated and influenced by the mechanical
knowledge which I derived directly from my father; and the more my
experience has advanced, the more convinced I have become that it is
necessary to educate an engineer in the workshop. That is, emphatically,
the education which will render the engineer most intelligent, most
useful, and the fullest of resources in times of difficulty."

Robert Stephenson was but twenty-six years old when the performances of
the "Rocket" established the practicability of steam locomotion on
railways. He was shortly after appointed engineer of the Leicester and
Swannington Railway; after which, at his father's request, he was made
joint engineer with himself in laying out the London and Birmingham
Railway, and the execution of that line was afterwards entrusted to him
as sole engineer. The stability and excellence of the works of that
railway, the difficulties which had been successfully overcome in the
course of its construction, and the judgment which was displayed by
Robert Stephenson throughout the whole conduct of the undertaking to its
completion, established his reputation as an engineer; and his father
could now look with confidence and with pride upon his son's
achievements. From that time forward, father and son worked together as
one man, each jealous of the other's honour; and on the father's
retirement, it was generally recognized that, in the sphere of railways,
Robert Stephenson was the foremost man, the safest guide, and the most
active worker.

Robert Stephenson was sub