he lot of nearly all boys, whether
ordinary or extraordinary. At the early age of thirteen, he was taken
from school and placed on trial as errand-boy in the book-shop of George
Ribeau, in London. After a year at this work, he was taken as an
apprentice to the book-binding trade, by the same employer, who, on
account of his faithful services, remitted the customary premium. At
this work he spent some eight years of his life.

But far be it from us even to hint at the absence of genius in the young
child. Genius is not an acquired gift. It is born in the individual.
Apart from the marvellous achievements of the man, a mere glance at the
magnificent head, with its high intellectual forehead, the firm lips,
the intelligent inquiring eyes, and the bright face, as seen in existing
pictures, assures us that they portray an unusual individuality,
incompatible with even a suspicion of belonging to an ordinary man.
Doubtless the growing child did give early promise of his future
greatness. Doubtless he was a formidable member of that terrible class
of inquiring youngsters who demand the why and the wherefore of all
around them, and refuse to accept the unsatisfactory belief of their
fathers that things "are because they are." In its self-complacency, the
busy world is too apt to fail to notice unusual abilities in
children,--abilities that perhaps too often remain undeveloped from lack
of opportunities. But whether young Faraday did or did not, at an early
age, display any unusual promise of his life-work, all his biographers
appear to agree that he could not be regarded as a precocious child.

Faraday disclaimed the idea that his childhood was distinguished by any
precocity. "Do not suppose that I was a very deep thinker, or was marked
as a precocious person," says Faraday, when alluding to his early life.
"I was a very lively, imaginative person, and could believe in the
'Arabian Nights' as easily as the 'Encyclopaedia,' but facts were
important to me, and saved me. I could trust a fact and always
cross-examined an assertion. So when I questioned Mrs. Marcet's book [he
is alluding to her 'Conversations on Chemistry'], by such little
experiments as I could find means to perform, and found it true to the
facts as I could understand them, I felt that I had got hold of an
anchor in chemical knowledge, and clung fast to it."

But while there may be a question as to the existence of precocity in
the young lad, there does not appea