Makers of Electricity

by Brother Potamian; James J. Walsh

Dubois Reymond, in Berlin, declared Faraday "the greatest experimentalist of all times, and the greatest physical discoverer that ever lived." Professor Martius said before the Academy of Sciences at Munich, "Deservedly has Faraday been called the greatest experimenter of his epoch, and that the greatest epoch of scientific experimentation down to our time." Dumas, the French chemist, in the panegyric delivered before the French Academy of Sciences, declared that Faraday was "the greatest scientific scholar that the Academy ever possessed." In order to give a picture of what he had accomplished in electricity, added Dumas, one would have to write a complete treatise on that subject. "There is nothing in this department of science that Faraday has not investigated completely or very materially modified. Much of this chapter of our modern science is his creation and belongs undeniably to him." Beside these testimonies from French and German scientific contemporaries must be placed Tyndall's appreciation, which sets forth his brother scientist's merits. "Take him all in all," he said, "it must be admitted, I think, that Michael Faraday was the greatest experimental scientist that the world has ever seen."

Nor did these magnificent appreciations of Faraday cease when the enthusiasm for his memory, immediately after his death, had faded somewhat into sober realization of his merits. When Dumas summed up Faraday in the first Faraday lecture of the English Chemical Society, he said: "Faraday was a type of the most fortunate and the most accomplished of the learned men of our age. His hand, in the execution of his conceptions, kept pace with his mind in designing them; he never wanted boldness when he undertook an experiment, never lacked resources to insure success, and was full of discretion when interpreting results. His hardihood, which never halted once he had undertaken a task, and his wariness, which felt its way carefully in adopting a received conclusion, will ever serve as models for the experimentalist."

It is evident that the life of Faraday should be of supreme interest for a generation that is mainly interested in experimental science, and it so happens that his career contains many other sources of interest; for Faraday was a self-made man, who owed very little to anyone but himself and his own genius. Besides, he was a deep thinker with regard to all the problems of human life as well as those of science, and while he was a genial, kindly friend to those near him, the charming associate whom scientific intimates always welcomed, he had no illusions with regard to life being the end of all things, but looked confidently to the hereafter, and shaped his life here from that point of view.

Michael Faraday was born at Newington Butts, now called Stoke Newington, an outskirt of London, in Surrey, September 22d, 1791. His father was a journeyman blacksmith whose health was not very good, and as a consequence, the family suffered not a little from poverty. Both his parents were noted for their good habits, industrious lives and deep religious feelings. In spite of their poverty, as is much oftener the case than is sometimes thought, their children were brought up very carefully and had a precious training in high principles. Like most of his great colleagues in scientific discovery, Faraday had to begin to earn his livelihood early in life. Of educational opportunities he had practically none. He learned to read and write, and probably had a certain slight training in doing simple sums in arithmetic, but that was the extent of his formal teaching, and much of that he got at home. He had to help in the support of his family, and so it seemed fortunate that not far away from his home there was a bookstore and bindery, the owner of which became interested in the Faradays and took Michael as an errand boy when he was scarcely thirteen years of age.

It was here that the future scientist began his education for himself and, strange as it may seem, laid the deep foundation of his knowledge of science. For the first year he carried newspapers around to the customers, and did his work so faithfully that at the end of this time the book-binder offered to take him as an apprentice to the trade, without the usual premium which used to be rather strictly required for teaching boys their trades at that time. Faraday accepted this offer, but proved to be interested much more than in the outsides of the books he bound. Whatever of leisure there was he took advantage of to read a number of works on experimental science that happened to be in the shop. Luckily for him, some of these were classics. As an introduction to chemistry, he had Mrs. Marcet's "Conversations on Chemistry" and Robert Boyle's "Notes about the Producibleness of chimicall Principles." He was even more interested in electricity than in chemistry, however, and Lyons' "Experiments on Electricity" and the article on electricity in the Encyclopedia Britannica, whetted his interest and made the boy wish for more of such information. There probably could not be a better proof of the fact that, a man who really has intellectual interests will find the material with which to satisfy them, in spite of untoward circumstances, than this boyish experience of Faraday.

It is a curious anticipation of Faraday's after-career that he at once began to demonstrate by personal experiment some of the statements that he found in the books. He procured a stock of chemicals as far as his meagre salary would allow, and constructed a practical electrical machine, though he had nothing better than a large glass bottle to serve as a cylinder for it. When not yet fourteen, he noticed an advertisement of a set of lectures on natural philosophy. He was at once taken with the idea of going to them, but the price of admission, one shilling, seemed to place them entirely beyond him. His elder brother, who followed his father's trade of blacksmith, had more money than he, and, when properly cajoled, was persuaded to provide the necessary shillings, and so Faraday got to the lectures. Elder brothers do not often have to lend shillings to their juniors for admission to scientific lectures now any more than in Faraday's time, so that the incident seems worth noting.

In attendance at these lectures, Faraday not only learned much that was new to him in science, but met a number of earnest fellow-students and formed some life-long friendships. He took copious notes, and afterwards wrote them out in a fine, legible hand, making excellent drawings in perspective of the apparatus employed in the experiments. His notes were so extensive that Faraday bound them himself, in four volumes, with an index. These volumes are still preserved in the library of the Royal Institution as one of the precious treasures among its Faraday relics.[29] The whole story of these early years of Faraday's life is a series of illustrations of how a young man without the necessary opportunities for his favorite studies can make them for himself. Everything seemed to be against his acquiring a thorough knowledge of science, yet he succeeded in creating for himself the equivalent of a good scientific course out of his meagre chances to hear lectures and read books on his favorite subject in the intervals of a busy life as book-seller and book-binder.

Things did not always continue to run along as pleasantly in life for young Faraday as while he was working for his book-binder friend as an apprentice. With the conclusion of his apprenticeship he became a journeyman book-binder, and his first employer proved to be a hard task-master. It did not matter how much work Faraday did or how well, it never quite satisfied this French émigré, until it is no wonder that Faraday looked for another occupation. For a time, he had the congenial occupation of acting as amanuensis for Sir Humphry Davy, who, while working on a new violent explosive, probably chloride of hydrogen, met with an accident which prevented him from using his eyes for some time. This occupation, pleasant and even alluring as it was, lasted only for a few days, however. It had the fortunate result of suggesting to Faraday to apply to Sir Humphry Davy in person for a position not long after, and it eventually brought him the position of assistant at the Royal Institution.

His anxiety to secure this post had been increased by the growing realization that a business life was not to his liking. It seemed to him a waste of time, or worse, for a man to give himself up to the making of money. Even thus young he had the ambition to add to the knowledge possessed by mankind, and the insatiable desire to increase the opportunities of others to learn whatever they were interested in. Accordingly, he set about finding the chance to devote himself entirely to science.

In writing years after to Dr. Paris, he says: "My desire to escape from trade, which I thought vicious and selfish, and to enter into the service of science, which I imagined made its pursuers amiable and liberal, induced me at last to take the bold and simple step of writing to Sir Humphry Davy, expressing my wishes, and a hope that, if an opportunity came in his way, he should favor my views; and at the same time I sent the notes I had taken of his lectures." Davy called, not long after, on one of his friends, who was at the time honorary inspector of the models and apparatus at the Royal Institution, and with the letter before him asked: "Here is a letter from a young man named Faraday; he has been attending my lectures and wants me to give him employment at the Royal Institution. What can I do?" "Do?" replied the inspector; "put him to wash bottles. If he is good for anything, he will do it directly; if he refuses, he is good for nothing." "No, no," replied Davy, "we must try him with something better than that."