DR. KIRWAN’S LIBRARY.
COPIES BOOKS.
But all this labor, this constant exertion, combined with his kind and cheerful disposition, must, you will readily believe, have given him friends. He became known as a young man of great promise; as one more capable than his elders of deciding many questions, particularly all those in which any calculations were to be made. Consequently, when about seventeen or eighteen years old, he was often called upon, by men much older than himself, to act as umpire in important matters. All these he attended to so willingly and skilfully, that those whom he assisted became very much attached to him. He thus gained the respect not merely of common persons, less learned than himself, but his industry, his fidelity to his employers, his talents, attracted the notice of men well known in the community. Among these were two clergymen of Salem. At the church of Rev. Dr. Prince he attended for divine worship; and Dr. Bentley rarely passed the store without stepping in to talk with his young friend. Nat availed himself of the learning of Dr. Bentley, and often visited his room in order to converse with him. Dr. Prince, the other clergyman above alluded to, had studied much the subjects that the apprentice was pursuing, and he was very glad to see a young man zealous in the same pursuits. There was another individual who kept an apothecary’s shop; and it was he, who, with the aid of the two clergymen, opened to our young student the means of continuing his favorite studies with more success than he had ever anticipated. Mr. Reed—for that was his name—likewise gave him permission to use all his books, of which he had a great many. But the chief means of study, to which I allude, was the permission to take books from a library which had been formed by a number of gentlemen of the town. The kindness of the proprietors of this library was never forgotten by the young apprentice; and in his will, made fifty years afterwards, he left a thousand dollars to the Salem Athenæum, in order to repay the debt of gratitude which he felt he had incurred. But you may want to know something about the formation of this library, and the books of which it was composed. Some time during the Revolutionary War, alluded to in Chapter I., Dr. Kirwan, an Irishman and a learned man, put the greater part of his library on board a ship, in order to have it carried across the Irish Channel. While on the voyage, the vessel was taken by an American ship of war, and the books were carried into Beverly, and were afterwards sold at auction in Salem. Of all in the world, these books were perhaps those most needed by the apprentice. He had been studying those sciences chiefly, concerning which there were very few works printed in America; and suddenly he found himself allowed free access to all the important books which had been printed in Europe upon these same subjects. You may readily imagine how eagerly he availed himself of the opportunity thus afforded him. Every two or three days he was seen with a number of volumes under his arm, going homeward; and on his arrival there, he read and copied all he wanted to study at that time, or refer to afterwards. He made, in this way, a very large collection of manuscripts, which formed a part of his library. Thus, by his own exertions, he, at the early age of eighteen, became acquainted with the writings of most of the learned men of Europe; and he did this at the time when he was engaged almost constantly in his store, for he made it a strict rule never to allow any study or reading, however interesting, to interfere with his duties to his employers. He rarely forgot this. The following incident impressed it so strongly upon his memory, that it influenced all his subsequent life.
ATTENTION TO BUSINESS.
One day a customer called and purchased a pair of hinges at a time when the young clerk was deeply engaged in solving a problem in mathematics. He thought he would finish before charging the delivery of them upon the books; but when the problem was solved, he forgot the matter altogether. In a few days the customer called again to pay for them, when Mr. Hodges himself was in the shop. The books were examined, and gave no account of this purchase. The clerk, upon being applied to, at once recollected the circumstance, and the reason of his own forgetfulness. From that day he made it an invariable rule to finish every matter of business that he began, before undertaking anything else. Perhaps some of you may remember the story; and when you think of leaving anything half finished, you may repeat to yourselves, “Charge your hinges, and finish what you begin.”
STUDIES LATIN.
Having been instructed in the elements of algebra, Nat soon found that there were books written upon it in other languages, which he knew he ought to read, if he intended to learn as much as he could about algebra. One of these books was written in a tongue which is called a dead language, in consequence of its having ceased to be spoken by the people of the country in which it was originally used. It was in Latin. This language usually requires many years of study, if one wishes to read it well, even when he has good instructors. Our hero, however, never thought of the difficulties he had to surmount, but commenced, alone, the study of it, June, 1790, that is, when seventeen years old. He was soon in trouble. He could not understand his Latin book on mathematics. He asked many who had been at college, but they were puzzled by the peculiar expressions as much as he was. At length, however, by the aid of his friend Dr. Bentley, and afterwards of a German who gave him lessons, he succeeded in mastering the greatest work in modern times, written by Sir Isaac Newton, who, you know, was one of the most famous philosophers who have ever lived in this world. Nat discovered in one part of it a mistake, which, several years afterwards, he published; but he was deterred from doing so at first, because a very much older person than he, a professor in Harvard College, said that the apprentice was mistaken.
STUDY OF FRENCH.
GOOD RESULTS.