The author in his boyhood knew three men who worked in an agricultural implement maker's shop. They worked in wood and iron, and made carts, ploughs, harrows, drilling-machines, and such-like articles. Somehow or other, the idea got into their heads that they might be able to do something better than making carts and harrows. They did not despise the lot of hand-labour, but they desired to use it as a step towards something better. Their wages at that time could not have exceeded from eighteen to twenty shillings a week.
Two of the young men, who worked at the same bench, contrived to save enough money to enable them to attend college during the winter. At the end of each session they went back to their hand-labour, and earned enough wages during the summer to enable them to return to their classes during the winter. The third did not adopt this course. He joined a mechanics' institute which had just been started in the town in which he lived. By attending the lectures and reading the books in the library, he acquired some knowledge of chemistry, of the principles of mechanics, and of natural philosophy. He applied himself closely, studied hard in his evening hours, and became an accomplished man.
It is not necessary to trace their history; but what they eventually arrived at, may be mentioned. Of the first two, one became the teacher and proprietor of a large public school; the other became a well-known dissenting minister; while the third, working his way strenuously and bravely, became the principal engineer and manager of the largest steamship company in the world.
Although mechanics' institutes are old institutions, they have scarcely been supported by working men. The public-house is more attractive and more frequented. And yet mechanics' institutes—even though they are scarcely known south of Yorkshire and Lancashire—have been the means of doing a great deal of good. By placing sound mechanical knowledge within the reach of even the few persons who have been disposed to take advantage of them, they have elevated many persons into positions of great social influence. "We have heard a distinguished man say publicly, that a mechanics' institution had made him; that but for the access which it had afforded him to knowledge of all kinds, he would have occupied a very different position. In short, the mechanics' institution had elevated him from the position of a licensed victualler to that of an engineer.
We have referred to the wise practice of men in humble position maintaining themselves by their trade until they saw a way towards maintaining themselves by a higher calling. Thus Herschell maintained himself by music, while pursuing his discoveries in astronomy. When playing the oboe in the pump-room at Bath, he would retire while the dancers were lounging round the room, go out and take a peep at the heavens through his telescope, and quietly return to his instrument. It was while he was thus maintaining himself by music, that he discovered the Georgium Sidus. When the Royal Society recognized his discovery, the oboe-player suddenly found himself famous.
Franklin long maintained himself by his trade of printing. He was a hard-working man,—thrifty, frugal and a great saver of time. He worked for character as much as for wages; and when it was found that he could be relied on, he prospered. At length he was publicly recognized as a great statesman, and as one of the most scientific men of his time.
Ferguson, the astronomer, lived by portrait painting, until his merits as a scientific man were recognized. John Dollond maintained himself as a silk weaver in Spitalfields. In the course of his studies he made great improvements in the refracting telescope; and the achromatic telescope, which he invented, gave him a high rank among the philosophers of his age. But during the greater part of his life, while he was carrying on his investigations, he continued, until the age of forty-six, to carry on his original trade. At length he confined himself entirely to making telescopes; and then he gave up his trade of a silk weaver. Winckelmann, the distinguished writer on classical antiquities and the fine arts, was the son of a shoemaker. His father endeavoured, as long as he could, to give his hoy a learned education; but becoming ill and worn-out, he had eventually to retire to the hospital. Winckelmann and his father were once accustomed to sing at night in the streets to raise fees to enable the boy to attend the grammar school. The younger Winckelmann then undertook, by hard labour, to support his father; and afterwards, by means of teaching, to keep himself at college. Every one knows how distinguished he eventually became.
Samuel Richardson, while writing his novels, stuck to his trade of a bookseller. He sold his books in the front shop, while he wrote them in the back. He would not give himself up to authorship, because he loved his independence. "You know," he said to his friend Defreval, "how my business engages me. You know by what snatches of time I write, that I may not neglect that, and that I may preserve that independency which is the comfort of my life. I never sought out of myself for patrons. My own industry and God's providence have been my whole reliance. The great are not great to me unless they are good, and it is a glorious privilege that a middling man enjoys, who has preserved his independency, and can occasionally (though not stoically) tell the world what he thinks of that world, in hopes to contribute, though by his mite, to mend it."
The late Dr. Olynthus Gregory, in addressing the Deptford Mechanics' Institution at their first anniversary, took the opportunity of mentioning various men in humble circumstances (some of whom he had been able to assist), who, by means of energy, application, and self-denial, had been able to accomplish great things in the acquisition of knowledge. Thus he described the case of a Labourer on the turnpike road, who had become an able Greek scholar; of a Fifer, and a Private Soldier, in a regiment of militia, both self-taught mathematicians, one of whom became a successful schoolmaster, the other a lecturer on natural philosophy; of a journeyman Tin-plate worker, who invented rules for the solution of cubic equations; of a country Sexton, who became a teacher of music, and who, by his love of the study of musical science, was transformed from a drunken sot to an exemplary husband and father; of a Coal Miner (a correspondent of Dr. Gregory's), who was an able writer on topics of the higher mathematics; of another correspondent, a labouring Whitesmith, who was also well acquainted with the course of pure mathematics, as taught at Cambridge, Dublin, and the military colleges; of a Tailor, who was an excellent geometrician, and had discovered curves which escaped the notice of Newton, and who laboured industriously and contentedly at his trade until sixty years of age, when, by the recommendation of his scientific friends, he was appointed Nautical Examiner at the Trinity House; of a ploughman in Lincolnshire, who, without aid of men or books, discovered the rotation of the earth, the principles of spherical astronomy, and invented a planetary system akin to the Tychonic; of a country Shoemaker, who became distinguished as one of the ablest metaphysical writers in Britain, and who, at more than fifty years of age, was removed by the influence of his talents and their worth, from his native country to London, where he was employed to edit some useful publications devoted to the diffusion of knowledge and the best interests of mankind.
Students of Art have had to practise self-denial in many ways. Quentin Matsys, having fallen in love with a painter's daughter, and determined to win her. Though but a blacksmith and a farrier, he studied art so diligently, and acquired so much distinction, that his mistress afterwards accepted the painter whom she had before rejected as the blacksmith. Flaxman, however, married his wife before he had acquired any distinction whatever as an artist. He was merely a skilful and promising pupil. When Sir Joshua Reynolds heard of his marriage, he exclaimed, "Flaxman is ruined for an artist!" But it was not so. When Flaxman's wife heard of the remark, she said, "Let us work and economize; I will never have it said that Ann Denbam ruined John Flaxman as an artist." They economized accordingly. To earn money, Flaxman undertook to collect the local rates; and what with art and industry, the patient, hard-working, thrifty couple, after five years of careful saving, set out for Rome together. There Flaxman studied and worked; there he improved his knowledge of art; and there he acquired the reputation of being the first of English sculptors.