Famous Men of Science

by Sarah Knowles Bolton

CHARLES ROBERT DARWIN.

At Shrewsbury, England, February 12, 1809, Charles Robert Darwin was born, in a square, red-brick house at the top of a terraced bank leading down to the Severn. The greenhouse with its varied plants, the ornamental shrubs and trees in the grounds, became a delight as soon as the boy was old enough to observe them.

The mother, Susannah, the daughter of Josiah Wedgwood of Etruria, a woman with a sweet and happy face, died when Charles was eight years old, leaving five other children; Marianne, Caroline, Erasmus, Susan, and Catherine. Charles says of her in his autobiography, "It is odd that I can remember hardly anything about her except her death-bed, her black velvet gown, and her curiously constructed work-table." She evidently encouraged the boy's love for flowers, for he used to say, at school, that his mother had taught him "how, by looking at the inside of the blossom, the name of the plant could be discovered."

The father, Robert Waring Darwin, was a well known physician, a man of fine physique and courtly manner, who had amassed wealth by his skill and business ability. Charles's admiration of him was unbounded: "the wisest man I ever knew," he used often to say.

"His chief mental characteristics," said Darwin, "were his powers of observation and his sympathy, neither of which have I ever seen exceeded or even equalled. His sympathy was not only with the distresses of others, but in a greater degree with the pleasures of all around him. This led him to be always scheming to give pleasure to others, and, though hating extravagance, to perform many generous actions. For instance, Mr. B——, a small manufacturer in Shrewsbury, came to him one day, and said he should be bankrupt unless he could at once borrow ten thousand pounds, but that he was unable to give any legal security. My father heard his reasons for believing that he could ultimately repay the money, and, from his intuitive perception of character, felt sure that he was to be trusted. So he advanced this sum, which was a very large one for him while young, and was after a time repaid.

"I suppose that it was his sympathy which gave him unbounded power of winning confidence, and as a consequence made him highly successful as a physician. He began to practise before he was twenty-one years old, and his fees during the first year paid for the keep of two horses and a servant. On the following year his practice was large, and so continued for about sixty years, when he ceased to attend on any one. His great success as a doctor was the more remarkable as he told me that he at first hated his profession so much that if he had been sure of the smallest pittance, or if his father had given him any choice, nothing should have induced him to follow it. To the end of his life, the thought of an operation almost sickened him, and he could scarcely endure to see a person bled—a horror which he has transmitted to me."

Charles went to the day-school in Shrewsbury, when he was eight years old. "By the time I went to this day-school," he says, "my taste for natural history, and more especially for collecting, was well developed. I tried to make out the names of plants, and collected all sorts of things, shells, seals, franks, coins, and minerals. The passion for collecting, which leads a man to be a systematic naturalist, a virtuoso, or a miser, was very strong in me, and was clearly innate, as none of my sisters or brothers ever had this taste....

"I must have been a very simple little fellow when I first went to the school. A boy of the name of Garnett took me into a cake-shop one day, and bought some cakes, for which he did not pay, as the shopman trusted him. When he came out I asked him why he did not pay for them, and he instantly answered, 'Why, do you not know that my uncle left a great sum of money to the town on condition that every tradesman should give whatever was wanted without payment to any one who wore his old hat and moved it in a particular manner?' and he then showed me how it was moved. He then went into another shop where he was trusted, and asked for some small article, moving his hat in the proper manner, and of course obtained it without payment.

"When we came out, he said: 'Now, if you like to go by yourself into that cake-shop (how well I remember its exact position) I will lend you my hat, and you can get whatever you like if you move the hat on your head properly.' I gladly accepted the generous offer, and went in and asked for some cakes, moved the old hat and was walking out of the shop when the shopman made a rush at me, so I dropped the cakes and ran for dear life, and was astonished by being greeted with shouts of laughter by my false friend Garnett.