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Men of Invention and Industry-Part51_Samuel Smiles(1812-1904)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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too often the foes of work. Hence we have usually to go to

out-of-the-way corners of the country for our hardest



brain-workers. Contact with the earth is a great restorer of

power; and it is to the country folks that we must ever look for



the recuperative power of the nation as regards health, vigour,

and manliness.



Bainbridge is a remote country village, situated among the high

lands or Fells on the north-western border of Yorkshire. The



mountains there send out great projecting buttresses into the

dales; and the waters rush down from the hills, and form



waterfalls or Forces, which Turner has done so much to

illustrate. The river Bain runs into the Yore at Bainbridge,



which is supposed to be the site of an old Roman station. Over

the door of the Grammar School is a mermaid, said to have been



found in a camp on the top of Addleborough, a remarkable

limestone hill which rises to the south-east of Bainbridge. It



is in this grammar-school that we find the subject of this little

autobiography. He must be allowed to tell the story of his



life--which he describes as ' Work: Good, Bad, and Indifferent'

--in his own words:



"I was born on November 20th, 1853. In my childhood I suffered

from ill-health. My parents let me play about in the open air,



and did not put me to school until I had turned my sixth year.

One day, playing in the shoemaker's shop, William Farrel asked me



if I knew my letters. I answered 'No.' He then took down a

primer from a shelf, and began to teach me the alphabet, at the



same time amusing me by likening the letters to familiar objects

in his shop. I soon learned to read, and in about six weeks I



surprised my father by reading from an easy book which the

shoemaker had given me.



"My father then took me into the school, of which he was master,

and my education may be said fairly to have begun. My progress,



however, was very slow partly owing to ill-health, but more, I

must acknowledge, to carelessness and inattention. In fact,



during the first four years I was at school, I learnt very little

of anything, with the exception of reciting verses, which I



seemed to learn without any mental effort. My memory became very

retentive. I found that by attentively reading half a page of



print, or more, from any of the school-books, I could repeat the

whole of it without missing a word. I can scarcely explain how I



did it; but I think it was by paying strict attention to the

words as words, and forming a mental picture of the paragraphs as



they were grouped in the book. Certain, I am, that their sense

never made much impression on me, for, when questioned by the



teacher, I was always sent to the bottom of the class, though

apparently I had learned my exercise to perfection.



"When I was twelve years old, I made the acquaintance of a very

ingenious boy, who came to our school. Samuel Bridge was a born



mechanic. Though only a year older than myself, such was his

ability in the use of tools, that he could construct a model of



any machine that he saw. He awakened in me a love of mechanical

construction, and together we made models of colliery



winding-frames, iron-rolling mills, trip-hammers, and

water-wheels. Some of them were not mere toys, but constructed



to scale, and were really good working models. This love of

mechanical construction has never left me, and I shall always



remember with affection Samuel Bridge, who first taught me to use

the hammer and file. The last I heard of him was in 1875, when



he passed his examination as a schoolmaster, in honours, and was

at the head of his list.



"During the next two years, when between twelve and fourteen, I

made comparatively slow progress at school. I remember having to



write out the fourth commandment from memory. The teacher

counted twenty-three mistakes in ten lines of my writing. It



will be seen from this, that, as regards learning, I continued

heedless and backward. About this time, my father, who was a






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