Читать книгу Nat the Navigator. A Life of Nathaniel Bowditch. For Young Persons - Henry I. Bowditch - Страница 5

His apprenticeship, his habits.—Studies Chambers’s Cyclopædia.—Results of his studies; gains the respect of all.—Dr. Bentley, Dr. Prince, and Mr. Reed, do him kindness; by their means allowed access to “The Philosophical Library.”—He makes philosophical instruments.—Calculates an Almanac at the age of fourteen.—Studies algebra: delight he experienced from this new pursuit.—Learns Latin.—Reads works by Sir Isaac Newton.—Studies French.

CHANGE OF ABODE.

WORK AT THE SHOP.

THOUGHTFULNESS FOR OTHERS.

Doubtless it was with a sorrowing heart that Nat left his own dear home and his kind mother to take up his abode among strangers; for he was to live at the house of his employer, Mr. Hodges. But if he did feel sad, he was not one to neglect a duty in consequence of sorrow. The shop in which he was employed was situated very near the wharves, in the lower part of the town of Salem. We do not see many such stores now in Boston; though something similar is sometimes found in small country towns. In it a great variety of goods was sold, especially everything which would be useful to a sailor. Pork and nails, hammers and butter, were kept in adjacent barrels. The walls were hung with all the tools needed in the seafaring life. There was a long counter in it, at one end of which Nat had his little desk. When not engaged with customers, he used to read and write there. He always kept a slate by his side, and, when not occupied by the duties of the shop, he was usually busied with his favorite pursuit of arithmetic. In the warm weather of summer, when there was little business, and the heat was uncomfortable, he was often seen, by the neighbors, engaged in ciphering, while resting his slate upon the half door of the shop; for in those days the shop doors were made in two parts, so that frequently the lower half was shut, while the upper was open. Thus he was always actively employed, instead of being idle, as is too frequently the case with boys in similar circumstances. Even on the great holidays of Fourth of July and “General Training,” he did not leave his studies for the purpose of going to see the parade, but remained at the shop, laboring to improve himself; or, if the shop was closed, he was in his little garret-room at his employer’s house. Study and reading were beginning to be his only recreation. Frequently, after the store was closed at night, he remained until nine or ten o’clock. Many long winter nights he passed in a similar manner, at his master’s house by the kitchen fire. While here, he did not become morose or ill-natured; but frequently, when the servant girl wished to go to see her parents, who lived one or two miles off, he took her place by the side of the cradle of his master’s child, and rocked it gently with his foot, while busily occupied at his books. I think this was one of the sweetest incidents in his early days. It was the germ of his benevolence in after-life. A truly great man is kind-hearted as well as wise. Nat began thus early his course of genuine humanity and science. So must you do if you would imitate him.

HIGHER STUDIES.

As he became older, he became interested in larger and more important works; and of these, fortunately, he found an abundant supply. His employer lived in the house of Judge Ropes, and Nat had permission to use the library of this gentleman as much as he wished. In this collection he found one set of books which he afterwards valued very much. He tried to buy a copy of it when he was old, having a similar feeling towards it that he bore towards his grandmother’s Bible. It was Chambers’s Cyclopædia. As you may judge from the name Cyclopædia, these books, consisting of four very large volumes, contained much upon a great many subjects. It is like a dictionary. He read every piece in it, and copied into blank books, which he obtained for the purpose, everything he thought particularly interesting, especially all about arithmetic. Previously, he had studied navigation, or the methods whereby the sailors are enabled to guide their ships across the ocean. In this Cyclopædia he found much upon this subject; also upon astronomy, or the knowledge of the stars and other heavenly bodies; and upon mensuration, or the art with which we are enabled to measure large quantities of land or water.

ALMANAC FOR 1790.

But he was not satisfied with merely studying what others did. He made several dials and curious instruments for measuring the weather, &c. He likewise, at the age of fourteen years, made an Almanac for 1790, so accurately and minutely finished, that it might have been published. Whilst engaged upon this last, he was more than usually laborious. The first rays of the morning saw him at labor, and he sat up, with his rushlight, until late at night. If any asked where Nat was, the reply was, “He is engaged in making his Almanac.” He was just fourteen years of age when he finished it.[2]

BEGINS ALGEBRA.

HIS DELIGHT IN IT.

August 1, 1787,—that is, at the age of fourteen,—he was introduced to a mode of calculating which was wholly new to him. His brother came home from his school, where he had been learning navigation, and told him that his master had a mode of ciphering by means of letters. Nat puzzled himself very much about the matter, and imagined a variety of methods of “ciphering with letters.” He thought that perhaps A added to B made C, and B added to C made D, and so on; but there seemed to him no use in all this. At length he begged his brother to obtain for him the book. The schoolmaster readily lent it; and it is said that the boy did not sleep that night. He was so delighted with reading about this method, or algebra, as it is called, that he found it impossible to sleep. He afterwards talked with an old English sailor, who happened to know something about the subject, and received some little instruction from him. This person afterwards went to his own country; but just before he left Salem, he patted Nat upon the head, and said, “Nat, my boy, go on studying as you do now, and you will be a great man one of these days.” You will see, before finishing this story, that the prophecy of the old sailor was amply fulfilled.

DRS. PRINCE AND BENTLEY AID HIM.

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.

But Latin was not the only language that he learned. Finding in the Kirwan library many books upon mathematics written in French, he determined to learn that tongue likewise. Accordingly, at the age of nineteen (May 15, 1792), he began to study it. Fortunately, he was able to make an arrangement with a Frenchman living in Salem, who wished to learn English. Mr. Jordy agreed to teach the apprentice French, on condition that Nat would teach him English. For sixteen months they met regularly, a certain number of times a week; and the consequences were very important to the youth’s future success in life. One circumstance took place, during this study of French, which I think it important to mention. Nat, desiring only to learn to read a French book, supposed that it would be unnecessary to spend time in learning accurately to pronounce the words. These, as is the case in the English tongue, are often pronounced very differently from the manner in which we should be led to speak them, if we judged from their mode of spelling. His master protested against teaching without reference to the pronunciation; and, after much arguing, Nat yielded to the wishes of his instructor, and he studied the language in such a way that he could converse with a Frenchman, as well as read a French book. You will soon see the good that resulted.