Now he got up and studied through the small hours of the morning until
the time came when he had to transfer his industry to shoemaking, or go
to school on the appointed days after the distant eight o'clock had
come.  His brother had got worn out. Early sleep seemed to be the best.
They then both went to bed about eight o'clock, and got the policeman
to call them up before retiring himself.

"So the struggle went on, until the faithful old schoolmaster thought
that his young pupil might try the examination at the Bangor Normal
College.  He was now eighteen years of age; and it was eighteen months
since the time when he began to learn the counties of England and
Wales.  He went to Bangor, rigged out in his brother's coat and
waistcoat, which were better than his own; and with his brother's watch
in his pocket to time himself in his examinations.  He went through his
examination, but returned home thinking he had failed.  Nevertheless,
he had in the meantime, on the strength of a certificate which he had
obtained six months before, in an examination held by the Society of
Arts and Sciences in Liverpool, applied for a situation as teacher in a
grammar-school at Ormskirk in Lancashire.  He succeeded in his
application, and had been there for only eight days when he received a
letter from Mr. Rowlands, Principal of the Bangor Normal College,
informing him that he had passed at the head of the list, and was the
highest non-pupil teacher examined by the British and Foreign Society.
Having obtained permission from his master to leave, he packed his
clothes and his few books.  He had not enough money to carry him home;
but, unasked, the master of the school gave him 10s.  He arrived home
about three o'clock on a Sunday morning, after a walk of eleven miles
over a lonely road from the place where the train had stopped.  He
reeled on the way, and found the country reeling too.  He had been
sleeping eight nights in a damp bed.  Six weeks of the Bangor Session
passed, and during that time he had been delirious, and was too weak to
sit up in bed.  But the second time he crossed the threshold of his
home he made for Bangor and got back his "position," which was all
important to him, and he kept it all through.

"Having finished his course at Bangor he went to keep a school at
Brynaman; he endeavoured to study but could not.  After two years he
gave up the school, and with 60L. saved he faced the world once more.
There was a scholarship of the value of 40L. a year, for three years,
attached to one of the Scotch Universities, to be competed for.  He
knew the Latin Grammar, and had, with help, translated one of the books
of Caesar.  Of Greek he knew nothing, save the letters and the first
declension of nouns; but in May he began to read in earnest at a
farmhouse.  He worked every day from 6 A.M. to 12 P.M. with only an
hour's intermission.  He studied the six Latin and two Greek books
prescribed; he did some Latin composition unaided; brushed up his
mathematics; and learnt something of the history of Greece and Rome.
In October, after five months of hard work, he underwent an examination
for the scholarship, and obtained it; beating his opponent by
twenty-eight marks in a thousand.  He then went up to the Scotch
University and passed all the examinations for his ordinary M.A. degree
in two years and a half.  On his first arrival at the University he
found that he could not sleep; but he wearily yet victoriously plodded
on; took a prize in Greek, then the first prize in philosophy, the
second prize in logic, the medal in English literature, and a few other
prizes.

"He had 40L. when he first arrived in Scotland; and he carried away
with him a similar sum to Germany, whither he went to study for honours
in philosophy.  He returned home with little in his pocket, borrowing
money to go to Scotland, where he sat for honours and for the
scholarship.  He got his first honours, and what was more important at
the time, money to go on with.  He now lives on the scholarship which
he took at that time; is an assistant professor; and, in a fortnight,
will begin a course of lectures for ladies in connection with his
university.  Writing to me a few days ago,[13] he says, 'My health,
broken down with my last struggle, is quite restored, and I live with
the hope of working on.  Many have worked more constantly, but few have
worked more intensely.  I found kindness on every hand always, but had
I failed in a single instance I should have met with entire bankruptcy.
The failure would have been ruinous.... I thank God for the struggle,
but would not like to see a dog try it again.  There are droves of lads
in Wales that would creep up but they cannot.  Poverty has too heavy a
hand for them.'"

The gentleman whose brief history is thus summarily given by Mr.
Davies, is now well known as a professor of philosophy; and, if his
health be spared, he will become still better known.  He is the author
of several important works on 'Moral Philosophy,' published by a
leading London firm; and more works are announced from his pen.  The
victorious struggle for knowledge which we have recounted might
possibly be equalled, but it could not possibly be surpassed.  There
are, however, as Mr. Davies related to the Parliamentary Committee,
many instances of Welsh students--most of them originally
quarrymen--who keep themselves at school by means of the savings
effected from manual labour, "in frequent cases eked out and helped by
the kindness of friends and neighbours," who struggle up through many
difficulties, and eventually achieve success in the best sense of the
term.  "One young man"--as the teacher of a grammar-school, within two
miles of Bangor, related to Mr. Davies--"who came to me from the quarry
some time ago, was a gold medallist at Edinburgh last winter;" and
contributions are readily made by the quarrymen to help forward any
young man who displays an earnest desire for knowledge in science and
literature.

It is a remarkable fact that the quarrymen of Carnarvonshire have
voluntarily contributed large sums of money towards the establishment
of the University College in North Wales--the quarry districts in that
county having contributed to that fund, in the course of three years,
mostly in half-crown subscriptions, not less than 508L. 4s. 4d.--"a
fact," says Mr. Davies, "without its parallel in the history of the
education of any country;" the most striking feature being, that these
collections were made in support of an institution from which the
quarrymen could only very remotely derive any benefit.

While I was at Bangor, on the 24th of August, 1883, the news arrived
that the Committee of Selection had determined that Bangor should be
the site for the intended North Wales University College.  The news
rapidly spread, and great rejoicings prevailed throughout the borough,
which had just been incorporated.  The volunteer band played through
the streets; the church bells rang merry peals; and gay flags were
displayed from nearly every window.  There never was such a triumphant
display before in the cause of University education.

As Mr. Cadwalladr Davies observed at the banquet, which took place on
the following day: "The establishment of the new institution will mark
the dawn of a new era in the history of the Welsh people.  He looked to
it, not only as a means of imparting academical knowledge to the
students within its walls, but also as a means of raising the
intellectual and moral tone of the whole people.  They were fond of
quoting the saying of a great English writer, that there was something
Grecian in the Celtic race, and that the Celtic was the refining
element in the British character; but such remarks, often accompanied
as they were with offensive comparisons from Eisteddfod platforms,
would in future be put to the test, for they would, with their new
educational machinery, be placed on a footing of perfect equality with
the Scotch and the Irish people."

And here must come to an end the character history of my autumn tour in
Ireland, Scotland, Yorkshire, and Wales.  I had not the remotest
intention when setting out of collecting information and writing down
my recollections of the journey.  But the persons I met, and the
information I received, were of no small interest--at least to myself;
and I trust that the reader will derive as much pleasure from perusing
my observations as I have had in collecting and writing them down.  I
do think that the remarkable persons whose history and characters I
have endeavoured, however briefly, to sketch, will be found to afford
many valuable and important lessons of Self-Help; and to illustrate how
the moral and industrial foundations of a country may be built up and
established.


Footnotes for Chapter XII.

[1] A "poet," who dates from "New York, March 1883," has published
seven stanzas, entitled "Change here for Blairgowrie," from which we
take the following:--

  "From early morn till late at e'en,
  John's honest face is to be seen,
  Bustling about the trains between,
  Be 't sunshine or be 't showery;
  And as each one stops at his door,
  He greets it with the well-known roar
  Of 'Change here for Blairgowrie.'
  Even when the still and drowsy night
  Has drawn the curtains of our sight,
  John's watchful eyes become more bright,
  And take another glow'r aye
  Thro' yon blue dome of sparkling stars
  Where Venus bright and ruddy Mars
  Shine down upon Blairgowrie.
  He kens each jinkin' comet's track,
  And when it's likely to come back,
  When they have tails, and when they lack--
  In heaven the waggish power aye;
  When Jupiter's belt buckle hings,
  And the Pyx mark on Saturn's rings,
  He sees from near Blairgowrie."

[2] The Observatory, No. 61, p. 146; and No. 68, p. 371.

[3] In an article on the subject in the Dundee Evening Telegraph, Mr.
Robertson observes:  "If our finite minds were more capable of
comprehension, what a glorious view of the grandeur of the Deity would
be displayed to us in the contemplation of the centre and source of
light and heat to the solar system.  The force requisite to pour such
continuous floods to the remotest parts of the system must ever baffle
the mind of man to grasp.  But we are not to sit down in indolence: our
duty is to inquire into Nature's works, though we can never exhaust the
field.  Our minds cannot imagine motion without some Power moving
through the medium of some subordinate agency, ever acting on the sun,
to send such floods of light and heat to our otherwise cold and dark
terrestrial ball; but it is the overwhelming magnitude of such power
that we are incapable of comprehending.  The agency necessary to throw
out the floods of flame seen during the few moments of a total eclipse
of the sun, and the power requisite to burst open a cavity in its
surface, such as could entirely engulph our earth, will ever set all
the thinking capacity of man at nought."

[4] The Observatory, Nos. 34, 42, 45, 49, and 58.

[5] We regret to say that Sheriff Barclay died a few months ago,
greatly respected by all who knew him.

[6] Sir E. Denison Beckett, in his Rudimentary Treatise on clocks and
Watches and Bells, has given an instance or the telescope-driving
clock, invented by Mr. Cooke (p. 213).

[7] J. Norman Lockyer, F.R.S.--Stargazing, Past and Present, p. 302.

[8] This excellent instrument is now in the possession of my
son-in-law, Dr. Hartree, of Leigh, near Tunbridge.

[9] An interesting account of Mr. Alvan Clark is given in Professor
Newcomb's 'Popular Astronomy,' p. 137.

[10] A photographic representation of this remarkable telescope is
given as the frontispiece to Mr. Lockyer's Stargazing, Past and
Present; and a full description of the instrument is given in the text
of the same work.  This refracting telescope did not long remain the
largest.  Mr. Alvan Clark was commissioned to erect a larger equatorial
for Washington Observatory; the object-glass (the rough disks of which
were also furnished by Messrs. Chance of Birmingham) exceeding in
aperture that of Mr. Cooke's by only one inch.  This was finished and
mounted in November, 1873.  Another instrument of similar size and
power was manufactured by Mr. Clark for the University of Virginia.
But these instruments did not long maintain their supremacy.  In 1881,
Mr. Howard Grubb, of Dublin, manufactured a still larger instrument for
the Austrian Government--the object-glass being of twenty-seven inches
aperture.  But Mr. Alvan Clark was not to be beaten.  In 1882, he
supplied the Russian Government with the largest refracting telescope
in existence the object-glass being of thirty inches diameter.  Even
this, however, is to be surpassed by the lens which Mr. Clark has in
hand for the Lick Observatory (California), which is to have a clear
aperture of three feet in diameter.

[11] Since the above passage was written and in type, I have seen (in
September 1884) the reflecting telescope referred to at pp. 357-8.  It
was mounted on its cast-iron equatorial stand, and at work in the field
adjoining the village green at Bainbridge, Yorkshire.  The mirror of
the telescope is 8 inches in diameter; its focal length, 5 feet; and
the tube in which it is mounted, about 6 feet long.  The instrument
seemed to me to have an excellent defining power.

But Mr. Lancaster, like every eager astronomer, is anxious for further
improvements.  He considers the achromatic telescope the king of
instruments, and is now engaged in testing convex optical surfaces,
with a view to achieving a telescope of that description.  The chief
difficulty is the heavy charge for the circular blocks of flint glass
requisite for the work which he meditates.  "That," he says, "is the
great difficulty with amateurs of my class."  He has, however, already
contrived and constructed a machine for grinding and polishing the
lenses in an accurate convex form, and it works quite satisfactorily.
Mr. Lancaster makes his own tools.  From the raw material, whether of
glass or steel, he produces the work required.  As to tools, all that
he requires is a bar of steel and fire; his fertile brain and busy
hands do the rest.  I looked into the little workshop behind his
sitting-room, and found it full of ingenious adaptations.  The turning
lathe occupies a considerable part of it; but when he requires more
space, the village smith with his stithy, and the miller with his
water-power, are always ready to help him.  His tools, though not
showy, are effective.  His best lenses are made by himself:  those
which he buys are not to be depended upon.  The best flint glass is
obtained from Paris in blocks, which he divides, grinds, and polishes
to perfect form.

I was attracted by a newly made machine, placed on a table in the
sitting-room; and on inquiry found that its object was to grind and
polish lenses.  Mr. Lancaster explained that the difficulty to be
overcome in a good machine, is to make the emery cut the surface
equally from centre to edge of the lens, so that the lens will neither
lengthen nor shorten the curve during its production.  To quote his
words:  "This  really involves the problem of the 'three bodies,' or
disturbing forces so celebrated in dynamical mathematics, and it is
further complicated by another quantity, the 'coefficient of
attrition,' or work done by the grinding material, as well as the
mischief done by capillary attraction and nodal points of superimposed
curves in the path of the tool.  These complications tend to cause
rings or waves of unequal wear in the surface of the glass, and ruin
the defining power of the lens, which depends upon the uniformity of
its curve.  As the outcome of much practical experiment, combined with
mathematical research, I settled upon the ratio of speed between the
sheave of the lens-tool guide and the turn-table; between whose limits
the practical equalization of wear (or cut of the emery) might with the
greater facility be adjusted, by means of varying the stroke and
eccentricity of the tool.  As the result of these considerations in the
construction of the machine, the surface of the glass 'comes up'
regularly all over the lens; and the polishing only takes a few
minutes' work--thus keeping the truth of surface gained by using a
rigid tool."

The machine in question consists of a revolving sheave or ring, with a
sliding strip across its diameter; the said strip having a slot and
clamping screw at one end, and a hole towards the other, through which
passes the axis of the tool used in forming the lens,--the slot in the
strip allowing the tool to give any stroke from 0 to 1.25 inch.  The
lens is carried on a revolving turn-table, with an arrangement to allow
the axis of the lens to coincide with the axis of the table.  The ratio
of speed between the sheave and turn-table is arranged by belt and
properly sized pulleys, and the whole can be driven either by hand or
by power. The sheave merely serves as a guide to the tool in its path,
and the lens may either be worked on the turn-table or upon a chuck
attached to the tool rod.  The work upon the lens is thus to a great
extent independent of the error of the machine through shaking, or bad
fitting, or wear; and the only part of the machine which requires
really first-class work is the axis of the turn-table, which (in this
machine) is a conical bearing at top, with steel centre below,--the
bearing turned, hardened, and then ground up true, and run in
anti-friction metal.  Other details might be given, but these are
probably enough for present purposes.  We hope, at some future time,
for a special detail of Mr. Lancaster's interesting investigations,
from his own mind and pen.

[12] The translations are made by W. Cadwalladr Davies, Esq.

[13] This evidence was given by Mr. W. Cadwalladr Davies on the 28th
October, 1880.