His brother would perform the calculations
upon a slate, and usually found his answers correct.
When he was about half through his apprenticeship he suddenly took it
into his head to learn Latin, and began at once through the assistance of
the same elder brother. In the evenings of one winter he read the Aeneid
of Virgil; and, after going on for a while with Cicero and a few other
Latin authors, he began Greek. During the winter months he was obliged
to spend every hour of daylight at the forge, and even in the summer his
leisure minutes were few and far between. But he carried his Greek
grammar in his hat, and often found a chance, while he was waiting for a
large piece of iron to get hot, to open his book with his black fingers,
and go through a pronoun, an adjective, or part of a verb, without being
noticed by his fellow-apprentices.
So he worked his way until he was out of his time, when he treated
himself to a whole quarter's schooling at his brother's school, where he
studied mathematics, Latin, and other languages. Then he went back to
the forge, studying hard in the evenings at the same branches, until he
had saved a little money, when he resolved to go to New Haven and spend a
winter in study.
Pages:
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31