The life of George Stephenson, railway engineer - Lighthouse ...

142 LIFE OF GEOEGE STEPHENSON. [chap. xni.
CHAPTEE XIII.
EDUCATION OF HIS SON.
Although men of Mr. Stephenson's scope and frame of mind
are in a great measure independent of instruction, none under-
stand better than they do the advantages of scholastic and
scientific training. In the course of his progress in life, from
the position of a humble colliery brakesman to that of chief en-
gineer of an extensive colliery, every step of which he had gal-
lantly won by dint of constant struggle and persistent industry,
he had felt himself almost daily hampered, restrained, and placed
at a disadvantage, in consequence of his want of elementary
instruction.
Not having been made acquainted with what others before
him had done, he had often groped his way, as it were, in the
dark, in pursuit of some idea originated by his own independent
thinking and observation ; and when he had elaborated his views
and brought them into a definite shape, lo ! he very often found
that his supposed original idea was an old one, and that it had
long been recorded in scientific works, access to which was not
within his reach. " It is a maxim," says Mr. Babbage,* " equally
just in all arts, and in every science, that the man who aspires
to fortune or to fame by new discoveries, must be content to
examine with care the knowledge of his contemporaries, or to
exhaust his efforts in inventing what he will most probably find
has been better executed before." No man was more keenly
conscious of this truth than George Stephenson ; and he often
took occasion to give expression to it in his homely and forcible
way, when addressing workmen at the meetings of Mechanics'
* On " Economy in Machinery and Manufactures.
"