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

CHAP, xm.] SENDS HIS SON TO COLLEGE. 149
pursuit and reception of knowledge—that it is not too much to
say, that in that short period he learnt more than most students
do during a three years' course. He attended the chemical lec-
tures of Dr. Hope, the lectures on natural philosophy by Sir
John Leslie, and the natural history classes of Jameson ; and
his evenings were sedulously devoted to the study of practical
chemistry under Dr. John Murray, himself one of the numerous
speculators respecting the safety lamp. This six months' study
cost his father 80^., a considerable sum with him in those days ;
but he was amply repaid when his son returned to Killingworth,
in the summer of 1821, bringing with him the prize for mathe-
matics, which he had gained at the University.