The Story of the Peasantboy Philosopher Author:Henry Mayhew Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER II. The Boy-philosopher's First Experiments. How small a spark will fire a train of thought in a young mind! The boy-poet, Chatterton, could not b... more »e made to learn his letters until he happened one day to be struck by the quaint-looking old English characters on one of his mother's thread-papers. The genius of the illustrious mechanician, Vau- canson, might, perhaps, have been lost to the world had not his father confined him, when a lad, by way of punishment, in a spare room ; and the child amused himself by pulling to pieces an old clock that was in it And even the great Newton was, as has been before stated, first incited to study by a feeling of revenge that made him resolve to excel a senior boy at school who had severely ill-treated him. Thus it was with little Owen Evans! Had it not been for the wonder begotten in him by his father'sraising the roof of their cottage, he might, perhaps, have never troubled his hrain concerning the laws of motion. " What difference could it have made if the other arm of the beam had been longer ?" he asked himself. " How could a yard or two, added to the end of a log, have given me the force of a man and even of a giant ? What power has a foot or two of wood to make me lift a weight more than enough to crush me?" Such were the inquiries that crossed the boy's mind as he lay on his back, with his eyes fixed vacantly on the clouds that flitted across the sky like breath upon a mirror. Presently he started to his feet, for a sudden thought had struck him. A short distance from where he lay stood a huge block of stone—a lump of the adjacent rock, torn off by the floods, carried down the stream, and deposited at the edge of the river. Owen went towards it, and placing his hands against the block, pushed with al...« less