"In 1874, I commenced painting in tempora, and then in oil, copying the pictures lent to the school from the South Kensington Art Library. I worked also from still life, and began sketching from nature in oil and water-colours, sometimes selling my work to help me to buy materials for art-work and scientific experiments. I was, however, able to do very little in the following year, as I was at home suffering from sciatica. For nine months I could not stand erect, but had to hobble about with a stick. This illness caused me to give up my teachership.
"Early in 1876 I returned to Darlington. I went on with my art studies and the science of chemistry; though I went no further in heliochromy. I pushed forward with anatomy. I sent about fifteen works to South Kensington, and gained as my third-grade prize in list A the 'Dictionary of Terms used in Art' by Thomas Fairholt, which I found a very useful work. Towards the end of the year, my father, whose health was declining, sent for me home to assist him in the school. I now commenced the study of Algebra and Euclid in good earnest, but found it tough work. My father, though a fair mathematician, was unable to give me any instruction; for he had been seized with paralysis, from which he never recovered. Before he died, he recommended me to try for a schoolmaster's certificate; and I promised him that I would. Iobtained a situation as master of a small village school, not under Government inspection; and I studied during the year, and obtained a second class certificate at the Durham Diocesan College at Christmas, 1877. Early in the following year, the school was placed under Government inspection, and became a little more remunerative.
"I now went on with chemical analysis, making my own apparatus.
Requiring an intense heat on a small scale, I invented a furnace that burnt petroleum oil. It was blown by compressed air. After many failures, I eventually succeeded in bringing it to such perfection that in 7 1/2 minutes it would bring four ounces of steel into a perfectly liquefied state. I next commenced the study of electricity and magnetism; and then acoustics, light, and heat. I constructed all my apparatus myself, and acquired the art of glass-blowing, in order to make my own chemical apparatus, and thus save expense.
"I then went on with Algebra and Euclid, and took up plane trigonometry; but I devoted most of my time to electricity and magnetism. I constructed various scientific apparatus--a syren, telephones, microphones, an Edison's megaphone, as well as an electrometer, and a machine for covering electric wire with cotton or silk. A friend having lent me a work on artificial memory, I began to study it; but the work led me into nothing but confusion, and I soon found that if I did not give it up, Ishould be left with no memory at all. I still went an sketching from Nature, not so much as a study, but as a means of recruiting my health, which was far from being good. At the beginning of 1881 I obtained my present situation as assistant master at the Yorebridge Grammar School, of which the Rev. W. Balderston, M.A., is principal.
"Soon after I became settled here, I spent some of my leisure time in reading Emerson's 'Optics,' a work I bought at an old bookstall. I was not very successful with it, owing to my deficient mathematical knowledge. On the May Science Examinations of 1881 taking place at Newcastle-on-Tyne, applied for permission to sit, and obtained four tickets for the following subjects:-- Mathematics, Electricity and Magnetism, Acoustics, Light and Heat, and Physiography. During the preceding month I had read up the first three subjects, but, being pressed for time, I gave up the idea of taking physiography. However, on the last night of the examinations, Ihad some conversation with one of the students as to the subjects required for physiography. He said, 'You want a little knowledge of everything in a scientific way, and nothing much of anything.'
I determined to try, for 'nothing much of anything' suited me exactly. I rose early next morning, and as soon as the shops were open I went and bought a book on the subject, 'Outlines of Physiography,' by W. Lawson, F.R.G.S. I read it all day, and at night sat for the examination. The results of my examinations were, failure in mathematics, but second class advanced grade certificates in all the others. I do not attach any credit to passing in physiography, but merely relate the circumstance as curiously showing what can be done by a good 'cram.'
"The failure in mathematics caused me to take the subject 'by the horns,' to see what I could do with it. I began by going over quadratic equations, and I gradually solved the whole of those given in Todhunter's larger 'Algebra.' Then I re-read the progressions, permutations, combinations; the binomial theorem, with indices and surds; the logarithmic theorem and series, converging and diverging. I got Todhunter's larger 'Plane Trigonometry,' and read it, with the theorems contained in it;then his 'Spherical Trigonometry;' his 'Analytical Geometry, of Two Dimensions,' and 'Conics.' I next obtained De Morgan's 'Differential and Integral Calculus,' then Woolhouse's, and lastly, Todhunter's. I found this department of mathematics difficult and perplexing to the last degree; but I mastered it sufficiently to turn it to some account. This last mathematical course represents eighteen months of hard work, and I often sat up the whole night through. One result of the application was a permanent injury to my sight.
