Early Education and Natural Philosophy

My father expressed a wish that I should attend a course of lectures upon natural philosophy,

to which I cheerfully consented. Some accident prevented my attending these lectures until the

course was nearly finished. The lecture, being therefore one of the last,

was entirely incomprehensible to me. The professor discoursed with the greatest fluency of potassium

and boron, of sulphates and oxyds, terms to which I could affix no idea;

and I became disgusted with the science of natural philosophy, although I still read Pliny and Buffon

with delight, authors, in my estimation, of nearly equal interest and utility.

My occupations at this age were principally the mathematics, and most of the branches of study