WHAT A BOY DID | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jul 21, 1881

WHAT A BOY DID.

A Duke, walking in his garden one day, saw a Latin copy of a great work on mathematics lying on the grass, and, thinking it had been brought from his library, called some one to carry it back.

"It belongs to me, sir," said the gardener's son, stepping up.

"Yours," cried the Duke, "do you understand geometry and Latin?"

"I know a little of them," answered the lad, modestly.

The Duke, having a taste for the sciences, began to talk with the young student, and was astonished at the clearness and intelligence of his answers.

"But how came you to know so much?" asked the Duke.

"One of the servants taught me to read," answered the lad; "one does not need to know anything more than the twenty-four letters in order to learn everything else one wishes." But the gentleman wanted to know more about it.

"After I learned to read," said the boy, "the masons came to work on your house; I noticed the architect used a rule and compasses, and made a great many calculations. What was the use and meaning of that? I asked, and they told me of a science called arithmetic. I bought an arithmetic, and studied it through. They told me there was another science called geometry. I bought the books and learned geometry. Then I found there were better books about these two sciences in Latin. I heard there were still better in French. I got a dictionary and learned French. It seems to me we can learn everything when we know the twenty-four letters of the alphabet."

They are, in fact, the ladder to every science. But how many boys are contented to waste their time at the first two or three rounds, with not pluck or perseverance enough to climb higher. Up, up, up, if you want to know more, and see clearer, and take a high post of usefulness in the world. And if you are a poor boy, and need a little friendly encouragement to help you on, be sure, if you have a will to climb, you will find the way just as this gardener's son found it afterwards in the Duke of Argyll, under whose patronage he pursued his studies, and became a distinguished mathematician. Stone's Mathematical Dictionary—for Stone was that young gardener's name—was a celebrated book published in London some years ago.—Selected.