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The World and the University · The Story of My Boyhood and Youth

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Chapter eight of the Story of My Boyhood and Youth. This is a LibriVox
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recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or
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to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Recording by Sue Anderson. The
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Story of My Boyhood and Youth by John Muir, Chapter eight, The World
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and the University. Leaving home, creating a sensation in Pardyville, a ride
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on a locomotive at the State Fair in Madison, employment in a machine shop
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at Prairie Deshin, Back to Madison, entering the university teaching school, first
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lesson in botany more inventions, the University of the Wilderness. When I told
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Father that I was about to leave home, and in quiet whether if I
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should happen to be in need of money he would send me a little,
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he said, No, depend entirely on yourself. Good advice, I suppose,
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but surely needlessly severe for a bashful, home loving boy who had worked
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so hard. I had the gold sovereign that my grandfather had given me when
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I left Scotland, and a few dollars, perhaps ten, that I had
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made by raising a few bushels of grain on a little patch of sandy abandoned
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ground. So when I left home to try the world, I had only
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about fifteen dollars in my pocket, strange to say. Father carefully taught us
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to consider ourselves very poor worms of the dust, conceived in sin et cetera,
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and devoutly believed that quenching every spark of pride and self confidence was a
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sacred duty, without realizing that in so doing he might at the same time
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be quenching everything else. Praise he considered most venomous, and tried to assure
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me that when I was fairly out in the wicked world making my own way,
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I would soon learn that although I might have thought him a hard taskmaster,
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at times strangers were far harder. On the contrary, I found no
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lack of kindness and sympathy. All the baggage I carried was a package made
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up of the two clocks and a small thermometer made of a piece of old
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washboard, all three tied together with no covering or case of any sort,
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the whole looking like one very complicated machine. The aching parting from Mother and
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my sisters was of course hard to bear. Father let David drive me down
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to Pardyville, a place I had never before seen, though it was only
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nine miles south of the Hickory Hill home. When we arrived at the village
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Tavern, it seemed deserted. Not a single person was in sight. I
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set my clock baggage on the rickety platform. David said good bye and started
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for home, leaving me alone in the world. The grinding noise made by
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the wagon in turning short brought out the landlord, and the first thing that
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caught his eye was my strange bundle. Then he looked at me and said,
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hello, young man. What's this machines? I said, for keeping
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time and getting up in the morning and so forth. Well, well,
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that's a mighty queer. Get up. You must be a down east Yankee.
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Where did you get the pattern for such a thing in my head?
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I said. Some one down the street happened to notice the landlord looking intently
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at something, and came up to see what it was. Three or four
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people in that little village formed an attractive crowd, and in fifteen or twenty
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minutes, the greater part of the population of Pardyville stood gazing in a circle
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around my strange hickory belongings. I kept outside of the circle, to avoid
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being seen, and had the advantage of hearing the remarks without being embarrassed.
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Almost every one as he came up would say, what's that? What's it
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for? Who made it? The landlord would answer them all alike, why
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a young man that lives out in the country somewhere made it? And he
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says it's a thing for keeping time getting up in the morning, and something
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that I didn't understand. I don't know what he meant. Oh no,
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one of the crowd would say that can't be. It's for something else,
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something mysterious. Mark my words. You'll see all about it in the newspapers.
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Some of these days. A curious little fellow came running up the street,
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joined the crowd, stood on tiptoe to get sight of the wonder,
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quickly made up his mind and shouted, in a crisp, confident cock crowing
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style, I know what that contraption's for. It's a machine for taking the
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bones out of fish. This was in the time of the great popular phrenology
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craze, when the fences and barns along the roads throughout the country were plastered
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with big skull bump posters headed know thyself and advising everybody to attend schoolhouse lectures,
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to have their heads explained and be told what they were good for and
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whom they ought to marry. My mechanical bundle seemed to bring a good deal
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of this phrenology to mind. For many of the onlookers would say, I
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wish I could see that boy's head. He must have a tremendous bump of
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invention. Others complimented me by saying, I wish I had that fellow's head.
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I'd rather have it than the best farm in the state. I stayed
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overnight at this little tavern, waiting for a train. In the morning,
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I went to the station and set my bundle on the platform. Along came
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the thundering train, A glorious sight, the first train I had ever waited
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for. When the conductor saw my queer baggage, he cried, Hello,
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what have we here? Inventions for keeping time, early rising and so forth?
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May I take them into the car with me? You can take them
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where you like, he replied, but you had better give them to the
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baggage master. If you take them into the car, they will draw a
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crowd and might get broken. So I gave them to the baggage master,
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and made haste to ask the conductor whether I might ride on the engine.
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He good naturedly said, yes, it's the right place for you. Run
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ahead and tell the engineer what I say. But the engineer bluntly refused to
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let me on, saying it don't matter what the conductor told you. I
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say, you can't ride on my engine. By this time, the conductor,
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standing ready to start his train, was watching to see what luck I
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had, and when he saw me returning, came ahead to meet me.
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The engineer won't let me on, I reported, won't he said the kind
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conductor, Oh, I guess he will. You come down with me,
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And so he actually took the time and patience to walk the length of that
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long train to get me on to the engine. Charlie said, he addressing
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the engineer, don't you ever take a passenger? Very seldom? He replied,
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Anyhow, I wish you would take this young man on. He has
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the strangest machines in the baggage car I ever saw in my life. I
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believe he could make a locomotive. He wants to see the engine running let
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him on. Then, in a low whisper, he told me to jump
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on which I did gladly, the engineer, offering neither encouragement nor objection.
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As soon as the train was started, the engineer asked what the strange thing
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the conductor spoke of really was only in vengeance for keeping time, getting folk
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up in the morning and so forth, I hastily replied, and before he
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could ask any more questions, I asked permission to go outside of the cab
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to see the machinery. This he kindly granted, adding be careful not to
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fall off, and when you hear me whistling for station, you come back,
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because if it is reported against me to the superintendent that I allow boys
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to run all over my engine, I might lose my job. Assuring him
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that I would come back promptly, I went out and walked along the foot
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board on the side of the boiler, watching the magnificent machine rushing through the
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landscapes as if glorying in its strength like a living creature. While seated on
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the cow catcher platform, I seemed to be fairly flying, and the wonderful
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display of power and motion was enchanting. This was the first time I had
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ever been on a train, much less a locomotive, since I had left
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Scotland. When I got to Madison, I thanked the kind conductor and engineer
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for my glorious bride, inquired the weight of the fair, shouldered my inventions,
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and walked to the fair ground. When I applied for an admission ticket
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at the window by the gate, I told the agent that I had something
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to exhibit. What is it? He inquired, Well, here it is,
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look at it. When he craned his neck through the window and got
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a glimpse of my bundle, he cried excitedly, Oh, you don't need
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a ticket, come right in. When I inquired of the agent where such
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things as mine should be exhibited, he said, you see that building up
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on the hill with a big flag on it. That's the Fine Arts Hall,
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and it's just the place for your wonderful invention. So I went up
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to the Fine Arts Hall and looked in, wondering if they would allow wood
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things in so fine a place. I was met at the door by a
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dignified gentleman, who greeted me kindly and said, young man, what have
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we got here? Two clocks and a thermometer? I replied, did you
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make these? They look wonderfully beautiful and novel and must I think, prove
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the most interesting feature of the fair. Where shall I place them? I
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inquired, Just look around, young man, and choose the place you like
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best, whether it is occupied or not. You can have your pick of
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all the building, and a carpenter to make the necessary shelving and assist you
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in every way possible. So I quickly had a shelf made large enough for
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all of them, went out on the hill and picked up some glacier boulders
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of the right size for weights, And in fifteen or twenty minutes the clocks
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were running. They seemed to attract more attention than anything else in the hall.
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I got lots of praise from the crowd and the newspaper reporters. The
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local press reports were copied into the eastern papers. It was considered wonderful that
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a boy on a farm had been able to invent and make such things,
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and almost every spectator foretold good fortune. But I had been so lectured by
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my father, above all things, to avoid praise, that I was afraid
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to read those kind newspaper notices, and never clipped out or preserved any of
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them, just glanced at them and turned away my eyes from beholding vanity.
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They gave me a prize of ten or fifteen dollars and a diploma for wonderful
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things not down in the list of exhibits. Many years later, after I
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had written articles and books, I received a letter from the gentleman who had
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charge of the Fine Arts Hall. He proved to be the professor of English
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literature in the University of Wisconsin at this fair time, and long afterward he
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sent me clippings of reports of his lectures. He had a lecture on me,
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discussing style, et cetera, and telling how well he remembered my arrival
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at the hall in my shirt sleeves, with those mechanical wonders on my shoulder,
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and so forth and so forth. These inventions, though of little importance,
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opened all doors for me and made marks that have lasted many years,
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simply, I suppose, because they were original and promising. I was looking
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around in the meantime to find out where I should go to seek my fortune.
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An inventor at the fair by the name of Willard was exhibiting an ice
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boat he had invented to run on the Upper Mississippi from Prairie Duchen to Saint
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Paul. During the winter months, explaining how useful it would be thus to
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make a highway of the river while it was closed to ordinary navigation by ice.
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After he saw my inventions, he offered me a place in his foundry
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and machine shop in Perrie Duchin, and promised to assist me all he could.
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So I made up my mind to accept his offer and rode with him
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to Perrie Duchin in his ice boat, which was moundeled on a flat car.
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I soon found, however, that he was seldom at home, and
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that I was not likely to learn much at his small shop. I found
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a place where I could work for my board and devote my spare hours to
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mechanical drawing, geometry and physics, making but little headway. However, although
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the Pelton family for whom I worked were very kind, I made up my
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mind, after a few months stay in Perrie Duchin to return to Madison,
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hoping that in some way I might be able to gain an education. At
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Madison. I raised a few dollars by making and selling a few of those
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bedsteads that set the sleepers on their feet in the morning, inserting in the
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foot board the works of an ordinary clock that could be bought for a dollar.
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I also made a few dollars a dressing circulars in an insurance office,
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while at the same time I was paying my board by taking care of a
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pair of horses and going errands. This is of no great interest, except
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that I was thus winning my bread while hoping that something would turn up that
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might enable me to make money enough to enter the state university. This was
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my ambition, and it never wavered, no matter what I was doing.
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No university, it seemed to me, could be more admirably situated. And
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as I soundered about it, charmed with its fine lawns and trees and beautiful
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lakes, and saw the students going and coming with their books and occasionally practicing
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with a theodolite in measuring distances, I thought that if I could only join
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them, it would be the greatest joy of life. I was desperately hungry
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and thirsty for knowledge, and willing to endure anything to get it. One
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day I chanced to meet a student who had noticed my inventions at the fair
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and now recognized me. And when I said, you are fortunate fellows to
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be allowed to study in this beautiful place, I wish I could join you.
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Well, why don't you, he said, I haven't money enough.
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I said, oh. As to money, he reassuringly explained, very little
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is required. I presume you're able to enter the freshman class, and you
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can board yourself, as quite a number of us do, at a cost
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of about a dollar a week. The baker and milkmen come every day.
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You can live on bread and milk. Well, I thought, maybe I
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have money enough for at least one beginning term. Anyhow, I couldn't help
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trying with fear and trembling. Overladen with ignorance, I called on Professor Sterling,
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the dean of the faculty, who was then acting president, presented my
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case and told him how far I had got on with my studies at home,
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and that I hadn't been to school since leaving Scotland at the age of
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eleven years, excepting one short term of a couple of months at a district
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school because I could not be spared from the farm work. After hearing my
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story, the kind professor welcomed me to the glorious University next, it seemed
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to me, to the Kingdom of Heaven. After a few weeks in the
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preparatory department, I entered the freshman class in Latin, I found that one
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of the books in use I had already studied in Scotland. So after an
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interruption of a dozen years, I began my Latin over again where I had
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left off, and strange to say, most of it came back to me,
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especially the grammar which I had committed to memory at the Dunbar Grammar School.
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During the four years that I was at the university, I earned enough
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in the harvest fields during the long summer vacations to carry me through the balance
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of each year, working very hard, cutting with a cradle four acres of
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wheat a day and helping to put it in the shock, but having to
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buy books and paying I thank thirty two dollars a year for instruction, and
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occasionally buying acids and retorts, glass tubing, bell, glasses, flasks,
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et cetera. I had to cut down expenses for board now and then to
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half a dollar a week. One winter I taught school ten miles north of
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Madison, earning much needed money at the rate of twenty dollars a month boarding
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round and keeping up my university work by studying at night. As I was
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not then well enough off to own a watch. I used one of my
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hickory clocks not only for keeping time, but for starting the school fire in
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the cold mornings and regulating class times. I carried it out on my shoulder
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to the old log school house and set it to work on a little shelf
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nailed to one of the knotty bulging logs. The winter was very cold,
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and I had to go to the schoolhouse and stop the fire about eight o'clock
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to warm it before the arrival of the scholars. This was a rather trying
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job, and one that my clock might easily be made to do. Therefore,
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after supper one evening, I told the head of the family with whom
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I was boarding that if he would give me a candle, I would go
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back to the schoolhouse and make arrangements for lighting the fire at eight o'clock without
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my having to be present until time to open the school at nine. He
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said, oh, young man, you have some curious things in the schoolroom,
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but I don't think you can do that. I said, oh,
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yes, it's easy, and in hardly more than an hour the simple job
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was completed. I had only to place a teaspoonful of powdered chlorate of potash
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and sugar on the stove hearth near a few shavings and kindling, and at
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the required time make the clock through a simple arrangement, touched the inflammable mixture
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with a drop of sulfuric acid. Every evening after school was dismissed, I
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shoveled out what was left of the fire into the snow, put in a
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little kindling, filled up the big box stove with heavy oak wood, placed
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the lighting arrangement on the hearth, and set the clock to drop the acid
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at the hour of eight, all this requiring only a few minutes. The
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first morning after I had made this simple arrangement, I invited the doubting farmer
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to watch the old squat schoolhouse from a window that overlooked it, to see
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if a good smoke did not arise from the stovepipe. Sure enough, on
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the minute he saw a tall column curling gracefully up through the frosty air.
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But instead of congratulating me on my success, he solemnly shook his head and
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said, in a hollow, lugubrious voice, young man, you'll be setting
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fire to the schoolhouse all winter long. That faithful clock fire never failed,
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and by the time I got to the schoolhouse, the stove was usually red
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hot. At the beginning of the long summer vacations, I returned to the
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Hickory Hill farm to earn the means in the harvest fields to continue my university
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course, walking all the way to save railroad fares. And though I cradled
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four acres of wheat a day, I made the long, hard, sweaty
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day's work still longer and harder by keeping up my study of plants. At
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the noon hour, I collected a large handful, put them in water to
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keep them fresh, and after supper got to work on them and sat up
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till after midnight analyzing and classifying, thus leaving only four hours for sleep.
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And by the end of the first year after taking up botany, I knew
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the principal flowering plants of the region. I received my first lesson in botany
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from a student by the name of Griswold, who was now County Judge of
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the County of Waukesha, Wisconsin. In the university, he was often laughed
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at on account of his anxiety to instruct others and his frequently saying with fine
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emphasis, imparting instruction is my greatest enjoyment. One memorable day in June,
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when I was standing on the stone steps of the North dormitory, mister Griswold
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joined me, and at once began to teach. He reached up, plucked
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a flower from an overspreading branch of a locust tree, and, handing it
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to me, said, mure, do you know what family this tree belongs
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to? No, I said, I don't know anything about botany. Well,
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no matter, said he, What is it like? It's like a
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pea flower. I replied, that's right. You're right, he said,
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it belongs to the pea family. But how can that be, I objected,
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when the pea is a weak, clinging, straggling herb and the locust
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a big, thorny, hardwood tree. Yes, that's true, he replied,
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as to the difference in size. But it is also true that in
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all their essential characters they are alike, and therefore they must belong to one
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and the same family. Just look at the peculiar form of the locust flower.
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You see that the upper petal, called the banner, is broad and
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erect, and so is the upper petal of the pea flower. The two
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lower petals, called the wings, are outspread, and wing shaped, so
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are those of the pea. And the two petals below the wings are united
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on their edges curve upward and form what is called the keel. And so
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you see are the corresponding petals of the pea flower. And now look at
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the stamens and pistols. You see that nine of the ten stamens have their
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filaments united into a sheath around the pistol, but the tenth stamen has its
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filament free. These are very marked characters, are they not, and strange
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to say? You will find them the same in the tree and in the
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vine. Now look at the oval or seeds of the locust, and you
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will see that they are arranged in a pod or legume, like those of
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the pea. And look at the leaves. You see the leaf of the
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locust is made up of several leaflets, and so also is the leaf of
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the pea. Now taste the locust leaf. I did so, and found
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that it tasted like the leaf of the pea. Nature has used the same
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seasoning for both, though one is a straggling vine, the other a big
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tree. Now, surely you cannot imagine that all these similar characters are mere
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coincidences. Do they not rather go to show that the creator, in making
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the pea vine and the locust tree, had the same idea in mind,
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and that plants are not classified arbitrarily. Man has nothing to do with their
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classification. Nature has attended to all that, giving essential unity with boundless variety,
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so that the botanist has only to examine plants to learn the harmony of
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their relations. This fine lesson charmed me and sent me flying to the woods
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and meadows in wild enthusiasm. Like everybody else, I was always fond of
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flowers, attracted by their external beauty and purity. Now my eyes were open
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to their inner beauty, all alike, revealing glorious traces of the thoughts of
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God, and leading on and on into the infinite cosmos. I wandered away
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at every opportunity, making long excursions round the lakes, gathering specimens and keeping
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them fresh in a bucket in my room to study at night after my regular
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class tasks were learned, for my eyes never closed on the plant glory I
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had seen. Nevertheless, I still indulged my love of mechanical inventions. I
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invented a desk in which the books I had to study were arranged in order
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at the beginning of each term. I also made a bed which set me
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on my feet every morning at the hour determined on and in dark winter mornings,
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just as the bed set me on the floor, it lighted a lamp.
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Then, after the minutes allowed for dressing had elapsed, a click was
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heard, and the first book to be studied was pushed up from a rack
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below the top of the desk, thrown open, and allowed to remain there
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the number of minutes required. Then the machinery closed the book and allowed it
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to drop back into its stall, then moved the rack forward and threw up
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the next in order, and so on, all the day being divided into
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times of recitation and time required and allotted to each study. Besides this,
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I thought it would be a fine thing in the summer time, when the
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sun rose early, to dispense with the clock controlled bed machinery and make use
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of sunbeams instead. This I did simply by taking a lens out of my
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small spy glass, fixing it on a frame on the sill of my bedroom
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window, and pointing it to the sunrise. The sunbeams focused on a thread
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burned it through allowing the bed machinery to put me on my feet. When
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I wished to arise at any given time after sunrise, I had only to
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turn the pivoted frame that held the lens the requisite number of degrees or minutes.
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Thus I took Emerson's advice and hitched my dumping wagon bed to a star.
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I also invented a machine to make visible the growth of plants and the
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action of the sunlight, a very delicate contrivance enclosed in glass. Besides this,
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I invented a barometer and a lot of novel scientific apparatus. My room
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was regarded as a sort of show place by the professors, who oftentimes brought
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visitors to it on Saturdays and holidays. And when some eighteen years after I
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had left the university, I was sauntering over the campus in time of vacation
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and spoke to a man who seemed to be taking some charge of the grounds.
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He informed me that he was the janitor, And when I inquired what
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had become of Pat, the janitor in my time and a favorite with the
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students, he replied that Pat was still alive and well, but now too
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old to do much work. And when I pointed to the dormitory room that
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I long ago occupied. He said, oh, then I know who you
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are, and mentioned my name. How comes it that you know my name?
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I inquired. He explained that pat always pointed out that room to newcomers
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and told long stories about the wonders that used to be in it. So
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long had the memory of my little inventions survived. Although I was four years
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at the university, I did not take the regular course of studies, but
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instead picked out what I thought would be most useful to me, particularly chemistry,
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which opened a new world, and mathematics and physics, a little Greek
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and Latin, botany and geology. I was far from satisfied with what I
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had learned, and should have stayed longer. Anyhow, I wandered away on
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a glorious botanical and geological excursion which has lasted nearly fifty years and is not
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yet completed. Always happy and free, poor and rich, without thought of
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a diploma or of making a name, urged on and on through endless inspiring,
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godfull beauty. From the top of a hill on the north side of
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Lake Mendota, I gained a last wistful, lingering view of the beautiful university
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grounds and buildings where I had spent so many hungry and happy and hopeful days.
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There, with streaming eyes, I bade my blessed alma mater farewell.
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But I I was only leaving one university for another, the Wisconsin University,
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for the University of the Wilderness. End of chapter eight, end of the
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Story of My Boyhood and Youth by John Muir