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How a Poor Boy Became a Great Scientist · Stories of Grit

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  Section twelve of Stories of Grit. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox
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  recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please
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  visit LibriVox dot org. Read by Tania Manly. Stories of Grit by Archer
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  Wallace. How a poor boy became a great scientist just a few days before
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  Christmas in eighteen twenty three. The little boy was born in the French village
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  of Saint Leon's. His parents were very poor, and the young boy,
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  whose name was Jean Henry Faubra, was sent to live with his grandparents,
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  who tilled a small farm some miles away. There he lived until he was
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  seven and made friends with the calves, the sheep, the geese, and
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  the hens, who were almost his sole companions. His grandparents had no education.
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  They had never opened a book in their lives. They had lived all
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  their lives in that lonely farmhouse, and they knew little and cared less about
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  the outside world. The grandfather was a stern old man, with his serious
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  face and unclipped hair, which he generally brought behind his ears with a flick
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  of his thumb. He wore curious breeches buckled at the knees and heavy wooden
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  shoes stuffed with straw. Young Henry was devoted to his old grandmother, who,
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  while she could not read, told the little fellow many a thrilling story.
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  When meal time came, all the members of the family, big and
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  little, sat round the table, which consisted of long planks laid over two
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  benches. At one end of the table would be a huge loaf of rye
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  bread, which only the grandfather was allowed to cut. The grandmother generally attended
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  to the bacon and turnips which formed the staple food. Sometimes, on special
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  occasions there would be a good supply of homemade cheese. There were no proper
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  beds in the little home, but as Henry was the youngest, he was
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  given a sack stuffed with oat chaff upon which to sleep. In spite of
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  the poverty of his surroundings, Henry was not unhappy. He was too young
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  to worry much about his appearance. It is true that his clothes were rough
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  and shabby. He generally wore a rough frieze frock, which flapped against his
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  bare legs, But his hardships were forgotten in his great love for the animals
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  around that little farm. He loved the flowers, but even more he loved
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  the living things all around him. Butterflies, grasshoppers, bees, spiders,
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  wasps, in fact, every little thing the boy watched, and when in
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  the evening the family sat round that rough table to eat, Henry told them
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  of his love for all these creatures. The other members of the family just
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  laughed at Henry. How little they thought that some day Henry would know more
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  about these insects than anyone else in the world. When he was seven,
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  the time came for him to go to school, so he returned to his
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  father's house in Saint Lew's. The school he attended, which was the schoolmaster's
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  home, consisted of one room which had to serve as school kitchen, bedroom,
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  dining room, and sometimes chicken house and piggery. The schoolmaster himself was
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  not a man of much learning and seemed more interested in his chickens and pigs
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  than in anything else, but he managed to teach the pupils their letters in
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  some elementary subjects. Often in the middle of a lesson, the door would
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  burst open and a dozen hungry little pigs would scamper in, followed by a
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  brood of chickens. By the time they had been put out, the schoolmaster
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  would have considerable difficulty in getting his scholar's attention back to the lesson. It
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  was a noisy school. Indeed, all the boys loved the arithmetic lesson because
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  it gave them a chance to shout. The whole class would recite the multiplication
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  table in unison, and they would simply yell until even the little pigs became
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  scared and bolted out of the school. Just about this time something happened which
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  had a great influence over Henry Fabra. As a reward for doing well at
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  school, he was given a prize, a book about animals with scores of
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  pictures in it. True, it was only a cheap edition with paper covers,
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  but to Henry it seemed priceless. How he poured over its contents and
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  looked at the pictures of coons, boxes, wolves, dogs, cats,
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  asses, rabbits, and dozens of other animals. This served to kindle his
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  love for living things, and when the schoolmaster told the boys to go into
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  the garden and kill the insects, Henry crammed them into his pockets. Snails,
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  beetles, and even wasps all seemed to him too interesting to be ruthlessly
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  killed. When Henry was ten, his parents moved from Saint Leon's to the
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  town of Rodez. There he attended a school where he was granted free tuition
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  for rendering certain services in the chapel. Attired in a surplice red skull,
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  cap and cassock, he together with three other boys, performed his services in
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  the chapel and received instruction of a much more advanced character than he had yet
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  received. Some of the studies he had found difficult, and if he had
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  listened to the call of the woods, he would often have played truant,
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  for he was much more interested in the living things he found there than in
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  the dry subjects learned in the school. But he remembered his poor parents at
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  home and their anxiety to see him make progress, so he stuck to even
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  the most difficult tasks, and his record there was a good one. Soon
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  after this, misfortune visited his family and Henry had to leave school, and
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  for some considerable time he suffered many hardships. He often went without food and
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  wandered along the high roads, selling lemons at country fairs and later working at
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  the building of a railway. Just at that time he was fortunate in winning
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  adversary for the normal School of Avignon, and so ended a period of his
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  life which had been exceedingly dark. During the years he spent at Avignon,
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  he pursued his studies with earnest purpose and acquitted himself with distinction. He gained
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  his college diploma and was appointed to teach in a school at Carpentr's, and
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  after some years of close study, he was made professor of physics and chemistry
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  at Iaco. During these years, Henry Fabra's interest in insects had been steadily
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  increasing. Little creatures that other people thought ugly, he studied and loved.
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  One day, a naturalist who had been attracted to a Fabra was explained some
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  things to him of unusual interest. Suddenly, the naturalists took a pair of
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  scissors and burst open a shell, and then explained to Fabra the anatomy of
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  a snail. That incident opened a new world for Fabra. His interest in
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  insects, which had always been great, became extraordinary. No longer was he
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  content to study the outward form of insects, but he dissected and thoroughly examined
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  all that came within his range, often late at night or again early in
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  the morning when other people were in their beds. He searched the country lanes
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  and pulls for specimens of insects, and then studied them closely to find out
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  their habits of life. Soon Henry Fabra became recognized as one who understood insect
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  life as well, if not better, than any other living person. This
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  is not to be wondered at, for an insect, which to other people
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  meant nothing, was a subject of great interest to him. If he were
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  walking along the highway and an insect appeared, he would leave another man to
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  follow it and study its movements, and he was quite indifferent as to what
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  people thought of him. One day, when in the house an unusual,
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  interesting wasp appeared, he dropped what he was doing and watched its movements for
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  hours, utterly forgetting everything else. Although so well known and respected as a
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  great scientist, Henry Fabra was still poor. His income did not amount to
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  much more than three hundred dollars a year. Then he was made a member
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  of the Legion of Honor, one of the greatest distinctions which could be awarded
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  to any man. He was introduced to the Emperor of France and soon the
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  French people everywhere began to look upon him with great pride. In spite of
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  his great fame, he was a comparatively poor man, but his habits of
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  life were simple, and he did not long for fame. He was supremely
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  happy when left alone to study the tiny creatures of the insect world. In
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  eighteen seventy nine, Barbara retired from the College of Avignon to Seragnan. There,
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  more than ever he had time to follow the bent of his life,
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  and then began to publish his famous books about insects, which are so fascinating.
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  One after another, his books were printed, and all over the world
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  people began to look upon these books as works of authority. He wrote The
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  Life of the Spider, The Life of the Fly, The Life of the
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  Caterpillar, The Life of the Grasshopper, The Life of the weavil, the
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  glowworm and other beetles, and a great many other books upon subjects of which
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  very few people knew much. The methods of his research were very simple.
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  A magnifying glass, two scalpels made by himself from needles, a saucer for
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  his dissecting trough, empty match boxes, and sardine tins for his specimen cases.
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  A few wires under which he could imprison the insects and watch them were
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  about the only things he needed. He had extraordinary patience, and he loved
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  with great tenderness the creatures whose habits he studied. Babara lived at be ninety
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  two years of age. He died in nineteen fifteen, while the Great War
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  was raging. Before his death, his real genius was recognized all over the
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  world. The foremost scientific societies of England, Sweden, Belgium, Russia and
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  other lands hastened to confer honorary titles upon him. And while he himself was
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  so simple and modest that he cared little for fame, the honors conferred showed
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  how highly he was esteemed. From being a very poor boy, Henry Fabra
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  became one of the greatest scientists that ever lived. End of section twelve.