friends of the Civil Engineers' Institute, he said: "I have sacrificed years of labor; I have striven with much perseverance to obtain, and to retain, a power or mastery over numbers, which will, probably, at all times be as rare as its utility in the ordinary affairs of life. Far be it from me to say, however, that it has been of little use to me. Undoubtedly the acquirement has attracted towards me a degree of notice which has ended in raising me from the position of a common laborer in which I was born, to that of being able to address you as one of the Vice-Presidents of this distinguished Society."

III.6

Dalton, the chemist, always repudiated the notion of his being "a genius," attributing everything which he hadquality well trained. When that is done, the race will be found comparatively easy. We must repeat and again repeat; facility will come with labor. Not even the simplest art can be accomplished without it; and what difficulties it is found capable of achieving! It was by early discipline and repetition that the late Sir Robert Peel cultivated those remarkable, though still mediocre powers, which rendered him so illustrious an ornament of the British senate. When a boy at Drayton Manor, his father was accustomed to set him up at table to practise extemporaneous speaking; and he early accustomed him to repeat as much of the Sunday's sermon as he could carry away in his memory. Little progress was made at first, but by steady perseverance the habit