Volume 1

The pursuit of knowledge under difficulties / [George L. Craik].

  • George Lillie Craik
Date:
1846
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The pursuit of knowledge under difficulties / [George L. Craik]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    412/444 (page 392)
    After mentioning the manner in which his brother obtained a few of his other books, Gilbert goes on to state that a teacher in Ayr, of the name of Murdoch, to whom he was sent for two or three weeks by his father, to improve his writing, being himself engaged at the time in learning French, communicated the instructions he received to his ardent and persevering pupil, who, when he re- turned home, brought with him a French dictionary and grammar, and a copy of ‘ Telemachus.’ “In a little while,” continues the writer, “ by the assistance of these books, he had acquired such a knowledge of the language as to read and understand any French author in prose.” He afterwards attempted to learn Latin, but did not prosecute the study so long as to make much progress. All this while, the misfortunes and sufferings of this admirable father and his poor family continued to increase every day. Gilbert’s picture of their condition is touching in the extreme. “ To the buffetings of misfortune,” says he, “ we could only oppose hard labour, and the most rigid economy. We lived very sparing. For several years butcher’s meat was a stranger in the house ; while all the members of the family exerted themselves to the utmost of their strength, and rather beyond it, in the labours of the farm. My brother, at the age of thirteen, assisted in thrashing the crop of corn, and at fifteen was the principal labourer on the farm, for we had no hired servant, male or female. The anguish of mind we felt at our tendejr years, under these straits and difficulties, was very great. To think of our father growing old (for he was now above fifty), broken down with the long-continued fatigues of his life, with a wife and five other children, and in a declining state of circumstances, these reflections produced in my brother’s mind and mine sensations of the deepest distress. I doubt not