he must either sink or swim, no bladders being in re

serve for him.

Our young hero rose to the occasion and soon proved that, Cæsar-like, he could "stem the waves with heart "of controversy." Thus the rude school of experience calls forth and strengthens the latent qualities of youth, implants others, and forms the indomitable man, fit to endure and overcome. Here, for the first time, alone in swarming London, not one relative, not one friend, not even an acquaintance, except the kind sea-captain, challenged by the cold world around to do or die, fate called to Watt as it calls to every man who has his own way to make:

"This is Collingtogle ford,

"And thou must keep thee with thy sword."

When the revelation first rushes upon a youth, hitherto directed by his parents, that, boy no more, he must act for himself, presto! change! he is a man, he has at last found himself. The supreme test, which proves the man, can come in all its winnowing force only to those born to earn their own support by training themselves to be able to render to society services which command return. This training compels the development of powers which otherwise would probably lie dormant. Scotch boy as Watt was to the core, with the lowland broad, soft accent, and ignorant of foreign literature, it is very certain that he then found support

in the lessons instilled at his mother's knee. He had been fed on Wallace and Bruce, and when things looked darkest, even in very early years, his national hero, Wallace, came to mind, and his struggles against fearful odds, not for selfish ends, but for his country's independence. Did Wallace give up the fight, or ever think of giving up? Never! It was death or victory. Bruce and the spider! Did Bruce falter? Never! Neither would he. "Scots wa hae," "Let us do or die," implanted before his teens, has pulled many a Scottish boy through the crises of life when all was dark, as it will pull others yet to come. Altho Burns and Scott had yet to appear, to crystallise Scotland's characteristics and plant the talismanic words into the hearts of young Scots, Watt had a copious supply of the national sentiment, to give him the "stout heart for the stye brae," when manhood arrived. His mother had planted deep in him, and nurtured, precious seed from her Celtic garden, which was sure to grow and bear good fruit.

We are often met with the question, "What is the best possible safeguard for a young man, who goes forth "from a pure home, to meet the temptations that beset "his path?" Various answers are given, but, speaking that as a Scot, reared as Watt was, the writer believes all the suggested safeguards combined scarcely weigh as much as preventives against disgracing himself as the thought that it would not be only himself he would

disgrace, but that he would also bring disgrace upon his family, and would cause father, mother, sister and brother to hang their heads among their neighbors in secluded village, on far-away moor or in lonely glen. The Scotch have strong traces of the Chinese and Japanese religious devotion to "the family," and the filial instinct is intensely strong. The fall of one member is the disgrace of all. Even although Watt's mother had passed, there remained the venerated father in Greenock, and the letters regularly written to him, some of which have fortunately been preserved, abundantly prove that, tho far from home, yet in home and family ties and family duties the young man had his strong tower of defence, keeping him from "all sense of sin or shame." Watt never gave his father reason for one anxious thought that he would in any respect discredit the good name of his forbears.

Many London shops were visited, but the rules of the trade, requiring apprentices to serve for seven years, or, being journeymen, to have served that time, proved an insuperable obstacle to Watt's being employed. His plan was to fit himself by a year's steady work for return to Glasgow, there to begin on his own account. He had not seven years to spend learning what he could learn in one. He would be his own master. Wise young man in this he was. There is not much outcome in the youth who does not already see himself captain in his dreams, and steers his barque

accordingly, true to the course already laid down, not to be departed from, under any stress of weather. We see the kind of stuff this young Scotch lad was made of in the tenacity with which he held to his plan. At last some specimens of his work having seemed very remarkable to Mr. John Morgan, mathematical instrument maker, Finch Lane, Cornhill, he agreed to give the conquering young man the desired year's instructions for his services and a premium of twenty pounds, whereupon the plucky fellow who had kept to his course and made port, wrote to his father of his success, praising his master "as being of as good character, both for accuracy in his business, and good morals, as any of his way in London." The order in which this aspiring young man of the world records the virtues will not be overlooked. He then adds, "If it could not have got a have undertaken to

"had not been for Mr. Short, I

"man in London that would

teach me, as I now find there are not above five or six "who could have taught me all I wanted."

Mr, Short was the gentleman to whom Professor Dick's letter of introduction was addressed, who, no more than the Professor himself, nor Mr. Morgan, could withstand the extraordinary youth, whom he could not refuse taking into his service-glad to get him no doubt, and delighted that he was privileged to instruct one so likely to redound to his credit in after years. Thus Watt made his start in London, the

twenty pounds premium being duly remitted from home.

Up to this time, Watt had been a charge on his father, but it was very small, for he lived in the most frugal style at a cost of only two dollars per week. In one of his letters to his father he regrets being unable to reduce it below that, knowing that his father's affairs were not prosperous. He, however, was able to obtain some remunerative work on his own account, which he did after his day's task was over, and soon made his position secure as a workman. Specialisation he met with for the first time, and he expresses surprise that "very few here know any more than how to "make a rule, others a pair of dividers, and suchlike." Here we see that even at that early day division of labor had won its way in London, though yet unknown in the country. The jack-of-all-trades, the handyman, who can do everything, gives place to the specialist who confines himself to one thing in which practice makes him perfect. Watt's mission saved him from this, for to succeed he had to be master, not of one process, but of all. Hence we find him first making brass scales, parallel-rulers and quadrants. By the end of one month in this department he was able to finish a Hadley quadrant. From this he proceeded to azimuth compasses, brass sectors, theodolites, and other delicate instruments. Before his year was finished he wrote his father that he had made "a brass