HOW A POOR BOY BECAME A GREAT SCIENTIST.
Just a few days before Christmas, in 1823, a little boy was born in
the French village of Saint Leons. His parents were very poor, and
the young boy, whose name was Jean Henri Fabre, was sent to live with
his grandparents, who tilled a small farm some miles away. There he
lived until he was seven, and made friends with the calves, the
sheep, the geese and the hens, who were almost his sole companions.
His grandparents had no education. They had never opened a book in
their lives. They had lived all their lives in that lonely
farmhouse, and they knew little, and cared less, about the outside
world. The grandfather was a stern old man, with his serious face,
and unclipped hair, which he generally brought behind his ears with a
flick of his thumb. He wore curious breeches, buckled at the knees,
and heavy wooden shoes stuffed with straw. Young Henri was devoted
to his old grandmother, who, while she could not read, told the
little fellow many a thrilling story.
When meal time came all the members of the family, big and little,
sat round the table, which consisted of long planks laid over two
benches. At one end of the table would be a huge loaf of rye bread,
which only the grandfather was allowed to cut. The grandmother
generally attended to the bacon and turnips, which formed the staple
food. Sometimes, on special occasions, there would be a good supply
of homemade cheese. There were no proper beds in the little home,
but as Henri was the youngest, he was given a sack, stuffed with
oat-chaff, upon which to sleep.
In spite of the poverty of his surroundings, Henri was not unhappy.
He was too young to worry much about his appearance. It is true that
his clothes were rough and shabby. He generally wore a rough frieze
frock which flapped against his bare legs, but his hardships were
forgotten in his great love for the animals around that little farm.
He loved the flowers, but even more he loved the living things all
around him. Butterflies, grasshoppers, bees, spiders, wasps, in
fact, every living thing the boy watched, and, when in the evening
the family sat around the rough table to eat, Henri told them of his
love for all these creatures. The other members of the family just
laughed at Henri. How little they thought that some day Henri would
know more about these insects than any one else in the world. When
he was seven the time came for him to go to school, so he returned to
his father's house in Saint Leons. The school he attended, which was
the schoolmaster's home, consisted of one room, which had to serve as
school, kitchen, bedroom, dining-room, and, sometimes, chicken-house
and piggery. The schoolmaster himself was not a man of much
learning, and seemed more interested in his chickens and pigs than in
anything else, but he managed to teach the pupils their letters and
some elementary subjects. Often in the middle of a lesson the door
would be burst open, and a dozen hungry little pigs would scamper in,
followed by a brood of chickens. By the time they had been put out
the schoolmaster would have considerable difficulty in getting his
scholars' attention back to the lesson. It was a noisy school
indeed. All the boys loved the arithmetic lesson because it gave
them a chance to shout. The whole class would recite the
multiplication table in unison, and they would simply yell until even
the little pigs became scared, and bolted out of the school.
Just about this time something happened which had a great influence
over Henri Fabre. As a reward for doing well at school he was given
a prize--a book about animals, with scores of pictures in it. True,
it was only a cheap edition, with paper covers, but to Henri it
seemed priceless. How he pored over its contents, and looked at the
pictures of coons, foxes, wolves, dogs, cats, asses, rabbits, and
dozens of other animals! This served to kindle his love for living
things, and when the schoolmaster told the boys to go into his garden
and kill the insects Henri crammed them into his pockets. Snails,
beetles, and even wasps, all seemed to him too interesting to be
ruthlessly killed.
When Henri was ten his parents moved from Saint Leons to the town of
Rodez. There he attended a school where he was granted free tuition
for rendering certain services in the chapel. Attired in a surplice,
red skull-cap, and cassock, he, together with three other boys,
performed his services in the chapel, and received instruction of a
much more advanced character than he had yet received. Some of the
studies he found difficult, and if he had listened to the call of the
woods, he would often have played truant, for he was much more
interested in the living things he found there than in the dry
subjects learned in the school. But he remembered his poor parents
at home, and their anxiety to see him make progress, so he stuck to
even the most difficult tasks, and his record there was a good one.
Soon after this misfortune visited his family, and Henri had to leave
school, and for some considerable time he suffered many hardships.
He often went without food, and wandered along the highroads, selling
lemons at country fairs, and later working at the building of a
railway. Just at that time he was fortunate in winning a bursary for
the normal school at Avignon, and so ended a period of his life which
had been exceedingly dark.
During the years he spent at Avignon he pursued his studies with
earnest purpose, and acquitted himself with distinction. He gained
his college diploma, and was appointed to teach in a school at
Carpentras, and after some years of close study he was made Professor
of Physics and Chemistry at Ajaccio.
During these years Henri Fabre's interest in insects had been
steadily increasing. Little creatures that other people thought
ugly, he studied and loved. One day a naturalist, who had been
attracted to Fabre, was explaining some things to him of unusual
interest. Suddenly the naturalist took a pair of scissors and burst
open a shell, and then explained to Fabre the anatomy of a snail.
That incident opened a new world for Fabre. His interest in insects,
which had always been great, became extraordinary. No longer was he
content to study the outward form of insects, but he dissected and
thoroughly examined all that came within his range. Often late at
night, or again early in the morning, when other people were in their
beds, he searched the country lanes and pools for specimens of
insects, and then studied them closely to find out their habits of
life.
Soon Henri Fabre became recognized as one who understood insect life
as well, if not better, than any other living person. This is not to
be wondered at, for an insect, which to other people, meant nothing,
was a subject of great interest to him. If he were walking along the
highway and an insect appeared, he would leave another man to follow
it and study its movements, and he was quite indifferent as to what
people thought of him. One day, when in his home, an unusually
interesting wasp appeared; he dropped what he was doing and watched
its movements for hours, utterly forgetting everything else.
Although so well known and respected as a great scientist, Henri
Fabre was still poor. His income did not amount to much more than
three hundred dollars a year. Then he was made a member of the
Legion of Honour, one of the greatest distinctions which could be
awarded to any man. He was introduced to the Emperor of France, and
soon the French people everywhere began to look upon him with great
pride. In spite of his great fame, he was a comparatively poor man,
but his habits of life were simple, and he did not long for fame.
He was supremely happy when left alone to study the tiny creatures
of the insect world.
In 1879, Fabre retired from the college at Avignon to Serignan.
There, more than ever, he had time to follow the bent of his life,
and then he began to publish his famous books about insects, which
are so fascinating. One after another, his books were printed, and
all over the world people began to look upon these books as works of
authority. He wrote: "The Life of the Spider", "The Life of the
Fly", "The Life of the Caterpillar", "The Life of the Grasshopper",
"The Life of the Weevil", "The Glow-worm and other Beetles", and a
great many other books upon subjects of which very few people knew
much.
The methods of his research were very simple--a magnifying-glass, two
scalpels, made by himself from needles, a saucer for his dissecting
trough, empty match-boxes and sardine tins for his specimen cases, a
few wires under which he could imprison insects and watch them--these
were about the only things he needed. He had extraordinary patience,
and he loved with great tenderness the creatures whose habits he
studied.
Fabre lived to be ninety-two years of age. He died in 1915, while
the Great War was raging. Before his death his real genius was
recognized all over the world. The foremost scientific societies of
England, Sweden, Belgium, Russia and other lands hastened to confer
honourary titles upon him, and while he himself was so simple and
modest that he cared little for fame, the honours conferred showed
how highly he was esteemed. From being a very poor boy, Henri Fabre
became one of the greatest scientists that ever lived.