Nature took the measure of little Tommy Edwards for a round hole, but
his parents, teachers, and all with whom his childhood was cast, got it
into their heads that Tommy was certainly intended for a square hole.
So, with the best intentions in the world,--but oh, such woeful
ignorance!--they tortured the poor little fellow and crippled him for
life by trying to fit him to their pattern instead of that designed for
him by the all-wise Mother.
Mother Nature called to Tommy to go into the woods and fields, to wade
through the brooks, and make friends with all the living things she had
placed there,--tadpoles, beetles, frogs, crabs, mice, rats, spiders,
bugs,--everything that had life. Willingly, lovingly did the little lad
obey, but only to be whipped and scolded by good Mother Edwards when he
let loose in her kitchen the precious treasures which he had collected
in his rambles.
It was provoking to have rats, mice, toads, bugs, and all sorts of
creepy things sent sprawling over one's clean kitchen floor. But the
pity of it was that Mrs. Edwards did not understand her boy, and
thought the only cure for what she deemed his mischievous propensity as
whipping. So Tommy was whipped and scolded, and scolded and whipped,
which, however, did not in the least abate his love for Nature.
Driven to desperation, his mother bethought her of a plan. She would
make the boy prisoner and see if this would tame him. With a stout rope
she tied him by the leg to a table, and shut him in a room alone. But
no sooner was the door closed than he dragged himself and the table to
the fireplace, and, at the risk of setting himself and the house on
fire, burned the rope which bound him, and made his escape into the
woods to collect new specimens.
And yet his parents did not understand. It was time, however, to send
him to school. They would see what the schoolmaster would do for him.
But the schoolmaster was as blind as the parents, and Tommy's doom was
sealed, when one morning, while the school was at prayers, a jackdaw
poked its head out of his pocket and began to caw.
His next teacher misunderstood, whipped, and bore with him until one
day nearly every boy in the school found a horse-leech wriggling up his
leg, trying to suck his blood. This ended his second school experience.
He was given a third trial, but with no better results than before.
Things went on in the usual way until a centipede was discovered in
another boy's desk. Although in this case Tommy was innocent of any
knowledge of the intruder, he was found guilty, whipped, and sent home
with the message, "Go and tell your father to get you on board a
man-of-war, as that is the best school for irreclaimables such as you."
His school life thus ended, he was apprenticed to a shoemaker, and
thenceforth made his living at the bench. But every spare moment was
given to the work which was meat and drink, life itself, to him.
In his manhood, to enable him to classify the minute and copious
knowledge of birds, beasts, and insects which he had been gathering
since childhood, with great labor and patience he learned how to read
and write. Later, realizing how his lack of education hampered him, he
endeavored to secure the means to enable him to study to better
advantage, and sold for twenty pounds sterling a very large number of
valuable specimens. He tried to get employment as a naturalist, and,
but for his poor reading and writing, would have succeeded.
Poor little Scotch laddie! Had his parents or teachers understood him,
he might have been as great a naturalist as Agassiz, and his life
instead of being dwarfed and crippled, would have been a joy to himself
and an incalculable benefit to the world.