At the age of ten, David Livingstone went to work in the cotton
factory as a piecer, and after some years was promoted to be a
spinner. The first half-crown he earned he gave to his mother.
With part of his first week’s wages he bought a Latin text-book
and studied that language with ardor in an evening class between
eight and ten. He had to be in the factory at six in the morning
and his work ended at eight at night. But by working at Latin
until midnight he mastered Vergil and Horace by the time he was
sixteen. He used to read in the factory by putting the book on
the spinning-jenny so that he could catch a sentence at a time
as he passed at his work. He was fond of botany and geology and
zoology, and when he could get out would scour the country for
specimens.--ROBERT E. SPEER, “Servants of the King.”
(2046)