During all this time, George Stephenson never for a moment ceased
to study and endeavour to understand the working of every part in
the engine that he tended. He was not satisfied, as too many
workmen are, with merely learning the routine work of his own
trade; with merely knowing that he must turn such and such a tap or
valve in order to produce such and such a desired result: he wanted
to see for himself how and why the engine did this or that, what
was the use and object of piston and cylinder and crank and joint
and condenser--in short, fully to understand the underlying
principle of its construction. He took it to pieces for cleaning
whenever it was needful; he made working models of it after his old
childish pattern; he even ventured to tinker it up when out of
order on his own responsibility. Thus he learnt at last something
of the theory of the steam-engine, and learnt also by the way a
great deal about the general principles of mechanical science.
Still, even now, incredible as it seems, the future father of
railways couldn't yet read; and he found this terrible drawback
told fatally against his further progress. Whenever he wanted to
learn something that he didn't quite understand, he was always
referred for information to a Book. Oh, those books; those
mysterious, unattainable, incomprehensible books; how they must
have bothered and worried poor intelligent and aspiring but still
painfully ignorant young George Stephenson! Though he was already
trying singularly valuable experiments in his own way, he hadn't
yet even begun to learn his letters.

Under these circumstances, George Stephenson, eager and anxious for
further knowledge, took a really heroic resolution. He wasn't
ashamed to go to school. Though now a full workman on his own
account, about eighteen years old, he began to attend the night