herself to others. She lived to see him rise in his profession, until
he became a member of Congress, though she died before he reached the
zenith of his renown. The same was true of David Rittenhouse, the
famous mathematician. When he was but eight years old, he constructed
various articles, such as a miniature water-wheel, and at seventeen
years of age he made a complete clock. His younger brother declared
that he was accustomed to stop, when he was plowing in the field, and
solve problems on the fence, and sometimes cover the plow handles with
figures. The highest expectations of his friends were more than
realized in his manhood. The peculiar genius which he exhibited in his
boyhood gave him his world-wide fame at last.

Also George Stephenson, the great engineer, the son of a very poor
man, who fired the engine at Wylam colliery, began his life-labor when
a mere boy. Besides watching the cows, and barring the gates after the
coal-wagons had passed, at four cents a day, he amused himself during
his leisure moments, in making clay engines, in imitation of that
which his father tended. Although he lived in circumstances so humble
that ordinarily he would have been entirely unnoticed, his intense
interest in, and taste for, mechanical work, attracted the attention
of people and led them to predict his future success and fame.

In like manner, the first months of Benjamin Franklin's school days
foreshadowed the remarkable career of his manhood. Relatives and
friends believed that he would one day fill a high place in the land;
and in that, their anticipations were fully realized.