and haltingly to creep into its true place and achieve its true
function.

In the year 1813 many important events occurred. The power of
Napoleon was crumbling in that year and countless historians
have written countless pages describing innumerable events,
great and small, which accompanied that colossal downfall. But
one event of that year, of which we do not read in our
historical memoirs and school books was the discovery by Sir
Humphry Davy, in the humble person of a bookbinder's
apprentice, of the man who will probably stand out forever in
the history of science as the ideal scientific man--Michael
Faraday. The manner of this discovery is revealed by the
following conversation between Sir Humphry Davy and his friend
Pepys. "Pepys, what am I to do, here is a letter from a young
man named Faraday; he has been attending my lectures, and wants
me to give him employment at the Royal Institution--what can I
do?" "Do?" replied Pepys, "put him to wash bottles; if he
refuses he is good for nothing." "No, no," replied Davy; "we
must try him with something better than that." The result was,
that Davy engaged him to assist in the laboratory at weekly
wages.[2]

[2] J. Tyndall, "Faraday as a Discoverer."



Davy made many important discoveries, but none of his
discoveries was more important than his discovery of Faraday,
and of all the events which occurred in the year 1813, the