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but think it over again, and tell me the answer when you understand it." If there was even partial success in the reply, it would at once be acknowledged, and a full explanation was given, to which the master would add illustrative examples for the purpose of impressing the principle more deeply upon the pupil's mind.

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It was not so much his object and purpose to "cram" the minds of the young men committed to his charge with the results of knowledge, as to stimulate them to educate themselves to induce them to develope their mental and moral powers by the exercise of their own free energies, and thus acquire that habit of self-thinking and self-reliance which is the spring of all true manly action. In a word, he sought to bring out and invigorate the character of his pupils. He felt that he himself had been made stronger and better through his encounters with difficulty; and he would not have the road of knowledge made too smooth and easy for them. "Learn for yourselves, think for yourselves," he would say ;"make yourselves masters of principles, - persevere,— be industrious, and there is then no fear of you." And not the least emphatic proof of the soundness of this system of education, as conducted by Mr. Stephenson, was afforded by the after history of these pupils themselves. There was not one of those trained under his eye who did not rise to eminent usefulness and distinction as engineers. He sent them forth into the world braced with the spirit of manly self-help-inspired by his own noble example; and they repeated in their after career the lessons of earnest effort and persistent industry which his own daily life had taught them.

Mr. Stephenson's evenings at home were not, however, exclusively devoted either to business or to the graver exercises above referred to. He would often indulge in cheerful conversation and anecdote, falling back from time to time upon the struggles and difficulties of his early life. The

CHAP. XX.]

HIS EVENINGS AT HOME.

267

not unfrequent winding up of his story, addressed to the pupils about him, was-"Ah! ye young fellows don't know what wark is in these days!" Mr. Swanwick delights recalling to mind how seldom, if ever, an angry or captious word, or an angry look, marred the enjoyment of those evenings. The presence of Mrs. Stephenson conferred upon them an additional charm: amiable, kind-hearted, and intelligent, she shared quietly in the pleasure; and the atmosphere of comfort which always pervaded her home, contributed in no small degree to render it a centre of cheerful, hopeful intercourse, and of earnest, honest industry. She was a wife who well deserved, what she through life retained, the strong and unremitting affection of her husband.

When Mr. Stephenson retired for the night, it was not always that he permitted himself to sink into slumber. Like Brindley, he worked out many a difficult problem in bed; and for hours he would turn over in his mind and study how to overcome some obstacle, or to mature some project, on which his thoughts were bent. Some remark inadvertently dropped by him at the breakfast-table in the morning, served to show that he had been stealing some hours from the past night in reflection and study. Yet he would rise at his accustomed early hour, and there was no abatement of his usual energy in carrying on the business of the day.

Such is a brief sketch of Mr. Stephenson's private life and habits while carrying on the works of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway.

CHAP. XXI.

A PRIZE OFFERED FOR THE BEST LOCOMOTIVE ENGINE.

THE works were far advanced towards completion before the directors had determined as to the kind of tractive power to be employed in working the railway when opened for traffic. It was necessary that they should now come to a decision, and many board meetings were held for the purpose of discussing the subject. The old-fashioned and well-tried system of horse haulage was not without its advocates; but, looking at the large amount of traffic which there was to be conveyed, and at the probable delay in the transit from station to station, if this method were adopted, the directors, after a visit made by them to the Northumberland and Durham railways in 1828, came to the conclusion that the employment of horse power was inadmissible.

The tunnel at Liverpool had been finished, a firm road had been formed over Chat Moss, and yet the directors had got no further than this decision against the employment of horse power. It was felt that some mechanical agency must be adopted; but whether fixed or locomotive power, was still a moot point. Fixed engines had many advocates, the locomotive very few: it stood as yet almost in a minority of one-George Stephenson. The prejudice against the employment of the latter power had even increased since the Liverpool and Manchester Bill underwent its first ordeal in the House of Commons. In proof of this, we may mention that the Newcastle and Carlisle Railway Act was

CHAP. XXI.]

PREJUDICE AGAINST THE LOCOMOTIVE.

269

conceded in 1829, on the express condition that it should not be worked by locomotives, but by horses only.

Grave doubts existed as to the practicability of working a large traffic by means of travelling engines. Thus, Sir William Cowling, who was appointed by the Emperor Alexander of Russia to examine the internal communications of England, and who visited the Stockton and Darlington Railway after it was opened for traffic, declared that it could never answer as a route for passengers, in comparison with stage coaches. He expressed his decided preference for the Atmospheric Railway, then proposed by Mr. Vallance between Brighton and Shoreham, which he considered " very far superior" to the locomotive system. Mr. Palmer, in his "Description of a Railway," declared that "there is no instance of any locomotive engine having (regularly, and as a constant rate) travelled faster than, if so fast as, six miles an hour." Vallance, in his letter to Ricardo, pronounced that "locomotive engines cannot, on an open railway, ever be driven so fast as horses will draw us ;" and that railways as an investment would be unproductive, and as an effective means of transit a failure. Tredgold, in his "Practical Treatise on Railroads and Carriages," dismissed the locomotive in favour of the fixed-engine system, which he pronounced to be cheaper as well as safer. "Locomotives," he said, "must always be objectionable on a railroad for general use, where it is attempted to give them a considerable degree of speed." As to the speed of railway travelling being equal to that of horses on common roads, Mr. Tredgold entertained great doubts. "That any general system of carrying passengers would answer, to go at a velocity exceeding ten miles an hour, or thereabouts, is extremely improbable."

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The most celebrated engineers offered no opinion on the subject. They did not believe in the locomotive, and would not even give themselves the trouble to examine it. The ridicule with which George Stephenson had been assailed by the barristers before the Parliamentary Committee had pleased them greatly. They did not relish the idea of a man who had picked up his experience at Newcastle coal-pits appearing in the capacity of a leading engineer before Parliament, and attempting to establish a new system of internal communication in the country. Telford and the Rennies were then the great lights of the engineering world. The former was consulted by the Government on the subject of the power to be employed to work the Liverpool line, on the occasion of the directors applying to the Exchequer Loan Commissioners to forego their security of 30 per cent. of the calls, which the directors wished to raise to enable them to proceed more expeditiously with the works. Mr. Telford's report was, however, so unsatisfactory that the Commissioners would not release any part of the calls. All that Mr. Telford would say on the subject of the power to be employed was, that the use of horses* had been done away with by in

*The engineers who were examined before Parliament in support of the second Liverpool and Manchester Bill, were opposed to the locomotive, in their entire ignorance of its construction and properties; indeed they would not give themselves the trouble to understand it. Their intention was so to lay out the line that it should be worked by horses. One of the gradients at Rainhill, as originally planned by them, was very steep, about one in fifty, and the counsel for the opposition, in cross-examining one of the eminent engineers employed for the promoters, asked him if he knew "how much additional power would be required to surmount a gradient of one in fifty." "Not very much," replied the engineer; "a little more whip-cord will do it." The counsel for the opposition, in the course of his reply, alluded to this evidence. "Mr. —," said he, “has told you, that by means of a little whip-cord, a rising gradient, so steep as one foot in fifty, is to be overcome. I know where the whip-cord, and not a little whip-cord, ought to have been applied, before that witness left school." Some years after, when the Brighton Railway Bill was before Parliament, the same eminent engineer was asked by counsel

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