He bore his honours with the same meekness and humility which had
distinguished him in the days of his obscurity. So gentle and
patient, and withal so distinguished and successful a follower of
science under difficulties, perhaps cannot be found in the entire
history of biography.
The career of William Smith, the father of English geology, though
perhaps less known, is not less interesting and instructive as an
example of patient and laborious effort, and the diligent
cultivation of opportunities. He was born in 1769, the son of a
yeoman farmer at Churchill, in Oxfordshire. His father dying when
he was but a child, he received a very sparing education at the
village school, and even that was to a considerable extent
interfered with by his wandering and somewhat idle habits as a boy.
His mother having married a second time, he was taken in charge by
an uncle, also a farmer, by whom he was brought up. Though the
uncle was by no means pleased with the boy's love of wandering
about, collecting "poundstones," "pundips," and other stony
curiosities which lay scattered about the adjoining land, he yet
enabled him to purchase a few of the necessary books wherewith to
instruct himself in the rudiments of geometry and surveying; for
the boy was already destined for the business of a land-surveyor.
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