Yesterday was pi article" by a distinguished engineer, well known to Shanghai, on the work of "Michael Faraday, the centenary. of. whose discovery is now being celebrated in England. As was noted in these columns on the appropriate day, it was on August 29, 1831, that Faraday discovered' electro-magnetic induction, and the remarkable feature' of his work lies in the fact that no more than three months from the first development of the new idea he brought it to a state of perfect maturity.
The first period of his dis-¢overies lasted ten years, and
needed; rest. Four years later! he entered upon his second great period of research, when he. -discovered. the effect of magnetism on polarised tight and the phenomena of diamagnetism. Persistence was! the keynote of his long research-_ es. and the -concentration which he displayed has been an inspiration to those who follow-after him, Born in Newington, he was a Londoner, but his parents came from Yorkshire where his father had worked as a_ blacksmith. Faraday was apprenticed to 2 bookbinder and it was in that id occupation that he turned his attention to the experimental study of nature. It was attendance at lectures by Sir Humphrey Davy, the inventor of the famous lamp, which set, him first on the road to the study of science. This adventure was encouraged by one of the customers of his employer's bindery, and this customer' name deserves to be linked in memory with Faraday himself. It was a Mr. Dance, of whom there apparently is very little known, except that Dance consistently encouraged the young bookbinder to get in touch with Humphrey Davy and so enlarge jhisselentific training.—He worked a3 a journeyman bookbinder until March, 1813, a year after his attendance at_ the lectures by Sir Humphrey Davy, and then he was appointed, on Davy's recommendation, to' the laboratory of the Royal Institution of Great Britain. He died Hampton Court on August 25, 1867, and was buried at High:
It is manifest from this brief account of Faraday's career that besides having a brilliant scientific mind he also had qualities which attracted the sympathy and friendship those around him. One critic writes that Faraday "paid as much attention to the cultivation of friendship and his religious duties as to his sefentific researches." The critic adds: "His letters and conversation were always full of whatever could awaken a healthy interest and free from anything that might! arouse jill feeling." Self-aesertion and pride were entirely toreign to his nature, He never disdained to accept correction, and he employed every possible expedient, however humble, to improve his work. Most notable of all, when he found that age was asserting its influence he promptly recognised the falling off from his own standard of efficiency and he left his selentifle pursuits to devote himself to the less exacting duties of friendship. It is fitting that a man of this type, to whose disjeoveries the whole world to-day stands in debt, should be honour.
by the nation that produced
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.