Volume 3 > Half-Volume 6

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in the employment of John Duke of Argyle, at In-
verary, in  the early part of the eighteenth century.
"He attained the age of eight years before he learned
to read; but a servant having taught him the letters
of the alphabet, he soon made a rapid progress with
very little assistance. He applied to the mathe-
matics; and, notwithstanding the peculiar difficulties
of his situation, attained a knowledge of the most
sublime geometry and analysis without a master,
and without any other guide, it is said, than his own
genius. At the age of eighteen he had advanced
thus far, when his abilities and the extent of his
acquirements were discovered by the following acci-
dent. The Duke of Argyle, who to his military
talents united a general knowledge of every science
that can adorn the mind of a great man; walking one
day in his garden saw lying upon the grass a Latin
copy of Newton's Principia. Having called some
one to carry it back to his library, the young gardener
told him that it belonged to himself. The duke was
surprised, and asked him whether he were sufficiently
acquainted with Latin and geometry to understand
Newton. Stone replied, with an air of simplicity,
that he knew a little of both. The duke then en-
tered into conversation with the young mathema-
tician, asked him several questions, and was aston-
ished at the force and accuracy of his answers. The
duke's curiosity being redoubled, he sat down on a
bank, and requested to know by what means he ac-
quired such knowledge. ' I first learned to read,' said
Stone: 'the masons were then at work upon your
house: I went near them one day, and I saw that
the architect used a rule and compass, and that he
made calculations. I inquired what might be the
meaning and use of these things; and I was informed
that there was a science named arithmetic. I pur-
chased a book of arithmetic, and I learned it. I was
told that there was another science called geometry:
I bought books, and learned geometry also. By read-
ing I found that there were good books on these two
sciences in Latin: I bought a dictionary and learned
Latin. I understood also that there were good books
of the same kind in French: I bought a dictionary
and I learned French. And this, my lord, is what
I have done. It seems to me that we may learn
anything when we know the twenty-four letters of
the alphabet.' With this account the duke was de-
lighted. He drew this wonderful young man from
his obscurity, and provided him with an employment
which left him plenty of time to apply to his favour-
ite pursuits. He discovered in him also the same
genius for music, for painting, for architecture, and
for all the sciences that depend upon calculations
and proportions."
Stone is said to have been a man of great sim-
plicity; and, though sensible of his own acquirements,
neither vain nor conceited. It is to be regretted that
no particulars are accessible respecting the latter part
of his career: we are not even informed whether he
spent the remainder of his life in Argyleshire or in
London; though it seems probable that the latter
was the scene of his chief scientific labours. His
works, partly original and partly translations, are as
follows: A New Mathematical Dictionary, first printed
in 1726, 8vo; A Treatise on Fluxions, 1730, 8vo:
in this work the direct method is a translation from
the French of the Marquis de 1'Hopital's Analysis
des Infiniments Petits, and the concise method was
supplied by Stone himself; The Elements of Euclid,
1731, 2 vols. 8vo; a neat and useful edition, with an
account of the " Life and Writings of Euclid," and
a defence of his elements against modern objectors;
besides some smaller works. Stone was a fellow of
the Royal Society, and communicated to it an "Ac-
count of Two Species of Lines of the Third Order
not mentioned by Sir Isaac Newton or Mr. Sterling,"
which was printed in the Philosophical Transactions,
vol. xli.
STOW, DAVID. This worthy founder of the
training system of education was born at Paisley, on
the 17th of May, 1793. His father, William Stow,
who had migrated in early life from his native county
of Durham to the town of Paisley, established him-
self there as a merchant, and was not only prosperous-
in business, but elected to the honourable office of a
magistrate in the town. David Stow in early youth
was educated in the grammar-school of Paisley; but
while he received there the ordinary routine of edu-
cation, it was in the domestic circle of the paternal
home that he underwent a system of religious and
intellectual training which fitted him to turn his ac-
quirements to the best account. Having become,
at the age of eighteen, connected with a mercantile
establishment in Glasgow, he took up his residence
in that city, and on his way to his place of business
had occasion daily to go through one of its lowest
and most depraved districts on the south side of the
river Clyde. The sight of its neglected vagrant
children, the denizens of the open air, who were
allowed to live and grow up as they best could, first
excited his compassion; and to instruct and reclaim
them he became a Sabbath-school teacher, at a time
when such an office was little respected in Glasgow.
Resolved also to carry on the work in earnest, he
selected for the place of his labours a densely-peopled
locality in the Saltmarket, lying between St. An-
drew's Street and the Cross; and to induce a suffi-
cient attendance of pupils, he tried what he called
the process of "deep-sea fishing" over his selected
area of about seventy families. These he visited
twice a week, and thus maintained not only the
superintendence of his pupils, but came in contact
with their parents, who in most cases were in as
much need of instruction as their children. In this
way also he endeared himself more to the people of
his own little parish than if he had collected his
flock indiscriminately from the streets at large. He
was theirs, and his school was theirs; he had chosen
them in preference to others; and while they were
assured that he cared for them, they enjoyed the
weekly privilege of his intercourse and sympathy.
This local and exclusive plan of Sabbath-school
teaching, of which Mr. Stow was the originator,
soon caught the observing eye of Dr. Chalmers, at
that time organizing his parochial machinery; and
struck with the benefits that might accrue from such
a mode of religious Sabbath instruction for the
young, he established in his parish of St. John's,
Glasgow, this principle of Sabbath-schools, by which
the labours of each teacher was to be confined to his.
own appointed locality, so that not a family in it
should be omitted or an individual neglected. This
was the only way, as the reverend doctor saw, by
which the parochial distinctions of a city could be
restored, and a clergyman become the minister of
his parish. Such was the commencement of local
Sabbath-schools, a method to which Dr. Chalmers
was enthusiastically devoted, and which he continued
to practise until the close of his well-spent life.
"This," he exclaimed when he first established his
local schools, "This is what I call preaching from
house to house!"
In consequence of the acquaintanceship of Mr.
Stow with Dr. Chalmers, and the efficient aid with
which he seconded his parochial arrangements, he
was elected one of the doctor's church elders, a
situation demanding no small amount of time and