Nor did these magnificent appreciations of Faraday cease when the enthusiasm for his memory, immediately after his death, had faded somewhat into sober realization of his merits. When Dumas summed up Faraday in the first Faraday lecture of the English Chemical Society, he said: "Faraday was a type of the most fortunate and the most accomplished of the learned men of our age. His hand, in the execution of his conceptions, kept pace with his mind in designing them; he never wanted boldness when he undertook an experiment, never lacked resources to insure success, and was full of discretion when interpreting results. His hardihood, which never halted once he had undertaken a task, and his wariness, which felt its way carefully in adopting a received conclusion, will ever serve as models for the experimentalist." It is evident that the life of Faraday should be of supreme interest for a generation that is mainly interested in experimental science, and it so happens that his career contains many other sources of interest; for Faraday was a self-made man, who owed very little to anyone but himself and his own genius. Besides, he was a deep thinker with regard to all the problems of human life as well as those of science, and while he was a genial, kindly friend to those near him, the charming associate whom scientific intimates always welcomed, he had no illusions with regard to life being the end of all things, but looked confidently to the hereafter, and shaped his life here from that point of view. Michael Faraday was born at Newington Butts, now called Stoke Newington, an outskirt of London, in Surrey, September 22d, 1791. His father was a journeyman blacksmith whose health was not very good, and as a consequence, the family suffered not a little from poverty. Both his parents were noted for their good habits, industrious lives and deep religious feelings. In spite of their poverty, as is much oftener the case than is sometimes thought, their children were brought up very carefully and had a precious training in high principles. Like most of his great colleagues in scientific discovery, Faraday had to begin to earn his livelihood early in life. Of educational opportunities he had practically none. He learned to read and write, and probably had a certain slight training in doing simple sums in arithmetic, but that was the extent of his formal teaching, and much of that he got at home. He had to help in the support of his family, and so it seemed fortunate that not far away from his home there was a bookstore and bindery, the owner of which became interested in the Faradays and took Michael as an errand boy when he was scarcely thirteen years of age.