It was here that the future scientist began his education for himself and, strange as it may seem, laid the deep foundation of his knowledge of science. For the first year he carried newspapers around to the customers, and did his work so faithfully that at the end of this time the book-binder offered to take him as an apprentice to the trade, without the usual premium which used to be rather strictly required for teaching boys their trades at that time. Faraday accepted this offer, but proved to be interested much more than in the outsides of the books he bound. Whatever of leisure there was he took advantage of to read a number of works on experimental science that happened to be in the shop. Luckily for him, some of these were classics. As an introduction to chemistry, he had Mrs. Marcet's "Conversations on Chemistry" and Robert Boyle's "Notes about the Producibleness of chimicall Principles." He was even more interested in electricity than in chemistry, however, and Lyons' "Experiments on Electricity" and the article on electricity in the Encyclopedia Britannica, whetted his interest and made the boy wish for more of such information. There probably could not be a better proof of the fact that, a man who really has intellectual interests will find the material with which to satisfy them, in spite of untoward circumstances, than this boyish experience of Faraday. It is a curious anticipation of Faraday's after-career that he at once began to demonstrate by personal experiment some of the statements that he found in the books. He procured a stock of chemicals as far as his meagre salary would allow, and constructed a practical electrical machine, though he had nothing better than a large glass bottle to serve as a cylinder for it. When not yet fourteen, he noticed an advertisement of a set of lectures on natural philosophy. He was at once taken with the idea of going to them, but the price of admission, one shilling, seemed to place them entirely beyond him. His elder brother, who followed his father's trade of blacksmith, had more money than he, and, when properly cajoled, was persuaded to provide the necessary shillings, and so Faraday got to the lectures. Elder brothers do not often have to lend shillings to their juniors for admission to scientific lectures now any more than in Faraday's time, so that the incident seems worth noting.