Mr. George Bidder, the engineer, presents one of the few examples of early habits of calculation being matured to advantage. When about six years of age, he was first introduced to the science of figures. His father was a working man; his elder brother commenced instructing him to count up to 10, then to 100, and there he stopped. He repeated the process, and found that by stopping at 10, and repeating that every time, he counted up to 100 much quicker than by going straight through the series: he counted up to ten, then ten again = 20, 3 times 10 = 30, 4 times = 40, and so on. At this time he did not know one written or printed figure from another, nor did he know there was such a word as “multiply;” but, having acquired the power of counting up to 100 by ten and by 5, he set about, in his own way, to acquire the multiplication-table: he got a small bag of shot, which he arranged into squares of 8 on each side, and then, on counting them, found they amounted to 64; which fact once established, remained undisturbed in Mr. Bidder’s mind until this day; and in this way he acquired the whole multiplication-table up to 10 times 10, which was all he needed. In a house opposite his father’s lived an aged blacksmith, who allowed young Bidder to run about his workshop and blow the bellows for him, and on winter-evenings to listen to the old man’s stories by the forge-hearth. By practice his powers of numeration were drawn forth, he was rewarded with halfpence, and thus he became more attached to arithmetic. The “Calculating Boy” has now matured as an eminent engineer; the process of reasoning, or action of the mind, by which, when a boy, he trained himself in Mental Arithmetic, having laid the basis of sound professional skill, which he has most beneficially exercised in various great engineering works. James Walker, civil engineer, who died in 1862, aged eighty-one, was the oldest member of the profession. He was one of the earliest members of the Institution of Civil Engineers, succeeded Telford as President, and filled the chair fourteen years. Mr. Walker, through his long life, was associated with many of the greatest hydraulic works in England and Scotland, including lighthouses, harbours, bridges, embankments, and drainage. He had accumulated in personalty 300,000_l._, which he took great pains to distribute by his will; for he was a kind-hearted, generous man, and considerate and liberal to those associated with him in his profession. --------------------- Footnote 99: Smiles’s _Lives of the Engineers_, vol. iii. Footnote 100: