There is a story told of Sir Humphry Davy, that, on being asked on a certain occasion to enumerate what he considered as his greatest discoveries, he named first one thing and then another,—now his wonderful safety-lamp, then some electrical discovery, finishing up with "but the greatest of all my discoveries was the discovery of Michael Faraday."

In the autumn of 1812, as we have seen, Faraday was a bookbinder, whose apprenticeship was just at an end, and who was contemplating, as the only thing possible, the taking up of life as a journeyman at the craft at which for seven years he had been working; indeed, a journeyman bookbinder he became, for in October of that year he engaged himself to a Mr. De la Roche, who, though a quick-tempered, passionate man, seems to have really cared for Faraday, so much so, indeed, that he said to him, "I have no child, and if you will stay with me you shall have all I have when I am gone." But Michael was not thus to be tempted from the path which he desired to tread, as he wrote afterwards to Davy's biographer, "My desire to escape from trade, which I thought vicious and selfish, and to enter into the service of science, which I imagined made its pursuers amiable and liberal, induced me at last to take the bold and simple step of writing to Sir H. Davy, expressing my wishes and a hope that if an opportunity came in his way he would favour my views; at the same time, I sent the notes I had taken of his lectures."

Shortly after Sir Humphry received Faraday's application, speaking to a friend—the honorary inspector of the models and apparatus—he said, "Pepys, what am I to do? Here is a letter from a young man named Faraday; he has been attending my lectures, and wants me to give him employment at the Royal Institution. What can I do?"

"Do?" was Pepys' reply, "do? put him to wash bottles; if he is good for anything, he will do it directly; if he refuses, he is good for nothing."

"No, no," said Davy, "we must try him with something better than that."

Notwithstanding the fact that his similar application of some months before to Sir Joseph Banks had met with no answer, Faraday, in his desire to leave trade for science, had thus addressed another of the leading men of the day. Davy's reply was "immediate, kind, and favourable." It was this—

"December 12th, 1812.

"To Mr. Faraday,

"Sir,—I am far from displeased with the proof you have given me of your confidence, and which displays great zeal, power of memory, and attention. I am obliged to go out of town, and shall not be settled in town till the end of January; I will then see you at any time you wish. It would gratify me to be of any service to you; I wish it may be in my power.

"I am, Sir, your obedient humble servant,

"H. Davy."

The young bookbinder's delight on receiving the great and kindly-natured man's note may easily be imagined, as also may his anxiety for Davy's return. Five weeks, however, are soon passed, and Michael duly met Sir Humphry "by the window which is nearest to the corridor, in the ante-room to the theatre" at the Royal Institution. Davy was much impressed by the sincerity and modesty of the applicant, but yet advised him to continue at his bookbinding, going so far, indeed, as to say that he would get the Royal Institution binding for him, and would recommend him to his friends.[4] With this, for the present, Faraday had to be content. He returned to his binding, delighted that he had met and conversed with the greatest chemist of his time, but still anxious for an opportunity to leave that trade to which, as he had said, he was so averse, and to become wholly the servant of that science to which he was so attached.

The change in his vocation was to come far more rapidly than he could have anticipated. He was still living, at this time (early in 1813), at 18, Weymouth Street, and one night, not very long after his interview with Davy, just as he was undressing to go to bed, there came a loud knock at the front door. Michael went to the window to see if there was any evidence as to whom the unwonted visitor might be. A carriage was there, from which a footman had alighted and left a note for "Mr. M. Faraday." It proved to be from Sir Humphry, who had already an opportunity of serving the young enthusiast. The note requested Michael to call on Davy the next morning. This he did, and learned that an assistant in the laboratory of the Royal Institution was required at once, the former assistant having been dismissed the day before. Michael instantly expressed his willingness to accept the position; he was to have twenty-five shillings a week salary, and two rooms at the top of the Institution building.

It was not long before arrangements were all completed. A meeting of the managers of the Institution was held on March 1st; the following is entered in the minutes of that day's proceedings:—"Sir Humphry Davy has the honour to inform the managers that he has found a person who is desirous to occupy the situation in the Institution lately filled by William Payne. His name is Michael Faraday. He is a youth of twenty-two years of age. As far as Sir H. Davy has been able to observe or ascertain, he appears well fitted for the situation. His habits seem good, his disposition active and cheerful, and his manner intelligent. He is willing to engage himself on the same terms as those given to Mr. Payne at the time of quitting the Institution. Resolved:—That Michael Faraday be engaged to fill the situation lately occupied by Mr. Payne on the same terms."

The duties of the assistant were specified by the managers in the following manner, his work being something other than the washing of bottles, which Pepys had recommended. It is a fact, also, that Faraday, almost from the commencement of his engagement, was concerned in more important work than that herein particularised. He was "to attend and assist the lecturers and professors in preparing for, and during, lectures; when any instruments or apparatus may be required, to attend to their careful removal from the model room or laboratory to the lecture-room, and to clean and replace them after being used, reporting to the manager such accidents as shall require repair, a constant diary being kept by him for that purpose. That, in one day in each week, he be employed in keeping clean the models in the repository, and that all the instruments in the glass cases be cleaned and dusted at least once within a month." As has been said, Faraday's work was almost from the first of a higher nature; he is reported to have set in order the mineralogical collection soon after his arrival.

But a very short while elapsed between Michael's appointment as assistant and his taking up the duties of his post, for, on the 8th of March, he writes to Abbott, dating his letter from his new home, the two rooms at the top of the Institution. His letter tells us that he was already concerned in the active duties of his post, as the following passages show: "It is now about nine o'clock, and the thought strikes me that the tongues are going both at Tatum's and at the lecture in Bedford Street; but I fancy myself much better employed than I should have been at the lecture at either of those places. Indeed, I have heard one lecture already to-day, and had a finger in it (I can't say a hand, for I did very little). It was by Mr. Powell on mechanics, or rather, on rotatory motion, and was a pretty good lecture, but not very fully attended.

"As I know you will feel a pleasure in hearing in what I have been or shall be occupied, I will inform you that I have been employed to-day, in part, in extracting the sugar from a portion of beetroot, and also in making a compound of sulphur and carbon—a combination which has lately occupied in a considerable degree the attention of chemists."

About a month after writing the letter of which the above forms a part, Faraday again wrote to his friend Abbott, giving him an account of some experiments, in which he had been assisting Sir Humphry Davy, on "the detonating compound of chlorine and azote, and of four different and strong explosions of the substance, explosions from which neither he nor Davy had altogether escaped unhurt." "Of these," he says, "the most terrible was when I was holding between my thumb and finger a small tube containing 7-1/2 grains of the compound. My face was within twelve inches of the tube; but I fortunately had on a glass mask. It exploded by the slight heat of a small piece of cement that touched the glass above half-an-inch from the substance, and on the outside. The explosion was so rapid as to blow my hand open, bear off a part of one nail, and has made my fingers so sore that I cannot yet use them easily. The pieces of the tube were projected with such force as to cut the glass face of the mask I had on." In the other three experiments also they each of them got more or less cut about by the explosion of the "terrible compound," as Faraday calls it, Davy, indeed, in the last one, getting somewhat seriously cut.

He writes thus frequently to Abbott during the summer of 1813, giving him in the later letters some well thought-out ideas on lectures and lecturing, which we shall have occasion to glance at when we are considering Faraday himself in the capacity of a lecturer,—one of the most popular and yet truly scientific lecturers of any time. In this year, his twenty-first, Faraday joined the City Philosophical Society, which had been founded about five years earlier by Mr. Tatum, at whose house the meetings were held. The Society consisted of some thirty or forty individuals, "perhaps all in the humble or moderate rank of life;" and certainly all of them anxious to improve themselves and add to their knowledge of scientific subjects. Once a week the members gathered together for mutual instruction; each member opening the discussion in his turn by reading a paper of a literary or philosophical nature, any member failing to do so at his proper time being fined half-a-guinea. In addition, the members had what they modestly called a "class book," but probably very like what we should now call a manuscript magazine; in this each member wrote essays, and the work was passed round from one to another.

Michael, it will be seen, was not neglecting any opportunity of educating himself; as he had said in starting his correspondence with Abbott, one of his objects was to improve himself in composition and to acquire a clear and simple method of expressing that which he had to say. Yet another method had he of furthering his self-education. In the scanty notes which he wrote about his own life he says, "During this spring (1813) Magrath and I established the mutual improvement plan, and met at my rooms up in the attics of the Royal Institution, or at Wood Street at his warehouse. It consisted, perhaps, of half-a-dozen persons, chiefly from the City Philosophical Society, who met of an evening to read together, and to criticise, correct, and improve each other's pronunciation and construction of language. The discipline was very sturdy, the remarks very plain and open, and the results most valuable. This continued for several years." It is a matter for wonder how Faraday, with all these attempts to improve his language and method, and to avoid even the slightest peculiarity, managed yet to retain in all his work a remarkable simplicity and naturalness of style.

On September 13, 1813, Faraday wrote to his uncle and aunt, giving them an account of himself because he had nothing else to say, and was asked by his mother to write the account:—"I was formerly a bookseller and binder, but am how turned philosopher, which happened thus: Whilst an apprentice, I, for amusement, learnt a little of chemistry and other parts of philosophy, and felt an eager desire to proceed in that way further. After being a journeyman for six months, under a disagreeable master, I gave up my business, and, by the interest of Sir Humphry Davy, filled the situation of chemical-assistant to the Royal Institution of Great Britain, in which office I now remain, and where I am constantly engaged in observing the works of nature and tracing the manner in which she directs the arrangement and order of the world. I have lately had proposals made to me by Sir Humphry Davy to accompany him, in his travels through Europe and into Asia, as philosophical assistant. If I go at all, I expect it will be in October next, about the end, and my absence from home will perhaps be as long as three years. But, as yet, all is uncertain, I have to repeat that, even though I may go, my path will not pass near any of my relations, or permit me to see those whom I so much long to see."

This Continental trip with Davy forms one of the chief episodes in Faraday's life. He had, though two-and-twenty years of age, never before been further than a few miles out of London. The country through which he passed, the sea, and the mountains, all came to him as a revelation. The letters which he wrote home from abroad, and the journals which he kept, all express his wonder at the strange sights, and all breathe the kindliness of nature and affection for home and those at home which all his life long were strongly marked characteristics. His letters to his mother are especially pleasing. He was away for but little over eighteen months, yet an account of his travels merits a chapter to itself. The commencement of 1813 marked an epoch in his life, the close of the same year marked another.