. Railway and locomotive engineering : a practical journal of railway motive power and rolling stock . stmorning when I was assigned to theboiler-shops the men lounging about thegate waiting for the bell to ring begandiscussing the alluring subject of whatthey liked best to drink. All sorts oimixtures were discussed, when Lauriespreference was asked. Well, men, hesaid, when I have my option I prefer aglass of whisky mixed with another glassof whisky. That was my first mentor, and, curi-ously enough, he exercised a wonderfullygood influence upon me. When weemerged from the first firebox weworke
. Railway and locomotive engineering : a practical journal of railway motive power and rolling stock . stmorning when I was assigned to theboiler-shops the men lounging about thegate waiting for the bell to ring begandiscussing the alluring subject of whatthey liked best to drink. All sorts oimixtures were discussed, when Lauriespreference was asked. Well, men, hesaid, when I have my option I prefer aglass of whisky mixed with another glassof whisky. That was my first mentor, and, curi-ously enough, he exercised a wonderfullygood influence upon me. When weemerged from the first firebox weworked in he asked, How many fire-barsare in that box? Of course I could nottell, and he made mc guess, jeering atmy poor estimate. That was the beginning. Every jobwe worked on he had some questions toask—the number of stay-bolts, the sizeof the different parts, etc., till I wasforced to observe all kinds of details as asort of self-protection. The habit of ob-serving things grew upon me, and I havefound it very helpful. My connection with the oflfice broughtme into contact with officials whom I be-. locomotive .SIhKIMj lllh lAMOUS IIOKK. lieved to be perfect in engineering knowl-edge. How can I come to know theoriesof engineering?—that became a burning RAILWAY AND LOCOMOTIVE ENGINEERING. November, 1910. question. There was an old dominie inArbroath who kept a night class forteaching sailors navigation. To him Iwent, and he wished to enroll me in hisnavigation class. I steadily refused, andhe conceived the idea that instruction inmoral philosophy would help me. The re-sult was that 1 devoted two winters tothe study of Dugald Stewarts Outlinesof Moral Philosophy. At the time I wasgetting discouraged over Dugald StewartI found a copy of Chambers Informa-tion for the People. I went at once tothe public library and examined the backnumbers. Then I managed to subscribefor it. I began trying to study an hourevery evening; but that was beyond per-sistence, and I finally settled down t
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