The history of James Watt, the inventor of the steam-engine, is no exception to the rule of struggling to win. He was born in the little town of Greenock, Scotland, 1736. Too delicate to attend school, he was taught reading by his mother, and a little writing and arithmetic by his father. When six years of age, he would draw mechanical lines and circles on the hearth, with a colored piece of chalk. His favorite play was to take to pieces his little carpenter tools, and make them into different ones. He was an obedient boy, especially devoted to his mother, a cheerful and very intelligent woman, who always encouraged him. She would say in any childish quarrels, "Let James speak; from him I always hear the truth." Old George Herbert said, "One good mother is worth a hundred schoolmasters"; and such a one was Mrs. Watt.
When sent to school, James was too sensitive to mix with rough boys, and was very unhappy with them. When nearly fourteen, his parents sent him to a friend in Glasgow, who soon wrote back that they must come for their boy, for he told so many interesting stories that he had read, that he kept the family up till very late at night.
His aunt wrote that he would sit "for an hour taking off the lid of the teakettle, and putting it on, holding now a cup and now a silver spoon over the steam, watching how it rises from the spout, and catching and condensing the drops of hot water it falls into."
Before he was fifteen, he had read a natural philosophy twice through, as well as every other book he could lay his hands on. He had made an electrical machine, and startled his young friends by some sudden shocks. He had a bench for his special use, and a forge, where he made small cranes, pulleys, pumps, and repaired instruments used on ships. He was fond of astronomy, and would lie on his back on the ground for hours, looking at the stars.
Frail though he was in health, yet he must prepare himself to earn a living. When he was eighteen, with many tender words from his mother, her only boy started for Glasgow to learn the trade of making mathematical instruments. In his little trunk, besides his "best clothes," which were a ruffled shirt, a velvet waistcoat, and silk stockings, were a leather apron and some carpenter tools. Here he found a position with a man who sold and mended spectacles, repaired fiddles, and made fishing nets and rods.