The Life Of William Denny PDF Download

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1888 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER II. APPRENTICESHIP. THROM Italian duomoes and picture-galleries William Denny passed to the workshop in his father's ship-yard in Dumbarton, under the murky atmosphere of the Vale of Leven, to serve an apprenticeship of five years to the trade of ship-building. It was to be a very real and thorough apprenticeship; for Mr. Denny, while a kind-hearted man, was at the same time a stern father, and had no idea of rearing his sons to be fine gentlemen, nominally connected with business, but spending their time and his wealth in fashionable amusements and genteel idleness. He would not even run the risk of his son falling between the two stools of ship-building and learning. Therefore he determined not to adopt the advice given by Mr. Murray in the letter quoted at the close of last chapter--to send William to the university during the winter months. It was a very natural and proper advice for him to give, and the course suggested was a very desirable one if it could be carried out compatibly with attaining the end aimed at: that of making the lad a real, not a sham, ship-builder, or indeed a ship-builder of any sort. William himself probably was in favour of Mr. Murray's plan; it is certain, at least, that not very long after his apprenticeship had commenced he expressed regret that he had not got the benefit of a university training. One can understand and sympathise with his feeling, yet without hesitation approve of the decision come to. Going to the university would have issued in an entirely different vocation: that of a literary man, or more probably that of a clergyman; for at the time William uttered the regrets above referred to his thoughts were running in the direction of the Church. These thoughts were not whimsical. They...