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Article ACCOUNT OF AN EXTRAORDINARY NATURAL GENIUS, ← Page 2 of 6 →
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Account Of An Extraordinary Natural Genius,
conferences he proposed to his guest the most abstracted and embarrassing questions , which were always answered with the utmost readiness and precision . The account which this extraordinary person gives of himself and his acquisitions is as follows : John Ludwig was born the 24 th of February 1715 , in the village of Cossedaude , and was , among other poor children of the village , sent very jyoung to school . The biblewhich was the book b
, y which he was taught to read , gave him so much pleasure , that he conceived the most eager desire to read others , which , however , he had no opportunity to get into his possession . Iiyabout a year his master began to teach him to write , but this exercise was rather irksome than pleasing at first ; but when the first difficulty was surmountedhe applied to it with great alacrityespecially as books
, , were put into his hands to copy as an exercise ; and he employed himself almost night ancl day , not in copying particular passages only , but in forming collections of sentences , or events that were connected with each other . When he was ten years old , he had been at school four years , and was then put to arithmetic , but this
embarrassed him with innumerable difficulties , which his master would not take the trouble to explain , expecting that he should content himself with the implicit practice of positive rules . Ludwig therefore was so disgusted with arithmetic , that after much scolding and beating he went from school , without having learned any thing more than read- * ing , writing , and his catechism . He was then sent into the field to keep cowsand in this
employ-, ment he soon became clownish , and negligent of every thing else . so that the greatest part of what he had learnt was forgotten . He was associated with the sordid and the vicious , and he became insensibly like them . As he grew up he kept company with women of bad character , and abandoned himself to such pleasures as were within his reach . But a desire of surpassing othersthat princile which is
, p productive of every kind of greatness , was still living in his breast ; he remembered to have been praised by his master , and preferred above his comrades , when he was learning to read and write , and he was still desirous of the same pleasure , though he did not know how to get at it .
In the autumn of 1735 , when he was about 20 years old , he "bought a small bible , at the end of which was a catechism , with references to a great number of texts , upon which the principles contained in the answers ivere founded . Ludwig had never been used to-take any thing upon trust , and was therefore continually turning ' over the leaves of his bible , to find the passages referred to in the catechismbut this he found so irksome a taskthat he determined
; , to have the whole at one view , ' and therefore set about to transcribe the catechism , with all the texts at large brought into their proper places . With this exercise he filled two quires of paper , and though . when he began , the character was scarce legible , yet before he had finished it was greatly improved . for an art that has been once learnt is easily recovered ,
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Account Of An Extraordinary Natural Genius,
conferences he proposed to his guest the most abstracted and embarrassing questions , which were always answered with the utmost readiness and precision . The account which this extraordinary person gives of himself and his acquisitions is as follows : John Ludwig was born the 24 th of February 1715 , in the village of Cossedaude , and was , among other poor children of the village , sent very jyoung to school . The biblewhich was the book b
, y which he was taught to read , gave him so much pleasure , that he conceived the most eager desire to read others , which , however , he had no opportunity to get into his possession . Iiyabout a year his master began to teach him to write , but this exercise was rather irksome than pleasing at first ; but when the first difficulty was surmountedhe applied to it with great alacrityespecially as books
, , were put into his hands to copy as an exercise ; and he employed himself almost night ancl day , not in copying particular passages only , but in forming collections of sentences , or events that were connected with each other . When he was ten years old , he had been at school four years , and was then put to arithmetic , but this
embarrassed him with innumerable difficulties , which his master would not take the trouble to explain , expecting that he should content himself with the implicit practice of positive rules . Ludwig therefore was so disgusted with arithmetic , that after much scolding and beating he went from school , without having learned any thing more than read- * ing , writing , and his catechism . He was then sent into the field to keep cowsand in this
employ-, ment he soon became clownish , and negligent of every thing else . so that the greatest part of what he had learnt was forgotten . He was associated with the sordid and the vicious , and he became insensibly like them . As he grew up he kept company with women of bad character , and abandoned himself to such pleasures as were within his reach . But a desire of surpassing othersthat princile which is
, p productive of every kind of greatness , was still living in his breast ; he remembered to have been praised by his master , and preferred above his comrades , when he was learning to read and write , and he was still desirous of the same pleasure , though he did not know how to get at it .
In the autumn of 1735 , when he was about 20 years old , he "bought a small bible , at the end of which was a catechism , with references to a great number of texts , upon which the principles contained in the answers ivere founded . Ludwig had never been used to-take any thing upon trust , and was therefore continually turning ' over the leaves of his bible , to find the passages referred to in the catechismbut this he found so irksome a taskthat he determined
; , to have the whole at one view , ' and therefore set about to transcribe the catechism , with all the texts at large brought into their proper places . With this exercise he filled two quires of paper , and though . when he began , the character was scarce legible , yet before he had finished it was greatly improved . for an art that has been once learnt is easily recovered ,