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 giving any signs of the engineer. He received his education at a commercial academy in Lübeck, the Industrial School at Magdeburg (city of the memorable burgomaster, Otto von Guerické), and at the University of Göttingen, which he entered in 1841, while in his eighteenth year. Were he attended the chemical lectures of Woehler, the discoverer of organic synthesis, and of Professor Himly, the well-known physicist, who was married to Siemens's eldest sister, Mathilde. With a year at Göttingen, during which he laid the basis of his theoretical knowledge, the academical training of Siemens came to an end, and he entered practical life in the engineering works of Count Stolberg, at Magdeburg. At the University he had been instructed in mechanical laws and designs; here he learned the nature and use of tools and the construction of machines. But as his University career at Göttingen lasted only about a year, so did his apprenticeship at the Stolberg Works. In this short time, however, he probably reaped as much advantage as a duller pupil during a far longer term.

Young Siemens appears to have been determined to push his way forward. In 1841 his brother Werner obtained a patent in Prussia for electro-silvering and gilding; and in 1843 Charles William came to England to try and introduce the process here. In his address on 'Science and Industry,' delivered before the Birmingham and Midland Institute in 1881, while the Paris Electrical Exhibition was running, Sir William gave a most interesting account of his experiences during that first visit to the country of his adoption.

'When,' said he, 'the electrotype process first became known, it excited a very general interest; and although I was only a young student at Göttingen, under twenty years of age, who had just entered upon his practical career with a mechanical engineer, I