Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 6.djvu/102

92 enjoyed, in his own student days, at Daventry. One of his pupils tells us that—

It would be difficult to give a better description of a model teacher than that conveyed in these words.

From his earliest days, Priestley had shown a strong bent toward the study of Nature; and his brother Timothy tells that the boy put spiders into bottles to see how long they would live in the same air—a curious anticipation of the investigations of his later years. At Nantwich, where he set up a school, Priestley informs us that he bought an air-pump, an electrical machine, and other instruments, in the use of which he instructed his scholars. But he does not seem to have devoted himself seriously to physical science until 1766, when he had the great good fortune to meet Benjamin Franklin, whose friendship he ever afterward enjoyed. Encouraged by Franklin, he wrote a "History of Electricity," which was published in 1767, and appears to have met with considerable success.

In the same year, Priestley left Warrington to become the minister of a congregation at Leeds; and here, happening to live next door to a public brewery, as he says—