The Little Mechanic

 The Little Mechanic

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Isaac Newton was born on Christmas Day in 1642 in Woolsthorpe, a village in England. He was brought up by his grandmother.

He was very interested in making different ingenious toys and showed signs of great promise in inventing things. His grandmother and neighbours were sure that he would be famous one day, by making furniture or by becoming an architect and so on.

Some of his neighbours probably advised his grandmother to send him to a clockmaker. They had good reason for or doing so; Isaac had already made two wonderful clocks. One of them was a water clock. The other was a sundial.

Isaac had the knack of acquiring knowledge with from various sources, by various means. He could measure the force of a wind by jumping against it.

When he found a windmill which operated on new technology, he spent hours observing it and examining its different parts. He did not stop at understanding its mechanism; he went ahead and implemented it by building a model windmill. It was so perfect that it could actually turn wheat into flour. Isaac's friends were fascinated with it.

As Isaac grew older, his attention moved to more important things. He read extensively, thought deeply, and observed as curiously as ever. That curiosity led him to his discoveries. He found out about the nature of light, about gravitation and much more. From the mechanism of a windmill, he had moved on to the mechanism of the universe.

He was honoured in several ways-he was knighted, made a Member of the Parliament and was otherwise an illustrious man. However, he remained humble, seeing himself as a child picking up mere pebbles and shells beside an ocean of undiscovered truth.


This is a biography, which the renowned author Nathaniel Hawthorne has made interesting with the use of stories of Newton's childhood games and toys. These stories show us the nature of Newton's genius, which could be observed right from his childhood. He elaborates on Newton's childhood more than he does on his adulthood; this helps to engage young readers' attention and interest. The text is written in chronological order, beginning with Newton's birth and going on to childhood, adulthood and then old age. This style serves the biography well as it helps the reader to form a clear picture of Newton's life.