had trodden many a mile of
it, as boy and man, before he left home for ever for Bengal.

Two unfinished autobiographical sketches, written from India at the
request of Fuller and of Ryland, and letters of his youngest sister
Mary, his favourite "Polly" who survived him, have preserved for us in
still vivid characters the details of the early training of William
Carey. He was the eldest of five children. He was the special care of
their grandmother, a woman of a delicate nature and devout habits, who
closed her sad widowhood in the weaver-son's cottage. Encompassed by
such a living influence the grandson spent his first six years.
Already the child unconsciously showed the eager thirst for knowledge,
and perseverance in attaining his object, which made him chiefly what
he became. His mother would often be awoke in the night by the
pleasant lisping of a voice "casting accompts; so intent was he from
childhood in the pursuit of knowledge. Whatever he began he finished;
difficulties never seemed to discourage his mind." On removal to the
ancestral schoolhouse the boy had a room to himself. His sister
describes it as full of insects stuck in every corner that he might
observe their progress. His many birds he entrusted to her care when he
was from home. In this picture we see the exact foreshadowing of the
man. "Though I often used to kill his birds by kindness, yet when he
saw my grief for it he always indulged me with the pleasure of serving
them again; and often took me over the dirtiest roads to get at a plant
or an insect. He never walked out, I think, when quite a boy, without
observation on the hedges as he passed; and when he took up a plant of
any kind he always observed it with care. Though I was but a child I
well remember his pursuits. He always seemed in earnest in his
recreations as well as in school. He was generally one of the most
active in all the amusements and recreations that boys in general
pursue. He was always beloved by the boys about his own age." To
climb a certain tree was the object of their ambition; he fell often in
the attempt, but did not rest till he had succeeded. His Uncle Peter
was a gardener in the same village, and gave him his first lessons in
botany and horticulture. He soon became responsible for his father's
official garden, till it was the best kept in the neighbourhood.
Wherever after that he lived, as boy or man, poor or in comfort,
William Carey made and perfect