He was born in 1791, in Charlestown, Massachusetts. His father was a
learned minister, who "was always thinking, always writing, always
talking, always acting"; and his mother was a woman of noble character,
who inspired her son with lofty purpose.
When he was seven he went to Andover, Massachusetts, to school, and still
later entered Phillips Academy in the same town. At fourteen he entered
Yale College, where from the first he was a good, faithful student.
[Illustration: S.F.B. Morse.]
As his father was poor, Finley had to help himself along, and was able to
do it by painting, on ivory, likenesses of his classmates and professors,
for which he received from one dollar to five dollars each. In this way he
made considerable money.
At the end of his college course he made painting his chosen profession
and went to London, where he studied four years under Benjamin West.
Though for some years he divided his time and effort between painting and
invention, he at last decided to devote himself wholly to invention. This
change in his life-work was the outcome of an incident which took place on
a second voyage home from Europe, where he had been spending another
period in study.
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