Faraday himself became apprenticed to a bookbinder.
He continued to work as a journeyman bookbinder till the 1st of March 1813, when he was appointed assistant in the laboratory of the Royal Institution of Great Britain on the recommendation of Davy, whom he accompanied on a tour through France, Italy and Switzerland from October 1813 to April 1815.
The son of a Zapotec peasant in a mountain village of Oaxaca, he was employed as a lad by a bookbinder in Oaxaca city, and aided by him to study for the priesthood.
It is stated to form with alum-water a size or cement highly offensive to vermin, and with two parts of wheaten flour the material for a strong bookbinder's paste.