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Joseph Priestley was clearly a brilliant scholar as a boy. He had decided he wanted to study for the ministry and, toward that end, he started his studies of Latin and Greek when he was 12 years old. When he was about 16, his health deteriorated and it seemed that he wouldn't be able to pursue that career, so he taught himself French, German, and Italian to prepare himself for a career in business. He did, in fact, translate some letters for a counting house but his health recovered and he returned to his classical studies. He also mastered Hebrew by his late teens and tutored some local ministers in that language so that they could read the Hebrew Bible. At 19, he was ready for college and Cambridge or Oxford would have been ideal for him. However, as a member of a Dissenting religion he was not allowed to enter either of them. His Aunt, Sarah Keighley, arranged for him to attend the best of the dissenting colleges, Daventry Academy.
Joseph was, at that time, a devout and pious young man and still a trinitarian. Before he went away to college, he wanted to become a member of the Calvinist Church which he and his aunt had faithfully attended. However, in order to become a member he was questioned by the church elders to see if he understood the church doctrines and he was asked to explain the doctrine of original sin. His answer, in short, was that he didn't think this doctrine was contained in the scriptures and so, being, above all, an independent thinker, he wasn't too sure that he believed in original sin. Membership was thereupon denied him and he left for Daventry without a church.
He was so advanced in his studies that he skipped all of the first year and some of the second year requirements. He finished Daventry in 3 years and, in 1755, he entered the ministry at Needham Market at 20 pounds a year. He was not a success. He had an unfortunate speaking voice and a stammer and it soon became apparent that he was a believer in Arianism, a heresy that held that Jesus was not quite divine. This wasn't acceptable to many of his congregation and, after 3 years of dwindling membership, he was encouraged to go elsewhere.
He applied at Sheffield but was turned down. The decision against him was prompted not so much because of his opinions or his delivery but because of his "gay and airy disposition". He was known to jump over the counter at the grocers for fun.
In 1758, he did secure a church in Nantwich in Cheshire and he also started his first successful school. In a short time he had about 30 boys and 6 girls in class and some private pupils. He had long been a critic of the English school methods and curriculum and introduced many innovations. He didn't like the grammar books available so he wrote his own. He was a firm believer in the benefits of having his students compose essays in English. He bought some scientific apparatus and taught the pupils to use it and give demonstrations and do experiments for their parents.He also introduced some radical innovations in the teaching of history and invented the Chart of History to reveal the principal events in various civilizations along a time line.
He taught himself to play the flute and amused himself with it all his life. He wrote in his diary (to paraphrase) that everyone should learn to play an instruement and its better if they aren't too good at it, as I am not, because then they'll be less critical more easily pleased at mediocre performances.