Three Journeys from the Talmud

What were Akiva's beginnings? It is said: Up to the age of forty, he had not yet studied a thing. One time, while standing by the mouth of a well in Lydda, he inquired, "Who hollowed out this stone?" and was told, "Akiva, havens you read in Scripture that ‘water wears away stone’ (Job 14:19)?- It was water from the well falling upon it constantly, day after day." At that, R. Akiva asked himself: "Is my mind harder than this stone? I will go and study at least one section of Torah." He went directly to a schoolhouse, and he and his son began reading from a child's tablet. Rabbi Akiva took hold of one end of the tablet, and his son took hold of the other end. The teacher wrote down alef and bet for him, and he teamed them; alef to tav, and he learned them; the book of Leviticus, and he teamed it. He went on studying until he teamed the whole Torah.

Then he went and sat before Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Joshua. "My masters," he said to them, "reveal the sense of Mishnah to me." When they told him one halakhah, he went off to reason with himself. This alef, he wondered, what was it written for? That bet- what was it written for? This teaching - what was it uttered for? He kept coming back, kept inquiring of Eliezer and Joshua, until he reduced his teachers to silence. Rabbi Simeon ben Eleazar said: I shall tell you a parable to illustrate what Rabbi Akiva did. He was like a stonecutter hacking away at mountains. 

-Avot De Rabbi Natan, Perek 1