8 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN. 



of brick and mortar. Probably the earliest recollections of 

 the boy were associated with the factory and warehouse, but 

 he showed no tendency to tread in the paternal footsteps in 

 that respect ; though the business habits and methods he was 

 thus brought in contact with at the period when the mind is 

 " wax to receive and marble to retain," were of inestimable 

 service to him at a later day. 



His primary education was obtained at Thorne, a vil- 

 lage not far from his native town ; and his favorite place 

 for study, we are told, was an arbor, half-hidden by blos- 

 soming vines and surrounded by trees and flowers. He 

 seems to have been a lover of these from childhood, and 

 with his two sisters passed many happy hours in the little 

 garden attached to the family residence; *' planting and 

 cultivating anemones and ranunculus," as he remembered 

 and told after the lapse of nearly eighty years. 



From Thorne he was transferred to Mill Plill, about twenty 

 miles from London. It was what is termed in England a 

 *' Dissenting " school, the elder Shaw being a Baptist; but 

 was considered among the best private institutions of learn- 

 ing in the Kingdom. Here he remained some six years, 

 leaving probably in 1817; and here he finished that part 

 of his education which schools could give — the education 

 that taught him how to educate himself in the long and busy 

 life upon which he was soon to enter. Mill Hill gave him 

 an average knowledge of the classics, less of Greek than of 

 Latin ; and more than an average knowledge of mathemat- 

 ics, which ho developed by subsequent study, for the mere 

 love of the science apparently. He was for a long time re- 

 garded as the best mathematician in St. Louis. At both 

 schools he was taught French, and became in later years an 

 excellent French scholar; speaking, reading and writing it 

 with as much ease and correctness as English. He was 

 especially fond of French literature, and his library is quite 

 rich in the standard authors as well as lighter works. Un- 

 doubtedly, he was introduced at Mill Hill to other modern 

 languages: German, Italian and Spanish — all of which 



