258 OBITUARY X 



private tutor. That a boy, even in his leisure 

 hours, should permit himself to be interested in 

 any but book-learning seems to have been regarded 

 as little better than an outrage by the head master, 

 who thought it his duty to administer a public 

 rebuke to young Darwin for wasting his time 

 on such a contemptible subject as chemistry. 

 English composition and literature, modern lan- 

 guages, modern history, modern geography, appear 

 to have been considered to be as despicable as 

 chemistry. 



For seven long years Darwin got through his 

 appointed tasks ; construed without cribs, learned 

 by rote whatever was demanded, and concocted 

 his verses in approved schoolboy fashion. And 

 the result, as it appeared to his mature judgment, 

 was simply negative. " The school as a means of 

 education to me was simply a blank." (I. p. 32.) 

 On the other hand, the extraneous chemical 

 exercises, which the head master treated so 

 contumeliousl y, are gratefully spoken of as the 

 " best part " of his education while at school. 

 Such is the judgment of the scholar on the school ; 

 as might be expected, it has its counterpart in the 

 judgment of the school on the scholar. The 

 collective intelligence of the staff of Shrewsbury 

 School could find nothing but dull mediocrity in 

 Charles Darwin. The mind that found satisfac- 

 tion in knowledge, but very little in mere learning ; 

 that could appreciate literature, but had no par- 



