THE "AUTOBIOGRAPHY" OF GEORGE COMBE. 119 



leaving the yards turned round opposite the building and wished to God that I 

 had the command of a battery of twenty-four pounders for a day to blow the 

 school to atoms. For years after I left the school, when I saw my teacher 

 coming in the street, I took the opposite pavement. 



So much for the education that had been ordered and paid for. 

 His estimate of his schooling for the next two years is equally interest- 

 ing. From the High School he went to the University of Edinburgh. 

 With his first teacher he studied geography and mathematics, but, as 

 his capacity for learning words was slender, he forgot yesterday's les- 

 son in learning to day's, while in mathematics the demonstrations he 

 repeated evaporated as fast as they were learned. But for several 

 months his sole fellow student in geography was a young sailor from 

 the middle ranks, who was very profligate, though bold and generous, 

 and he related to Combe the histories of his corrupt experiences. Hap- 

 pily, however, they had no allurements for the lad, and increased his 

 knowledge without subverting his morals. Of his experiences in Dr. 

 Hill's Latin class, he says : 



I could not master the lessons, and had no assistance at home. As we were 

 now young gentlemen, there was no corporal punisbment, no place-taking, no 

 keeping-in. Those able and willing to learn were taugbt, the rest were left un- 

 molested, if they kept quiet and let business go on. The boys in my condition 

 took back seats, and let the clever boys sit in the front ones next the Professor. 



He and they went on harmoniously and successfully ; Combe lis- 

 tened, and learned what he could. But he savs : 



I must record one great benefit I derived from the lax discipline of all my 

 teachers in the years 1802-3. In those years my brain got nearly a complete 

 rest; and as I was growing rapidly this was an advantage which in its ultimate 

 consequences counterbalanced my losses by habitual indolence. I bad a con- 

 science, and in all my previous attendance at scbool it urged me to do my best, 

 and punished me with painful upbraidings when I sacrificed duty to pleasure, 

 which was not often ; and thus my nervous system had been kept on tbe stretch,. 

 my brain had been overtasked and my health and growth impaired. But in 

 these two years my brain got a rest, for my conscience was to some degree 

 involved in my general apathy. 



We have no room for details of his Sunday training. Like all the 

 rest of his so-called education it was unintelligible, burdensome, dis- 

 couraging. He envied the cattle that had no souls, and he envied his 

 brother Abram, whose light disposition enabled him to throw Calvinism 

 to the winds, and make witty sarcasms and jokes out of the materials it 

 afforded. In 1802 he lost a brother, ten months old, of small-pox, and 

 in 1807 a sister just younger than himself, who had been ill for many 

 years. These events excited and bewildered him, but the example of 

 his parents taught him not to complain of sufferings " sent by the hand 

 of God." 



He says that about the year 1802-'3 he first became conscious of 



