SKETCH OF HERBERT SPENCER. 623 



right view of the matter. Yet his prescribed studies were those 

 which constitute the usual pi'eparation for a university course. Latin 

 and Greek, which had been taken up at Derby, though but to little 

 purpose, were resumed at Hinton, but they were pursued without 

 interest, and no satisfactory progress was made in them. But in 

 mathematics the pupil made rapid advancement, being the equal or 

 superior of fellow-students several years his seniors, who were study- 

 ing with him. Geometry, trigonometry, algebra, mechanics, and the 

 beginning of Xewton's " Principia," were gone through. Though his 

 memory wat never a good one for details, yet it is noted that prin- 

 ciples were habitually so seized as to remain. The tendency to inde- 

 pendent exploration was shown in the spontaneous making of prob- 

 lems, and finding out new demonstrations. Tlie discipline to which 

 Herbert was subjected was here more decided than it had been at 

 home. Yet during his stay at ITinton there were various accusations 

 of disobedience w'hich led to temporary disgrace. 



At sixteen (1836) Herbert returned home, and one year was passed 

 in miscellaneous but not very persistent study. He went through 

 perspective with his father, on the principle of indejoendent discovery; 

 the successive problems being put in such ol'der that he was enabled 

 to find out the solutions himself. There was evidently a natural 

 readiness here, as during this year he hit upon a curious theorem in 

 descriptive geometry, which was afterward published with the dem- 

 onstration in the Civil Engineer's and Architect'' s Journal. 



At midsummer, 1837, after being a year at home, he had three 

 months' experience in teaching, taking the place of assistant in the 

 school to which he had first gone as a boy. His father had always 

 been anxious that he should follow the profession of teacher, the dig- 

 nity of which he estimated highly. This wish was strengthened by 

 the success which he had in this trial, as he evinced a strong natural 

 faculty for exposition, and the capacity of leading pupils to feel an in- 

 terest in their lessons by the use of copious and correct illustrations. 



In the autumn of that year, young Spencer was ofiered an engage- 

 ment under Mr. Charles Fox (afterward Sir Charles Fox), a civil-en- 

 gineer who had been a pupil of his father, and who subsequently be- 

 came widely known as the builder of the Great Exhibition building of 

 1850. He was at that time resident engineer on the London & Bir- 

 mingham Railway, then in process of construction. Here, partly in 

 making surveys and drawings, he passed nearly a year, still carrying 

 on his mathematical studies, and showing in his letters that inven- 

 tions and improvements were much in his thoughts. In the autumn 

 of 1838 he was recommended to Captain Moorsum, engineer of the 

 Birmingham & Gloucester Railway. He took this place, and some 

 eighteen months were passed in making engineers' drawings, and 

 other railway works, with some contributions to the Civil En(jimer''s 

 Journal^ describing improved methods and constructions. Toward 



