EARLY EDUCATION 237 



was born at Shrewsbury on the 12th of February, 

 1809. Shortly before his mother's death, in 1817, 

 he was sent, when eight years old, to a day-school in 

 his native town. But even in the period of childhood 

 he had chosen the favourite occupation of his life ; 

 'my taste for natural history,' he says, 'and more 

 especially for collecting, was well developed. 1 tried to 

 make out the names of plants, and collected all sorts 

 of things — shells, seals, franks, coins and minerals. 

 The passion for collecting which leads a man to be a 

 systematic naturalist, a virtuoso, or a miser, was very 

 strong in me, and was clearly innate, as none of my 

 sisters or brother ever had this taste.' According 

 to his own account, he was ' in many ways a naughty 

 boy.' But there must have been so much fun and 

 kind-heartedness in his transgressions, that neither 

 parents nor teachers could have been very seriously 

 offended by his pranks. What, for instance, could 

 be said to a boy who would gravely pretend to a 

 schoolfellow that he could produce variously tinted 

 flowers by watering them with coloured fluids, or who 

 gathered a quantity of fruit from his father's trees, 

 hid it in the shrubbery, and then ran off to announce 

 his discovery of a robbery ; or who, after beating a 

 puppy, felt such remorse that the memory of the 

 act lay heavy on his conscience and remained with 

 him to old age? In 1818 he was placed under Dr. 

 Butler in Shrewsbury School, where he continued to 

 stay for seven years until 1825, when he was sixteen 

 years old. He confesses that the classical training 

 at that seminary was useless to him, and that the 

 school as a means of education was, so far as he was 



