PROPOSED CLERICAL CAREER 241 



Darwin's father proposed to him that he should be- 

 come a clergyman, for it was out of the question that 

 the young student should be allowed to turn into an 

 idle sporting man, as he bade fair to do. After some 

 time given to reflection on this momentous change 

 in his career, Darwin, who • did not then in the least 

 doubt the strict and literal truth of every word in 

 the Bible,' agreed to the proposal. Many years after- 

 wards, when he had risen to fame, and his photograph 

 was the subject of public discussion at a German 

 psychological society, he was declared by one of the 

 speakers to have c the bump of reverence developed 

 enough for ten priests.' So that in one respect, as 

 he says of himself, he was well fitted to be a clergy- 

 man. In another and more serious qualification, 

 however, he found himself lamentably and almost 

 incredibly deficient. If his two years at Edinburgh 

 had not added much to his stock of professional know- 

 ledge, they seem to have driven out of his head what 

 slender share of classical learning he had imbibed at 

 Shrewsbury. He had actually forgotten some of the 

 Greek letters, and had to begin again, therefore, at 

 the very beginning. But after a few months of pre- 

 liminary training he found himself able to proceed to 

 Cambridge in the early part of the year 1828, when 

 he was now nearly nineteen years of age. So far as 

 concerned academical studies, the three years at the 

 University were, in his own opinion, as much wasted 

 time as his residence at Edinburgh or ihis life at school 

 had been. He attempted mathematics, which he found 

 repugnant. In classics he did as little as he could ; 

 but in the end he took his B.A. degree, and got the 



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