My Schooling 



It would have survived the raft of the Me- 

 dusa. I still remember a certain Pine Cock- 

 chafer met for the first time. The plumes on 

 her antennae, her pretty pattern of white spots 

 on a dark-brown ground were as a ray of 

 sunshine In the gloomy wretchedness of the 

 day. 



To cut a long story short: good fortune, 

 w^hlch never abandons the brave, brought me 

 to the primary normal school at Vaucluse, 

 where I was assured food : dried chestnuts and 

 chick-peas. The principal, a man of broad 

 views, soon came to trust his new assistant. 

 He left me practically a free hand, so long as 

 I satisfied the school curriculum, which was 

 very modest In those days. Possessing a smat- 

 tering of Latin and grammar, I was a little 

 ahead of my fellow-pupils. I took advantage 

 of this to get some order Into my vague know- 

 ledge of plants and animals. While a dictation- 

 lesson was being corrected around me, with 

 generous assistance from the dictionary, I 

 would examine, In the recesses of my desk, the 

 oleander's fruit, the snap-dragon's seed-vessel, 

 the Wasp's sting and the Ground-beetle's 

 wing-case. 



With this foretaste of natural science, 

 picked up haphazard and by stealth, I left 

 153 



