i6' REMINISCENCES OF 



x , prosody in those three lines. This was a revelation 

 to me of what true teaching meant, and at a later 

 period the loss of it cost me many a tearful night. 

 Two things in the history of that brief school-life 

 are worth recording. We were entitled to two half 

 holidays each week, but not on any fixed day. 

 Hence, if a day was unusually fine we had only to 

 ask, in order to have either the ordinary half-day or 

 both halves rolled into one glorious whole. In such 

 cases boys and ushers alike rejoiced in the rambles 

 to distant woods and moors. These rambles in that 

 lovely limestone region were indeed pleasures. I 

 had brought to the school all nets and other entomo- 

 logical apparatus for increasing the museum collec- 

 tion of British insects, in which the district around 

 Thornton was remarkably rich. A taste for such 

 pursuits spread rapidly amongst the boys, and 

 insect hunting soon became the popular occupation 

 whenever we were free, even if for only half an hour. 



This happy time came to an end all too soon. At 

 the close of June I returned to Scarborough, and 

 then began another of the numerous breaks in my 

 scholastic career. This lasted until the end of 

 September, and the three months were again spent 

 in collecting plants, birds, and fossils for the 

 museum. 



My parents determined to send me next for a 

 while into France; and having heard that the son of 

 a Leeds merchant whose acquaintance my father 

 had made, was at a school in Bourbourg, a small 



