Vlll 



and had to be sent at seven to the village school of Duizel, in 

 the vicinity. Here he rapidly acquired all that the humble master, 

 Mr. Pnnkcn, could impart, and showed such precocity, especially in 

 arithmetic, that the rustics would mount him on the table of the 

 village inn, and give him sums to solve for half-pence. It was thus, 

 perhaps, discovered that he might be safely entrusted with the pay- 

 ment of the weekly wages by an employer, who rewarded him by a 

 little pocket money. " Imagine the little boy with the dark eyes peep- 

 ing out of the black locks" the fond mother would say " sitting 

 behind the desk to give the coins to the big workmen !" He was also 

 made responsible for the steady going of the village clock. They used 

 to call him " Master's Frans." In after years, when Bonders, the great 

 Professor, was secretly requiting, by substantial benefits to afflicted 

 relatives, the love bestowed upon him in childhood, such trifling in- 

 cidents as these were recalled and treasured up by loving hearts, and 

 they are, therefore, deemed not unworthy of a passing record here. 



As he grew to be eleven years old he became so useful in the school 

 that his mother was asked to allow him to remain there as a tutor for 

 two years more at a salary. Thus early did the clever lad begin to 

 exercise that innate aptitude for teaching which he afterwards culti- 

 vated to such perfection. He was subsequently moved on to other 

 seminaries at Tilbnrg and Boxmeer, learned easily to converse in 

 Latin and French, and less fluently in Greek. English he acquired 

 from schoolfellows, since become London merchants, and friends of 

 after life. In music, too, he was an adept, taking the 2nd violin in 

 quartetts. 



His religious instruction he first received from a sister of charity 

 (beguine), who prepared the children for the priest's teaching. His 

 sister Ther^se seems to have been a remarkable woman. He would 

 relate of her that she was chosen abbess over a pauper establishment 

 by the bishop, although the youngest of the community, and there- 

 fore in her own eyes unworthy. A photograph of her shows her to 

 have been very like Bonders in features. It is not surprising, per- 

 haps, that his early reveries were of the priesthood ; and some in- 

 teresting traits have been preserved, witnessing to his boyish fervour 

 in this direction ; but, with opening manhood, the current of his 

 aspirations, from whatever cause, entirely changed, and he never 

 afterwards for a moment regretted his resolve to embrace a medical 

 career. Having this in view, he would have proceeded to Liege, where 

 his eldest sister was settled, having married M. Grandmont, subse- 

 quently head of the eminent firm of publishers in that city. But the 

 revolution was about to break out, which was to end in the severance 

 of Belgium from Holland, so he turned aside to the University of 

 Utrecht, entering it as a medical student at the age of seventeen, and 

 becoming at the same time a pupil in the Military Hospital. 



