168 MEMOIR OF FLEEMING JENKIN 



tion ; (3) For boys taught exclusively by their 

 mothers — ^Arithmetic and Reading.' Prizes were 

 given ; but what prize would be so conciliatory 

 as this boyish little joke ? It may read thin 

 here ; it would smack racily in the playroom. 

 Whenever his sons ' started a new fad ' (as one 

 of them writes to me) they ' had only to tell him 

 about it, and he was at once interested and keen 

 to help.' He would discourage them in nothing 

 unless it was hopelessly too hard for them ; only, 

 if there was any principle of science involved, 

 they must understand the principle ; and what- 

 ever was attempted, that was to be done thor- 

 oughly. If it was but play, if it was but a puppet- 

 show they were to build, he set them the example 

 of being no sluggard in play. When Frewen 

 the second son embarked on the ambitious design 

 to make an engine for a toy steamboat, Fleeming 

 made him begin with a proper drawing — doubt- 

 less to the disgust of the young engineer ; but 

 once that foundation laid, helped in the work 

 with unflagging gusto, ' tinkering away,' for hours, 

 and assisted at the final trial ' in the big bath ' 

 with no less excitement than the boy. ' He 

 would take any amount of trouble to help us,' 

 writes my correspondent. ' We never felt an 

 affair was complete till we had called him to see, 

 and he would come at any time, in the middle 

 of any work.' There was indeed one recognised 



