MARLBOROUGH COLLEGE. 127 



no time to lose if I intended to qualify myself for the entrance 

 examination, which would admit me to Haileybury, the East India 

 College of those days. 



Although the examination would have been a mere bagatelle to 

 any forward boy ; when I read out the subjects to my friends at 

 school they laughed very heartily, and remarked that I might as 

 well attempt to jump over the moon as to " get round " them ; and 

 they laughed again when I said I was about to take advantage of a 

 newly-established rule, by which I could have an hour's private 

 tuition from a master in his bedroom, twice a week. 



When subsequently I presented myself before Mr. Hutchinson 

 in his garret overlooking the wilderness, this gentleman, who had 

 lately taken first-class University honours, held up his hands in 

 mute astonishment at the small amount I had imbibed at the 

 fountain of knowledge during the past eight years. He raised his 

 hands again when I told him I hoped to pass the best years of my 

 life in India ; this time remarking it appeared to him like a longing 

 for an indefinite period of transportation. 



We then turned our attention to the subjects for examination. 

 A certain amount of Greek and Latin ; the Gospels in Greek ; 

 four books of Euclid ; Paley's Evidences ; Arithmetic, Geography, 

 and English History. In case I omitted to do so at the time, I 

 take this opportunity, after a lapse of more than forty years, to 

 express my gratitude for the patient way in which my tutor listened 

 to my blunders, and the trouble he took, not in attempting to 

 drive me, but to lead me along the road to knowledge. I soon 

 made a certain amount of progress, and now that light was thrown 

 upon the subject, I found that my difficulties in the Latin grammar 

 were chiefly imaginary, and that a world of trouble would have 

 been saved, had I only known that unconsciously I illustrated the 

 three concords or agreements in Latin, almost every time I spoke 

 in English. 



Directly my tutor told me that the " Georgics " related to country 

 life, I selected them as my Latin subject for examination ; and for 



