22 EAKLY DAYS 



his brother's brilHancy. WilHam, however, with all his 

 quickness and cleverness, had a vein of instabihty. The contrast 

 between the brothers in the matter of perseverance shows 

 itself from the first, and Joseph's determination to master 

 whatever he undertook calls forth his mother's just praise. 

 Later, William made a large collection of birds, while Joseph 

 collected insects and plants. WiUiam won his hterary spurs 

 at one-and-twenty by printing for private circulation his ' Notes 

 on Norway,' the account of a trip to Scandinavia ; while 

 Joseph, in the same year, first appeared in print with the de- 

 scription of three new mosses from the Himalaya in the 

 'Icones Plantarum ' (ii. 194). 



The boys went to Glasgow High School, where they received 

 the old-fashioned, liberal, Scottish education — an education 

 , that culminates in the Arts' degree for proficiency in Latin 

 and Greek, mathematics, logic and Enghsh literature, and 

 moral philosophy. In after life Hooker thought the moral 

 philosophy course had been of little value to him ; his classical 

 studies, however, were not lost even from an utilitarian point 

 of view, and he remained always able to write Latin easily; 



Sir WiUiam and Lady Hooker's letters to Dawson Turner 

 afford a few ghmpses into the boys' school-days. Thus Lady 

 Hooker writes on June 9, 1824, after a description of Willy's 

 lessons — to our great astonishment that little boys of seven 

 and eight should attend a college lecture on botany : 



^ He and Joseph accompany their father, with Frank and 



\ Eobert,^ to the lecture every morning. It is fine exercise 

 for them, and they return to breakfast at half- past nine 

 ^ o'clock, as hungry almost as my sisters and brothers used 

 to be. I think that Joseph would be the child to please 

 you in his learning. He is extremely industrious, though 

 not very clever. Willy can learn the faster if he chooses, 

 but while his elder brother sets his very heart against his 

 lessons, Joseph bends all his soul and spirit to the task 

 before him. 



^ Frank Garden and Robert Monteith lived with the Hookers for some 

 four years, studying at Glasgow before proceeding to Cambridge (in 1827). 

 * Our two eldest boys,* Sir William calls them : they were eight or nine years 

 older than his o^n boys. 



