ch. in PRIVATE SCHOOL 11 



was to be of no little use to him through life, 

 " My dear Papa, I hope you are all quite well. We 

 have a half holiday every Thursday. We have 

 a good many jolly cricket matches. ... I like 

 school very much and Mr. Waring says I shall 

 get on very well. Good-bye, my dear papa. 

 Believe me ever your affectionate John Lubbock. 



" I am a favourit with most of the boys 

 because I do not care aboute being laughed." 



Is not that an invaluable quality which he 

 discloses in this postscript ? And is it not rather 

 singular that at the age of eight years he should 

 be thus able to recognise its value ? Through- 

 out life he was tolerably indifferent to " being 

 laughed," and it became a source to him of 

 strength and popularity; but that he should 

 appreciate it at that time as a secret of such 

 popularity seems to show uncommon acumen. 



I do not quite know what sympathy he could 

 have won from his father, a most devoted mathe- 

 matician, for a request which he makes amusingly 

 in another letter, written from Mr. Waring's : 

 " My dear Papa. I have a great deal to say. 

 If you write to Mr. Waring about the Algebra, 

 please ask him only to give it me to do when I 

 have plenty of time, and not to make it a regular 

 lesson." We need not follow out at length the 

 " great deal that he has to say," merely noting 

 the implied distaste for algebra as indicating a 

 dislike to mathematics which was always some- 

 thing of a sorrow to the paternal lover of the 

 exact sciences. A later passage in the same 

 letter may be quoted as showing the real bent 

 of his mind : " Dunglass has brought me some 



