CliUdliood and Boi/lnnx! 69 



'I'.. Bessy, my Minerals and Shells To Lucy my Hygrometer and Desk To Emma 

 my Medals To Darwin all my parchment and my share in Aab and Poss [? ponies] 

 Tn Erasmus my Bow, Arrows and Steel Pens To Edward Levett Darwin 1 [his cousin, 

 son of Sir Francis Darwin] my Skates and latin and greek Books I make my dearest 

 sister Adele my Executrix. 



Signed, sealed and delivered by the within named \ 



Francis Gallon on the 14th day of February V FRANCIS GALTON. 

 One thousand eight hundred and thirty 



Witness S. TERTIUS GALTON VIOLETTA GALTON. 



Francis Galton himself feared that the educational efforts of his 

 sister Adele might have had a disastrous influence : 



"In middle life,'' he writes in his .Wi-morifn, p. 14, "I feared that I had been an 

 intolerable prig, and cross-questioned many old family friends about it, but \v .-is 

 invariably assured that I was not at all a prig but seemed to 'spout' for pure enjoy- 

 ment and without any affectation ; that I often quoted very aptly on the spur of the 

 moment, and that I was a nice little child." 



As a rule the presence of elder brothers and sisters, ready to do 

 a little hustling and teasing when occasion requires, suffices in most 

 cases to check any priggishness in the youngest member of a family. 

 But there is another point from which the matter may be judged. 

 Galton suffered in later years from occasional mental weariness, the 

 effect of over-strain, and there is just a sad note in an answer his 

 mother has preserved for us, given to his father who had been examining 

 him in arithmetic when he was five years of age. Asked if he was not 

 tired, he replied : " I am not tired of the thing, but of myself." It is 

 possible that with an ambitious, mentally active boy 8 , such as Galton 

 undoubtedly was a boy who was easily ahead of his compeers in his first 

 two schools a little holding back would have been the more judicious 

 course. There is a plaintive note too, with perhaps a deeper meaning 



1 Edward Darwin went to school with Francis at Mrs French's. 



2 When four years old Francis was observed to be very careful of every penny that 

 lie received, and upon being questioned what he was saving for replied : "Why, to buy 

 honours at the University." lie once also told his father on being asked what he 

 would like most: "Why, University honours to be sure." The influence at work is 

 not clear, the Gallons tlirni^-U rs did not spring from academically minded stock, and 

 the University careers of his unrlrs Charles and Robert Waring Darwin were of tin- 

 distant past. His cousin Charles h.-id not, yet gone to Cambridge. 



