70 Life and Letters of Francis Gallon 



in the phrase he used to mutter, at four years old, when his sister 



called him to lessons : 



" Oh stay thee, mj' Adela stay, 

 She beckons and I must pursue." 



Still there is another side to the picture, and we note that at 

 three years and a quarter the small Francis was able to trot, canter, 

 and gallop upon a large Galloway. The Galtons certainly encouraged 

 outdoor sports and exercises. 



In 1830 a great change came over Francis' life. Although only 

 eight and a half years old his father determined to send him to a large 

 boarding school at Boulogne kept by a Mr Bury. It is difficult to 

 appreciate now-a-days the motives which induced parents — in an age 

 when the child death-rate was appalling even in the upper middle 

 classes — to place quite young children in distant boarding schools. 

 Francis Galton himself (ilfemor/es, p. 16) suggests that he was sent to 

 Mr Bury's to acquire a good French accent. " What I did learn was 

 the detestable and limited patois that my eighty schoolfellows were 

 compelled to speak under the penalty of a fine," and the final judgment 

 he gives on this school with its apparently poor feeding, frequent birch- 

 ings and bad supervision runs as follows : " The school was hateful to 

 me in many ways, and loveable in none, so I was heartily glad to be 

 taken away from it in 1832." 



Violetta Galton in her little record endeavours to assure herself 

 of the happiness of Francis. He had left home on September 3, 1830 

 with his father ; they had slept in London that night, and they had 

 visited St Paul's and its dome next day. At 1 1 o'clock they em- 

 bai'ked on the " Lord Melville" steamer for Calais, where they arrived 

 late at night. The next day they went by " The Telegraph " to 

 Boulogne, and in the evening, after seeing the sights, his father 

 left him at the school in the old Convent, close to what is now the 

 Cathedral. Tertius Galton waited a week in Boulogne 



" to assure himself of the dear child's perfect happiness. He did not shed a tear, 

 or seem at all uncomfortable at parting with his father, but to the last repeated how 

 happy and comfortable he was, and how kind Mrs Neive, the housekeeper, and every- 

 body was to him." 



So Violetta Galton tried to console herself, but she sat down and 

 wrote the little record of her son which has been preserved to this day, 

 and she placed at the front the silhouette, which I have reproduced — 



