A CONGENIAL SCHOOL 5 



my nephew in "The Museum," ^ and it was very pleasant to see how 

 Mr. and Mrs. Taggart appreciated him. I wish you had been there 

 to see the boy ; to see the perfect simpUcity with which he knew 

 and explained everything. Mrs. Taggart said she never had seen 

 such a remarkable boy, and wanted to know " where and how he 

 had been educated," and then she predicted all sorts of grand 

 things to come. I thought the Taggarts delightful people ; it 

 was amusing to see the offhand way in which William took Mr. 

 Taggart's card and invitation and then strapped on his knapsack 

 and walked off. 



In January 1842 Flower was sent to a small 

 boarding school at Edgbaston, near Birmingham, but 

 he only stayed there one quarter, owing to his health, 

 which was then, and for some years after, very 

 delicate ; this occasioned his living a great deal at 

 home with his mother. 



His health being somewhat restored, in January 

 1844 he was sent to a rather remarkable school at 

 Worksop, of which the Headmaster was a German, 

 Dr. Heldenmaier. In this school not only were 

 the more ordinary subjects taught, but also astronomy, 

 anatomy, elocution, logic, botany, mineralogy, and 

 surveying. The life must have been hard for a 

 delicate boy of twelve, as they had ten hours of 

 lessons daily, and their ''leisure" was taken up with 

 gardening, gymnastics, and making collections for 

 the school museum. This latter was a great joy to 

 him, and he writes in triumph to his mother in 

 September 1844 that he has been made "Curator 



1 The Museum was a room in his father's house at Stratford-on-Avon 

 devoted to his collections. 



