SCHOOL EXPERIENCES. 5 



Peacock in 1852, he says apropos of Robert Young, of 1820. 

 whom he had been writing, 



6 When I was sent to school near Bristol in 1820, I 

 was consigned to E. Young, who especially warned me 

 not to walk in my sleep, as there were no leads outside 

 the windows ; they had been removed. The consequence 

 was, that though I never walked in my sleep before or 

 since that I remember, I was awakened by the wind 

 blowing on me, and found myself before the open window, 

 with my knee on the lower ledge. I crept back to bed, 

 leaving the window open, and the family being alarmed 

 by the noise, came into my room, and found me asleep and 

 the window open, so that as their fenestral logic did not 

 reason both ways, they forgot that the leads were not there, 

 and searched the whole house for thieves.' 



Mr. Eobert Eeece, his old schoolfellow and constant 

 friend of forty years, writes concerning these early school 

 days : 



' I entered Mr. Parsons' school at Eedland, near 

 Bristol, on August 12, 1819. I think dear De Morgan 

 came among us at the latter end of the following year, or 

 in January 1821. 



' He was certainly a fine stout fellow for his age, and at 

 once took a high place in the school. He had a grievous 

 infirmity, the loss of one of his eyes, 1 which provoked all 

 kinds of gibes and practical jokes among the boys.' 



Mr. Eeece has told me how these cruel practical jokes 

 were put an end to. One lad was in the habit of playing 

 a trick upon his schoolfellow which deserves a worse 

 name than thoughtlessness. He would come up stealthily 

 to De Morgan's blind side, and holding a sharp-pointed 

 penknife to his cheek, speak to him suddenly by name. 

 De Morgan on turning round received the point of the 

 knife in his face. His friend Eeece agreed with him that 

 until the aggressor should receive a sound thrashing he 



1 From birth. Both eyes were affected with the * sore eye ' of 

 India, and the left was saved. 



