12 



MEMOIK OF AUGUSTUS DE MORGAN. 



1823. 



1824. 

 Tutor s 

 opinion of 

 his capa- 

 bilities. 



at the time are filled with earnest entreaties ' not to dis- 

 regard good advice/ ' not to be so wilful/ &c. 



It is certain that her exhortations were not needed. 

 He had exerted himself, as his tutor's letter to him shows : 

 * I am sorry that I cannot congratulate you on being in 

 the first class, though your merits and exertions richly 

 deserved it.' We may remember that he was at this time 

 under seventeen, that he had been at college only three 

 months, and that he beat by many places his competitor 

 of his own year, two years his senior in age. Moreover, he 

 had been urged by his tutor, against his own conviction, 

 to go in for examination at this time. 



It appears from some of his mother's letters that he 

 had in reply assured her that he would comply with her 

 wish with respect to his reading. But it cannot be 

 wondered at that the University lectures opened the field 

 into which he had long desired to enter. It was like new 

 life to him when he listened to Dr. Peacock's explanations, 

 and followed up the study he loved under the guidance of 

 one who knew how to show the way. From the conflict 

 between his own inclinations and the wishes of his friends 

 it is certain that his path could not be quite smooth, but 

 happily the University courses made it better during the 

 second than in the first year. A greater amount of Mathe- 

 matics was then required in the college examination, and 

 he was found at the head of the first class. Mr. Higman, 

 his tutor, wrote to his mother : ' Notwithstanding my 

 disappointment last year, I had formed such a very 

 favourable opinion of Mr. De Morgan's talent, and was so 

 much pleased with his industry and the implicit attention 

 he paid to every direction that I gave him, that I felt per- 

 fectly assured that he would, on the next trial, when less 

 depended on Classics, distinguish himself in a very extra- 

 ordinary manner. Nor have my prognostics with regard 

 to his success proved deceitful ; he is not only in our first 

 class, but far, very far, the first in it.' 



For the first two years of his Cambridge life, owing to 



