Robert Atkinson. 



II. 



RoBEUT Atkinson was the only child of his parents, John and 

 Anne Atkinson, and was born near Gateshead in 1839. At the early- 

 age of eight, he became a pupil at Anchorage Grammar School, in 

 Northumberland, close to his home, where his studies were directed 

 by the Head Master, Rev. William Bennett, afterwards Rector of 

 Gateshead, until, in his eighteenth year, he entered as a pensioner 

 at Trinity College, Dublin. The Matriculation Book shows that 

 July 2nd, 1856, was the date of his entrance ; but he does not appear to 

 have proceeded immediately with his studies at the University. The 

 years 1857 and 1858 were spent on the Continent ; audit was at Liege 

 that the foundations of Atkinson's extraordinarily minute knowledge 

 of the Romance languages were laid. On his return to Ireland he was, 

 for some time, an assistant-master at Kilkenny College. Thus, it was 

 not until December 16tb, 1863, that he took his degree. He had 

 obtained a Classical Scholarship in the previous year. Atkinson's 

 parents had originally designed that their son should embrace the 

 clerical profession ; and it was primarily with a view to his taking 

 orders as a clergyman of the Established Church that the lad was sent 

 to Trinity College. But his remarkable bent for the scientific study of 

 languages had been clearly manifested before the close of his course as an 

 undergraduate ; and Atkinson determined to adopt an academic career. 



In 1866 he proceeded to the degree of Master of Arts, and in 

 1869 to that of Doctor of Laws, in the University of Dublin ; and in 

 the latter year his nomination as Professor of the Romance Languages 

 in Trinity College enabled him to enter definitely upon his life's 

 work. Two years later came his appointment to the Chair of 

 Sanskrit and Comparative Philology. This position he continued to 

 fill for the lengthened period of thirty- six years, until, less than a 

 year before his death, failing physical powers obliged him to 

 relinquish its duties. Those duties he discharged with equal capacity 

 and enthusiasm throughout his long tenure of a post which is one of 

 much practical importance in relation to the training of candidates for 

 the Indian Civil Service. Atkinson possessed in a remarkable degree 

 the power of communicating to his pupils the contagion of his own 

 enthusiasm for learning. By his constant insistence on the importance 

 of getting to the root of things, and of taking nothing for gi'anted, he 

 made a strong impression on the best minds, and continued throughout 



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