54 MY LIFE 



had not made the least approach to anything that was in- 

 telligible. So we had to confess that we could only make 

 nonsense of it. Then he began, and translated the whole 

 passage correctly for us, using very nearly the same words as 

 we had used, but arranging them in a very different order, 

 and showing us that the very ideas involved and the whole 

 construction of the sentence was totally different from any- 

 thing we had imagined. He did all this in a good-humoured 

 way, as if pitying our being put upon a task so much beyond 

 us, and, so far as I now recollect, that was our last as well as 

 our first attempt at translating Cicero. I felt, however, that 

 if we had had Godwin for our Latin teacher from the beginning 

 we should have had a much better chance of really learning 

 the language, and, perhaps, getting to understand Cicero, and 

 appreciate the beauty and force of his style. 



Next to Latin grammar the most painful subject I learned 

 was geography, which ought to have been the most interesting. 

 It consisted almost entirely in learning by heart the names of 

 the chief towns, rivers, and mountains of the various countries 

 from, I think, Pinnock's " School Geography," which gave the 

 minimum of useful or interesting information. It was some- 

 thing like learning the multiplication table both in the pain- 

 fulness of the process and the permanence of the results. The 

 incessant grinding in both, week after week, and year after 

 year, resulted in my knowing both the product of any two 

 numbers up to twelve, and the chief towns of any English 

 county so thoroughly, that the result was automatic, and the 

 name of Staffordshire brought into my memory Stafford, 

 Litchfield, Leek, as surely and rapidly as eight times seven 

 brought fifty-six. The labour and mental effort to one who 

 like myself had little verbal memory was very painful, and 

 though the result has been a somewhat useful acquisition 

 during life, I cannot think but that the same amount of 

 mental exertion wisely directed might have produced far 

 greater and more generally useful results. When I had to 

 learn the chief towns of the provinces of Poland, Russia, 

 Asia Minor, and other parts of Western Asia, with their al- 

 most unpronounceable names, I dreaded the approaching hour, 



