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wishing to dispute the point ; hut we must not, I think, neglect 
another element of the case. A distinguished scholar and mathe- 
matician, who had been well acquainted with a school which was 
attended by boys from homes of very varied station and character, 
told me that, as a rule, the difference was immense between the 
progress of the pupils who went back daily, or at set periods, to 
homes where they heard nothing connected with their studies, and 
those who, when not at school, lived in the houses of relatives or 
of friends, which were the abodes of educated people. Extra- 
ordinary genius will no doubt triumph over these and many other 
obstacles. But to the youthful student the lack of sympathy 
at home is a formidable disadvantage. Oliver Wendell Holmes 
implies, I think, that it has been found so in the United States 
of America, as well as in Europe. And the inquirers into the 
influence of heredity ought, it seems to me, to take some pains in 
examining into this phase of the question, and ask whether this 
and that man of mark did or did not in youth enjoy the benefit 
of an atmosphere of culture. 
Whatever be the decision, it is at least clear that Henry Cotterill 
was in this respect exceptionally favoured. He began to receive 
lessons in Latin when he was five years old; and at the age of 
fifteen he and his brother George were, as a favour, accepted as 
private pupils at Cambridge, by Mr Scholefield, subsequently so 
celebrated as the Regius Professor of Greek in the University of 
Cambridge. From this admirable teacher Henry Cotterill learnt 
his first lessons in Greek, and to his latest day he always expressed 
his deep gratitude to his tutor, and his keen sense of the good 
fortune he had enjoyed in having had such a preceptor. Hor was 
he less favoured in mathematics. A very eminent mathematician, 
William Hopkins (father of a philanthropic lady, Miss Ellice 
Hopkins, subsequently a great friend of the Bishop’s), took charge 
of his studies in Mathesis. 
At a later date, a brilliant Cambridge scholar described, in 
beautiful Greek Iambics, how Jupiter, being angry with mortals, 
commissioned Vulcan to invent a new plague, and how from this 
command came forth the penal infliction of mathematical study. 
Such was not, as has already been observed, the sentiment cherished 
towards the science of lines and of numbers by this youthful 
