10 
LINNiEUS 
boy always under his protection and defence. That 
his studies should be less disturbed than at home, 
and that its enticements should be withdrawn, the 
youngster in September, 1714, accompanied his 
teacher to Vaxjo, there to benefit by his private tuition. 
On his entrance he was inscribed in the school matri¬ 
culation as a pupil in the lowest class, and he spent 
seven years in the normal studies, being one year more 
than the usual time. 
“ It is well known that the instruction of the time 
was not clement, but on the contrary, very hard. 
Thus it was the case with Linnaeus, for in later days 
he was accustomed to speak of his first teacher as a 
severe tutor, who taught with strokes and not with 
enticement, and was little adapted to bringing up 
children. He in after years passed the hard judg¬ 
ment on the Lower School at Vaxjo, that coarse 
teachers and coarse methods were in vogue to give 
children a taste for science, such as might raise the 
hair on their heads. Some amelioration, however, 
took place in 1717, when he gained a new tutor, 
Gabriel Hook, also from the Gymnasium, who treated 
the boy with conspicuous gentleness, though unable 
to implant in him a liking for study, for which the 
lad already showed an aversion. The result was that 
so long as he remained under private tuition, he was 
equal in general knowledge to his schoolfellows, 
though in his leisure hours, he delighted to gather 
flowers in the fields and to teach his comrades about 
them, thus gaining for himself, when barely eight 
years old, the nickname of 4 the little botanist.’ An 
essential alteration took place in 1721 by his being 
removed to the Rector’s class, when, according to 
established custom, he became free from the tutor’s 
superintendence, the result being that he enjoyed his 
liberty, and employed his newly acquired freedom 
by neglecting his books and rambling about in search 
of plants. It may have been that his neglect in great 
measure prevailed only at that time of year when the 
