Says his brother, Dr. John Davy, "Humphrey, when a boy, was fond of declaiming, and indulged in it in his solitary walks and rambles. On one occasion it is recorded of him, that, on his way to visit a poor patient in the country (during his apprenticeship), in the fever of declamation, he threw out of his hand a vial of medicine which he had to administer, and that when he arrived at the bedside of the poor woman he was surprised at the loss of it. The potion was found the next day in a hay-field adjoining the path." When Humphrey was fourteen he attended the Truro Grammar School for a year, where he was greatly liked for his good-humor, affectionate disposition, and originality. Says Mr. Nicholls, a school friend, "I can never forget that as boys we knew and loved each other. I recollect a visit he paid in company with his aunt at my father's, who then resided at Lanarth. He was a great favorite; but there was even then an original mode of thinking and acting observable in him,--one instance of which I well remember;--it was on rather a hot day, when my father, mother, your aunt, Humphrey, and myself, were to walk to a place a mile or two distant, I forget for what purpose. Whilst others complained of the heat, and whilst I unbuttoned my waistcoat, Humphrey appeared with his great-coat close-buttoned up to his chin, for the purpose, as he declared, of keeping _out_ the heat. This was laughed at at the time, but it struck me then, as it appears to me now, as evincing originality of thought and an indisposition to be led by the example of others." At fifteen his school education was considered complete. The next year he studied French, gave a good deal of time to fishing, of which he was always fond, and apparently had little definite purpose. About this time his father died, and the straitened circumstances of the family now seemed to awaken all the energy and nobility of his nature. Seeing his mother in deep affliction, he begged her not to grieve, saying that "_he would do all he could for his brothers and sisters_." And he never forgot this promise. The following year he was apprenticed to Mr. Bingham Borlase, practising surgeon and apothecary in Penzance. Young Davy now seemed destined to become a physician, but his note-books show that he intended to know other things besides medicine. He laid out a plan for study: theology, logic, astronomy, mathematics, Latin, Greek, Italian, Spanish, and Hebrew.