George Augustus Selwyn had all the advantages of birth and education which would have made a brilliant career in England easy for him. He came of a distinguished family, and his father, a successful lawyer, was in a position to give him every educational advantage. Born in 1809, he was the second of four brothers, who all had brilliant school and college careers. His energy, his capacity for rule, his sympathy showed itself even when he was a boy. His sister says, “he was truly the family friend and counsellor, ever ready to help in all difficulties.” A specially tender tie bound him to his mother; she suffered grievously from nervous depression and he gave up much time in his holidays to cheering her. By her bedside he probably learned that tender care for the suffering which marked him throughout life. At the early age of seven he was sent to a large preparatory school at Ealing, and from there went on to Eton where he was said to be the best boy on the river, nearly the first boy in learning and the greatest diver in the school. His exact scholarship and his skill in swimming and diving were all alike capacities which helped to fit him for his future life. Very popular in the school and distinguished in athletics, he never neglected his studies. One of his friends says that “he seemed to be always preparing himself for some unrevealed future of usefulness.” It was the same when he went on to St. John’s College, Cambridge, in 1827, and entered with his usual ardour into both the studies and the sports of the university. Mathematics were very distasteful to him and in the class list of 1831 he was only a _junior optime_, but he was the second classic of his year. He rowed in the Cambridge boat in the first Oxford and Cambridge boat race.