The other boys in the school consisted of the dunces, the indolent, the malingerers, the would-be truants, the dull, the noisy, the fat-witted majority, just six times more numerous than the naturally-able boys. This proportion of one in six is very common in the world. In ships that I have sailed in, among the military companions with whom I have campaigned, among the blacks and the whites of my African expeditions, in the House of Commons, and in Congress, the leaven of one in six seemed to be required to keep things rightly going. When Bishop Vowler Short--who had once been tutor to Cardinal Newman--appeared on his annual visit to the school, he was heard to express high approval of the attainments of some of the boys in the first class, and, after honouring them with valuable souvenirs, graciously blessed them. When Captain Leigh Thomas, the Chairman of the Board of Guardians, who was a local magnate, and of Indian distinction--being descended from that Captain George Thomas, who, in the last century, rose from obscurity to the rank of an Indian prince in North-West India--visited us, he pointed out to Francis promising traits in several of the head boys, and was not too proud to pat us on the head, and elevate us by kind encouragements with a hope that there were bright rewards in store for some of us for our manifest abilities. Her Majesty’s Inspector of Schools on his tour of inspection professed to discover in some of our boys the signs of unusual intelligence, and, calling one up to him, felt his head and his temples, and then turned round to Francis, and declared, in our acute hearing, that he felt assured ‘that boy would be a prodigy of learning if he went on.’ Our parson--Mr. Smalley, of Cwm--unbent one day to examine us on Scripture History, and one boy so astonished him by his wonderful memory, and quick and correct answers, that he exclaimed, ‘Why, Francis, you have quite a young Erasmus here.’ The famous Hicks Owen, of Rhyllon, examined us in geography one time, and was pleased to say, on concluding, that some of us knew far more geography than he knew himself, and that to prevent being shamed by us he would have to study his gazetteers and atlas before he ventured among us a second time. The auditor of the Board, after testing Toomis’s proficiency in mathematics, laughingly called him young Babbage, and a lightning calculator. Such commendation was a great encouragement and stimulus. The rarity of it, I suppose, impressed it on our minds, and the sweetness of the praise had a more penetrating effect than blame or bruise.