This geographical discourse made so deep an impression on the boy that he never forgot it. He was then told, he says, “things that were of high and rare delight to his young nature.” He made a resolution from which he never swerved, that he would continue to study that subject of geography, the doors of which had been so happily opened to him. In 1570 Hakluyt became a student of Christ Church, Oxford. The study of geography had completely fascinated him. He did not neglect his regular work and took his degree in due course, but as soon as his time was his own he devoured every narrative of adventure that he could get hold of, and mastered six languages in order to be able to read them. He soon began to see two great failings of his country, and set himself to work with patriotic zeal to remedy them. The first was the ignorance of our seamen as regards the scientific part of their profession. The second was the absence of records, and the way in which important voyages and travels were allowed to fall into oblivion. He strove during a long life, with great ability and untiring perseverance, to remedy these defects. Hakluyt’s first public service was the delivery of lectures on the construction and use of maps, spheres, and nautical instruments, “to the singular pleasure and general contentment of his auditory,” as he tells us. He constantly urged on the attention of those in authority the importance of establishing a permanent lectureship on navigation in the port of London. He looked upon the loss of journals, narratives, and similar documents as a great national calamity, and he devoted his life to the application of a remedy. His first book, published in 1582, was entitled _Divers Voyages touching the Discoveries of America_. It was the first impetus to colonisation. Virtually, Raleigh and Hakluyt were the founders of those colonies which eventually formed the United States. Hakluyt entered holy orders, and went to Paris for five years 1583–1588, as chaplain to the English Embassy, during which time he worked assiduously at the object of his life. Returning to England he was made a Canon of Bristol Cathedral and rector of Wetheringsett in Suffolk. His _Principall Navigations_, a folio volume, was published in 1589, as soon as he returned from Paris. In 1598 the first volume of his more complete work appeared, the two others following in the two succeeding years, and later several other books were brought out under his auspices. [Illustration: Memorial Tablet to Richard Hakluyt in Bristol Cathedral]