“Though it were vain to disguise the fears which intrude themselves on your mother’s mind and my own, still we have Mr. Hodgson’s assurance that all will go well, provided the dear boy’s mind can be kept from painful excitement.... Mr. Hodgson has told your mother that, as soon as Rowland recovers, he shall strongly advise him, as a medical friend, to abandon any plan that shall demand unusual energy. These, my dear boy, are damping suggestions. My fear is that they will be unavailing, and that a life so truly valuable will be lost in splendid but abortive efforts.” The severe operations which he had to undergo he bore with the utmost fortitude. During the worst of them he never uttered a sound, but merely said when it was over, “Come, that’s no trifle.” Bodily pain at all times of his life he endured with silent patience. It was fortunate that there was no sense of failure in his plans to heighten his illness. He had none of that misery to encounter which, as he had written, would come upon him should Hazelwood not succeed. His success seemed complete. In 1819 the new school-house had opened with sixty-six pupils. Year after year for seven years the numbers steadily rose till, by 1826, there were 150. Rugby did not at that time number so many. When he was lying on his sick-bed his father wrote—“Applications (for admittance) are almost become a source of anxiety, unless they were made pleasant by a greater portion of health and strength to meet them.” I have been told by one who was then living in Birmingham that so great for a time was the eagerness to get boys into Hazelwood that, when the school was full, strangers often sought the advocacy of a common friend, in the hope of still securing a place for their son. The very thoroughness of the success was a great misfortune. The steady growth of the new school during its first few years was due to its real merits. The two youngest sons had joined their elder brothers in the management, and for some years there were four of them all working harmoniously together, and with the greatest energy. “Public Education” did not at first rapidly swell the numbers. But when Jeffrey in the “Edinburgh Review,” and De Quincey in the “London Magazine,” both blew a loud blast in its praise, then the tide of prosperity set in with far too sudden and too full a flood. The heads of the young schoolmasters were by no means turned by their success. They found themselves confronted with fresh difficulties. Rowland Hill had before this become painfully aware of his own shortcomings. But these were brought more than ever home to him by his very success, for it lifted him at once into a higher class of society. Men of rank and men of learning sent their children to be educated at Hazelwood. The expectations that “Public Education” raised were undoubtedly too high. The young authors wrote with thorough honesty.