“There is one regret that will force itself upon my mind whenever I am led to contemplate the effects of the improvements which have from time to time been made in the proceedings of the school. I cannot help examining my own education, and contrasting what it unfortunately is with what it might have been had I been placed under the influence of such a system. Except my own, I am unacquainted with any language, whereas my youngest brother Howard, who has been educated, I may almost say, by myself—for it has been almost entirely according to my own plans—is familiar with Latin and French, and has made considerable progress in Greek, and this without neglecting anything else. When I left school—that is, when I became a teacher—I had for about two years held undisputed the first place in the school. It is fair, then, to suppose that I should occupy the same place under any system of procedure—that if I were a boy in the school at this moment, I should be at the head of the school. Compare, then, the acquirements of the boy who now stands in the first place in the school, with mine at his age, and oh, what a difference will be found! When I left school I was a proficient in no single thing. I could not write fit to be seen; I understood but very little of arithmetic; and was not master even of the paltry art of spelling. Of the classics and of the higher branches of the mathematics I was altogether ignorant. I believe drawing was the only thing I understood even tolerably. Every attainment I am now master of—and, God knows, they are but few!—I have acquired since I became a teacher, and for the most part by myself. Fortunately I have, in a tolerably high degree, the faculty of invention (and here I ought to consider that this may be in a great measure the effect of education, and if I have acquired this only, much has been done for me). Many a time have I given lessons, both at home and abroad, on subjects which I began to study with my pupils. Frequently have I solved a problem of which I never had heard till asked by my pupil to explain it to him. I remember well that the first time I ever saw the inside of a work on mensuration was when asked by a young gentleman at a school where I assisted Matthew in giving lessons, to explain to him one of the most difficult problems in the book: it is to find the area of a zone—a problem which involves many minor ones. Many of these I had before invented for myself, ignorant of the existence of any work on the subject. I was able to give the young man the assistance he required, and with so little hesitation that I believe he did not suspect my ignorance.