It was at the age of twenty-five, when he had for some years been the real head of the school, that he made this record. When, however, his brother and he first began their reforms, their efforts were turned to much smaller matters. Matthew set about improving the teaching, while Rowland chiefly took in hand the organization of the school and the management of the accounts. As regards most of their changes, their father at first showed, if not great unwillingness, at all events considerable indifference. Often they had to set themselves against some of his most cherished theories; often they had to stir him up to action when he would have liked much rather to remain in complete repose. “It is an old sore,” writes one of the brothers, later on, “to witness my father’s apathy in the midst of all our exertions.” It was at first no easy matter to win his consent to their plans of reform, but he soon recognised his sons’ ability, and gave their powers full play. Many a man who is too easy-going to carry out to the full the work that lies before him, is yet “rough, unswayable, and rude,” when his own children come forward and do his work with their own hands. This was not Thomas Hill’s character. “My father,” his son said, “showed no signs of vexation, nor was he ever jealous of any of us. He used only to express a fear that I had got too much on my hands. So far from being jealous, he was proud of my doing the work, and used to boast of it to others.” How highly, indeed, he had always thought of his son is shown by the following anecdote, which I find recorded in Rowland’s Journal for 1817:— “My father, a little time since, was speaking of me to my friend William Matthews, when he said, ‘Once in my life I struck him, but I afterwards found that it was unjustly; and I’d give this right hand to recall that blow. I hope Rowland has forgotten it; I wish that I could.’ It is unnecessary to say that, when my friend told me this, I felt both great pleasure and pain. It is now about eleven years since the affair happened to which he referred. Many a tear has that blow cost me, though my father acknowledged himself sorry for having struck me very soon after.” So much did the young man take upon his own shoulders, that before he was of age he was, in almost everything but name, the real Head-master.