318 THE EDUCATION OF GENIUS.

more culture and insight into his child's nature than that singular parent, the Rev.
Patrick Bronte.
Among French female writers the influence of the father on education is less marked.
Madame de Stael's father, the eminent financial minister, is known to have exerted
a happy influence over his child, and to have tempered by his warm tenderness the
rigour of the mother's discipline. Madame de SeVignd, early left an orphan, was
carefully guided in her studies by her uncle, with whom she lived, and who may be
said to have stood in loco parentis. On the other hand we have instances of the failure
of paternal-pedagogics, as in the biography of Madame Roland.
It will thus be seen that the father figures honourably among the educators of the
great. It must not be supposed however that in all or even the majority of the cases
quoted, the pedagogic function entailed any very onerous duties in the way of
systematic teaching. In the case of most of the gifted women just referred to, it is
expressly told us that the child's assiduity in learning was the outcome of her own
eager thirst for information, and that the paternal or other male tutorship was limited
to a very gentle guidance of self-prompted effort. We must remember further that
while a respectable number of fathers of distinguished men and women have thus
taken a lively interest in their intellectual development, others have failed altogether
to appreciate and further their children's aspirations. A well-known instance is
Shelley's father, of whom it has been said "that he was everything a poet's father
ought not to have been."
We may now pass to the professional representative of the business of teaching,
viz. the schoolmaster. A large proportion of distinguished men of letters have come
more or less under his control, and it becomes an interesting question how much he
has contributed by his well-known system to their efficiency and success. Happily
the facts are much more accessible here. The school-experience falls late enough in
the lifetime to be distinctly recalled by the subject of it in after years ; and in the
accounts of themselves given us by distinguished men we meet with quite a wealth of
school reminiscence. In many cases too we are able to test the fidelity of the great
man's memory by the testimony of others.
There is no doubt that a number of eminent men have distinguished themselves
when at school by their capacity for learning, and their general intelligence. As
might be expected, this pre-eminence shows itself most markedly among those who
afterwards won a reputation in the graver occupations of scholarship, science, &c.
Among eminent scholars the name of Erasmus affords one of the most brilliant
examples of boyish erudition, easily acquired. The youthful prodigy Thirlwall must
have excited the awe of his schoolfellows by the ponderous epistles he used to indite
to them in Latin and French. A number of scientific men were decided school
successes. Galileo, Kepler, Cuvier, and others were distinguished for their eagerness,
and their rapidity in learning. Among philosophers, Hobbes and Kant may be
instanced as good learners. It is however among lawyers that we come across the
most brilliant school-reputations. Grotius was so forward with his studies, that he
was ripe for the university by twelve. Yet even this feat of early scholarship is
perhaps more than matched by Bentham, who went up to Oxford at the age of
thirteen, after winning a reputation at Westminster for Latin and Greek verse.
Another precocity, Brougham, left school at the same early age at the head of the
fifth form.
Among men of letters in the narrower sense, we meet, too, with instances of first
rate success at school. Dante was a hard student, and under his teacher, Brunetto
Latini, of whom he speaks with gratitude, he mastered the secret of classical lore.
Milton, too, was, as everybody knows, a diligent and successful classical scholar.
He was fortunate like Dante in having good teachers, and in his Fourth Elegy,
addressed to his tutor Young, he expresses his gratitude to him for having infused
into his mind a love of learning. Voltaire and Le Sage, both taught by the Jesuits,
"
are said to have been good learners. Johnson learnt " by intuition and easily rose
to the top of his class. He owns his obligations to the pedagogic authorities for
having " whipped a sufficiency of Latin into him.
" Lessing was an excellent learner,
and soon outgrew his school. The rector's report of him says
" He is a horse that
needs double rations." Macaulay was a diligent scholar, and read far beyond the
requirements of his school. Leopardi, taught by a private tutor, showed himself a
veritable prodigy in learning. Alfred de Musset attained the rare distinction among