Note 141a — IX NULLIUS IN VERBA [140]

In the Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Vol. I., are given my father’s autobiographical recollections. He wrote (pp. 31–32): “Nothing could have been worse for the development of my mind than Dr. Butler’s school, as it was strictly classical, nothing else being taught, except a little ancient geography and history.” This seems to be an exaggeration, as the following list shows. It is taken from Samuel Butler’s Life and Letters of Dr. Samuel Butler, 1896, Vol I., p. 196. The “weekly course of instruction for the fifth and sixth forms, under Dr. Butler,” is given, and the items which are not classical are as follows:—