In after years, when I have stood at night near a tropical swamp, and have listened to the deafening noise of a thousand bull-frogs, I have always had recalled to me my first visit to the schoolroom of Mr Hostler’s cram-school at Woolwich.
Upon our entering the schoolroom several boys looked up from their books, and the noise for an instant decreased; then, from the far end of the room, a shrill voice exclaimed, “Because the triangle ABC is similar to the triangle DEF, therefore the side AB is to the side DE.” Then a chorus of voices drowned the first voice, and again the uproar proceeded.
“Stop a minute, boys!” said Mr Hostler in a loud voice. “Here’s a new boy – Shepard’s his name. He’s going into the Royal Engineers. I say, Beck, you look out, or he’ll beat you!”
As this speech was made to the whole school, I made a bow – such a one as my father had taught me to make to a lady. A titter ran round the various tables as I did so, and I distinctly saw one boy make a grimace at me.
“Here, Monk,” said Mr Hostler; “you take Shepard; set him his Euclid, and see what he knows in Swat.”
The person addressed was a hard-featured man, with a surly look about him, who, handing me a book, said, —
“What do you know?”
“No Euclid,” I replied.
“Don’t know any Euclid? Why, how old are you?”
“Nearly fifteen,” I replied.
“Oh I nearly fifteen and don’t know any Euclid! and you’re going to be an engineer?”
“Yes,” I replied; “I’m going to be an engineer.”
“Don’t you wish you may get it?” said Mr Monk. “Now learn these definitions,” he continued, “and let’s see what you can do.”
The book now placed before me was the mysterious Euclid, my first acquaintance with which I was now to make. I looked at the first sentence under the definitions, and thought I had never seen a more extraordinary statement than that there made, —
“A point is that which has no parts and no magnitude.”
I read this over two or three times, but each time I read it and thought over it the statement seemed more and more curious. On looking further down the page, I saw that “a line was length without breadth,” which seemed to me quite a mistake; for, however thin a line might appear to the naked eye, yet I knew, from my experience with the microscope in connexion with natural history, that the thinnest spider’s web always showed some breadth when it was looked at through a microscope. It occurred to me that, amidst the noise and confusion that went on in this school, it was possible that the fact of looking at a line through a microscope had never been thought of by any one; and as I felt quite certain that it was impossible that a line could exist without breadth, I determined to point this out to Mr Monk.
Watching for an opportunity to catch his eye, I half rose from my seat as I saw him looking at me. He immediately came to where I was sitting, and said, —
“What’s the matter? You’ve only your definitions to learn; can’t you understand them?”
“Not quite,” I said; “but I think this about a line having no breadth is wrong; for, however thin a line may appear, it looks thick if you bring a microscope to see it through.”
As soon as I commenced speaking to Mr Monk, the boys at the table ceased their sing-song noise and listened to what I was saying. There was a look of astonishment in their faces as I spoke, which quickly changed to a broad grin when they heard what I said; and when Mr Monk said in a sarcastic tone, “Oh, you’ve found that Euclid’s wrong, eh? and that we are all a pack of fools? Now, you just learn three more definitions for your cheek, you young puppy?” the boys actually roared with laughter.
“You want a lot taken out of you, I can see,” continued Monk, “and I’ll pretty soon do it; so mind what you’re at.”
I don’t know whether surprise or anger predominated in my mind at the result of my first attempt to show I thought on what I learnt, as well as attempted to learn it by rote. Such downright rudeness I had never before experienced, and I could scarcely believe that the boys around me were the sons of gentlemen, although I had been told by Howard that Hostler’s was a first-class school, where none but gentlemen’s sons were admitted.
I blushed scarlet at the remark made to me, and felt inclined to explain my meaning, but somehow the words would not come, and I therefore gazed steadily at the pages of my book, wondering how it was I seemed so different from other boys. Whilst thus meditating, I raised my eyes to the boy opposite me; he was a cross-looking, sturdy boy, about my own age, and was occupied, as were the rest, in swinging backwards and forwards, whilst he repeated, in a loud tone, “A is to B as B is to C,” etc.
When this boy saw me looking at him, he made a face at me, and said, “Don’t look at me!” As, however, I continued looking at him, he suddenly lowered himself, so that his head only appeared above the table, and, before I suspected what he was doing, I received a tremendous kick on the shins. The noise the boy made caused Mr Monk to look up just in time to see me throw my book at the boy’s head. So quick had been my assailant in recovering himself and resuming his proper position, that, when Mr Monk looked round, the only thing he saw was my Euclid flying across the table at the boy’s head.
“Hullo!” exclaimed Mr Monk, “you’re a nice young fellow; what are you at?”
“He kicked me on the shins,” I exclaimed.
“Didn’t do anything of the kind,” said the boy, whose name was Fraser.
“Didn’t you kick Shepard?”
“No; I stooped under the table to pick up my handkerchief, and he then shied his book at me,” said Fraser, with a bare-faced effrontery that startled me.
“You come out here, Shepard,” said Monk, who seemed not to have got over my remark about the line; “we’ll soon stop your larks.”
I got up from my seat, feeling that I had been most unjustly treated, and that a lie had been told against me; but, not knowing how I could get myself righted, I was puzzling my brain how I should make Mr Monk know what had really occurred, when I received a couple of blows from him on the head that almost stunned me.
“That’s what you want,” said Monk, “to set you to rights! Now go and stand on that stool till you’ve learnt your Euclid, and if you fail you’ll get three cuts as sure as your name’s Shepard. We don’t stand any tricks here, you see; you’ve to learn what discipline is.”
I find it difficult to make the reader fully comprehend my feelings at that time. Up to the age of ten years Aunt Emma had been very free in boxing my ears, and keeping me in what she called “order,” but during the past five years I had been treated more like a young man than as a boy. The companionship with my father had given me an old feeling, and I thought more as a man thinks than as a boy does. With such ideas as to my age, it was a great blow to my pride to find myself treated like a child, to be kicked by a boy smaller than myself, and then to have my ears boxed because I retaliated. I tried hard to command myself, but after a brief struggle I fairly cried like a child.
I was now the object of attention to every boy in the school. Each boy took his quiet look and grin at me whenever he could take his eyes from his Euclid without being seen by Mr Monk, and this continued till the clock struck the hour, when Mr Monk shouted, “Close books! Come up, Jones and Hunt!”
Two boys left their seats and went to the master, who took their books from them and inquired, “What proposition?”
“Eighth of the second,” said Jones.
“Go on, then,” said the master; and away went Jones, repeating like a parrot a number of lines about A to B, etc. I listened to this because it was not only all new to me, but because I fancied that very shortly I should follow probably the course of this boy. Jones went on without a stop till he had finished his proposition,