s former pupils. He was a classical scholar of the old school.
During the last three years of our school life we had to write plenty
of Latin and Greek verse, and were taught to speak Latin. The speaking
of Latin came readily enough, but the verses never attained a very
high level. Besides Nobbe we had Forbiger, well known by his books on
ancient geography, and Palm, editor of the same Greek Dictionary
which, in the hands of Dr. Liddell, has reached its highest
perfection. Then there was Funkhaenel, known beyond Germany by his
edition of the Orations of Demosthenes, and his studies on Greek
orators. We were indeed well off for masters, and most of them seemed
to enjoy their work and to be fond of the boys. Our head master was
very popular. He was a man of the old German type, powerfully built,
with a large square head, very much like Luther, and, strange to say,
when in 1839 a great Luther festival was celebrated all over Germany,
he published a book in which he proved that he was a direct descendant
of Luther.

[8] His own spelling of his name.

The school was carried on very much on the old plan of teaching
chiefly classics, but teaching them thoroughly. Modern languages,
mathematics, and physical science had a poor chance, though they
clamoured for recognition. Latin and Greek verse were considered far
more important. In the two highest forms we had to speak Latin, and
such as it was it seemed to us much easier than to speak French.
Hebrew was also taught as an optional subject during the last four
years, and the little I know of Hebrew dates chiefly from my
school-days. Schoolboys soon find out what their masters think of the
value of the different subjects taught at school, and they are apt to
treat not only the subjects themselves but the teachers also according
to that standard. Hence our modern language and our physical science
masters had a hard time of it. They could not keep their classes in
order, and it was by no means unusual for many of the boys simply to
stay away from their lessons. The old mathematical master, before
beginning his lesson, used to rub his spectacles, and after looking
round the half empty classroom, mutter in a plaintive voice: "I see
again many boys who are not here to-day." When the same old master
began to lecture on physical science, he told the boys to bring a frog
to be placed under a glass from which the air had been extracted by an
air-pump. Of course every one of the twenty