of aspiring to the mastery of accidence and syntax, he
aimed rather at securing immunity from the rod. At Magdalen School it
was still actively in use; but there were certain rules about the number
of offences which must be committed in a given time to call for its
application. Green was clever enough to notice this, and to shape his
course accordingly; and thus his lessons became, from a sporting point
of view, an unqualified success.

But his real progress in learning was due to his use of the old library
in his leisure hours. Here he made acquaintance with Marco Polo and
other books of travel; here he read works on history of various kinds,
and became prematurely learned in the heresies of the early Church. The
views which he developed, and perhaps stated too crudely, did not win
approval. He was snubbed by examiners for his interest in heresiarchs,
and gravely reproved by Canon Mozley[56] for justifying the execution of
Charles I. The latter subject had been set for a prize essay; and the
Canon was fair-minded enough to give the award to the boy whose views he
disliked, but whose merit he recognized. Partial and imperfect though
this education was, the years spent under the shadow of Magdalen must
have had a deep influence on Green; but he tells us little of his
impressions, and was only half conscious of them at the time. The
incident which perhaps struck him most was his receiving a prize from
the hands of the aged Dr. Routh, President of the College, who had seen
Dr. Johnson in his youth, and lived to be a centenarian and the pride of
Oxford in early Victorian days.

[Note 56: Rev. J. B. Mozley, 1813-78. Canon of Worcester and Regius
Professor of Divinity at Oxford: a Tractarian; author of essays on
Strafford, Laud, &c.]

Green's school life ended in 1852, the year in which his father died. He
was already at the top of the school; and to win a scholarship at the
University was now doubly important for him. This he achieved at Jesus
College, Oxford, in December 1854, after eighteen months spent with a
private tutor; and, as he was too young to go into residence at once, he
continued for another year to read by himself. Though he gave closer
attention to his classics he did not drop his general reading; and it
was a landmark in his career when at the age of sixteen he made
acquaintance with Gibbon.

His life as an undergraduate was not very happy and was even less
successful than his days at school, though the