the countries where they are spoken. The head-master
disagreed altogether with these views, and I suspect
Frank’s love for me would stand in the way of his
respect for the wiser educationist. Clergymen having
the command of English scholastic establishments
are, as a rule, severe disciplinarians. Contrasted with
the gentler methods of Lille, King’s College School was,
at best, a trifle uncongenial to Frank. He was never
quite as happy there as at the College of Marcq. His
King’s College School reports show that he had a distaste
for what is called “ religious k n ow le d g e th a t he
was proficient in French, made good progress in Euclid,
his “ general conduct” was “ very satisfactory;” and
his papers are marked for the Easter Term of 1877—
“ Physical Geography and Geology—fifth of fourteen
who worked the advanced Oxford and Cambridge
paper and has made good progress,” while for the
Easter Term of 1878, for the same studies he is set
down as “ highly satisfactory : obtained the third place
of nineteen in the Oxford and Cambridge examinations.”
VI.
When he was a boy atWorcester Frank was asked what
profession he would like to be when he grew to be a man.
“ An engine-driver,” was his prompt reply. Asked in
London at a later date a similar question, he said, “ A
capitalist, and live retired like So-and-So.” Later
still, when the proper time to discuss the subject
came, and he had given evidence of a leaning towards
scientific studies, he elected to be “ a chemist and
mining engineer.” Natural history at Lille, physical
geography and geology at King’s College School, had
prepared him for chemistry and mineralogy at the
School of Mines. After a short interval of Continental
travel, and some private readings with chemical experts,
he entered upon the varied course of study then
given at Jermyn Street and South Kensington,
which he supplemented by geological tours around
London, the Isle of Wight, Derbyshire, Cumberland,
and other districts.5 He passed in due course all the
examinations in chemistry, mineralogy, magnetism,
and electricity, acoustics, light and heat, and applied
mechanics, “ in the highest degree satisfactory.” The
time which he should have devoted to physics he gave
up to investigations of more immediate importance,
leaving this one link in his chain of honours to be
picked up a t a future day, and with it the Associate-
ship of the School of Mines. He worked with unabated
ardour at South Kensington for three years,
from the age of seventeen to twenty. With his know-
5 During a visit to Derbyshire he met Mr. S. H. Bradbury, who
was then engaged in the literary preparation of his popular volume,
All about Derbyshire. In the chapter on “ Millers Dale,” I find
the following kindly reminiscence of Frank’s holiday work :—“ He
taught me to look at the stone walls of the Derbyshire Peak, that
rule off its roads and fields in hard lines of grey, with an interest that
such prosaic things do not usually inspire. He found in them
‘ the fairy tales of science, and the long result of time.’ He showed
me the legacies which the prehistoric age had left in these limestone
boulders; glacial action, volcanic disturbances, the shells of the seabed
on the tops of the hills, He carried his geological hammer, his
botanist’s satchel, and his sketch-book wherever we tramped; to the
caverns at Castleton, the quarries at Burbage, the lead-mines at
Youlgrave, the dales, watered by the Wye, the moorland wilderness
of Kinderscourt. I looked at Nature with new eyes when in his
company.”