Brodie's autobiography / Frederick Pollock.

  • Pollock, Frederick, 1845-1937.
Date:
1865
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Brodie's autobiography / Frederick Pollock. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    sons to be educated at good schools. But, for whatever reason, they were in fact taught at home under the care of their father; and Brodie en¬ joyed the great additional advantage of receiving some part of his in¬ struction from a sister, seven years his senior. The process of home education appears to have been carried on in the Wiltshire parson¬ age with success, and with consider¬ able immediate satisfaction to the persons engaged in it as pupils and teachers. Early habits of industry were inculcated; and, above all, the work was made interesting to the learners—a point in which home education, perhaps, possesses its chief advantage over the great school, in which little individual attention can be afforded to each boy, and little pains taken to hu¬ mour particular characters and dis¬ positions; but all must, more or less, go through the same round of subjects, and move at the same pace. Brodie reverts with gratitude to this part of his life, and says that he attributes much of his success in life to this home discipline. For a year after his leaving Eton, the late Lord Denman was a fellow-pupil with his Brodie cousins at their father’s rectory. Of him, Brodie says, that f he was a thoroughly good boy, upright and honourable as he has been ever since.’ And there were others who broke the strict domesticity of the family circle. But, as Brodie admits with the frank candour of an honest autobiographer, there was not sufficient intercourse with others of his own age and with the outer world to counteract the two most ordinary defects of a pri¬ vate education. He confesses to a shyness in general society, which it was the work of many years to overcome; and also to the want of a due estimate of himself; in some things thinking too well, and in others not well enough of his own powers and capacity. On the other hand there may be claimed for such an education a better prospect of form¬ ing an independent character, and habits of reliance on self for occu¬ pation and amusement than is always to be expected from education under ordinary conditions, among great numbers. This same shyness is perhaps one of the greatest minor misfortunes with which a young man can enter life; but it would be a great mistake to suppose that it is always the result of a private education, or that it can, as a matter of course, be avoided by a public one. It really depends much more upon ^individual disposition than upon any circumstances of an ex¬ ternal nature. Certain temperaments may be thoroughly exposed to all the influences and attritions of pub¬ lic school and university life—to the social discipline of the army or navy, or to that of what is called ‘ society ’ par excellence, without losing their original sensitiveness' and morbid consciousness of self, and without abating materially from Their native indisposition to enter readily into the feelings of others, and to give and take with grace, good humour, and alacrity such slight buffetings as are of perpetual occurrence in playing the less serious parts of the game of life. On great occasions shyness disappears. There may be intense suffering in anticipation—■ but the young lawyer or orator once engaged in his speech, forgets his personal miseries while actually speaking—although the previous sense of discomfort may never be got over with the largest amount of experience. Cavendish, the dis¬ tinguished chemist, was so shy to the end of his life, that he would utter a little cry, like that of an animal in distress, when addressed by a stranger; and any of his ser¬ vants who allowed themselves to be met by him in the passages or on the staircases of his house, were punished with instant dismissal. Such a disposition may be fostered by indulgence in retirement, but cannot be altogether reformed by any amount of social intercourse. The other objection to an ex¬ clusively private system of education is one inherently, and almost in¬ evitably, belonging to it. Nothing but constant opportunities of com¬ parison with the progress, abilities, and industry of others can secure the formation of a sound estimate of self. Without this there must be gross self-exaggeration, or equally