My life : a record of events and opinions - Wallace-online.org

122 MY LIFEfriendly in his manner. I had taken with me a smallcoloured map I had made at Neath to serve as aspecimen, and also one or two pencil sketches. Theseseemed to satisfy him, and as I was only wanted totake the junior classes in English reading, writing,and arithmetic, teach a very few boys surveying, andbeginners in drawing, he agreed to engage me. Iwas to live in the house, preside over the eveningpreparation of the boarders (about twenty in number),and to have, I think, thirty or forty pounds a year,with which I was quite satisfied. My employer wasthe Rev. Abraham Hill, Headmaster of the CollegiateSchool at Leicester.I commenced work in about a fortnight. After afew weeks, finding I knew a little Latin, Mr. Hillasked me to take the lowest class, and even thatrequired some preparation in the evening. Mr. Hillwas a good mathematician, and finding I was desirousof learning a little more algebra, offered to assist me.He lent me Hind's Algebra, which I worked allthrough successfully, and this was followed by thesame author's Trigonometry, which I also went through,with occasional struggles. Then I attacked theDifferential Calculus, and worked through that ; butI could never fully grasp the essential principle of it.Finally, I began the Integral Calculus, and here Ifound myself at the end of my tether. I learnt someof the simpler processes, but very soon got baffled,and felt that I wanted some faculty necessary forseeing my way through what seemed to me an almosttrackless labyrinth. Whether, under Mr. Hill's instruction,I should ultimately have been able to overcomethese difficulties I cannot positively say, but Ihave good reason to believe that I never should havedone so. Briefly stated, just as no amount of teaching