Revd A. Headlam
Lacock Abbey
Friday 4 Novr.
Dr Sir
I should be very glad to hear from you how Charles<1> is getting on. He has been both at a private school & a public one but it happened very unfortunately that though I took great pains in selecting a master for him yet in both instances the master resigned almost immediately after Charles had entered the school, and the boys were handed over to a successor of inferior abilities, and (what is of more consequence) caring less for the welfare of the pupils. Thus it has happened that Charles has never had a fair chance in my opinion of making much progress in his studies. At Harrow he got very much discouraged- The system of tuition there is exceedingly bad- I am an old Harrovian myself,<2> & have a very kindly feeling towards the school, but cannot say anything in favour of its present system of instruction nor of that (with some exceptions) which prevailed in my time.
Charles has never been well grounded in any of the subjects taught at school- I found they had been making him learn trigometrical formulæ, for instance, but on examining him I found that he had no clear idea of what was meant by a sine or cosine.
To judge from the difficulty of some questions on the examination papers one would say the pupils at Harrow School must be very far advanced, but it is all outside show; no pains are really taken to assist the boys over difficulties and ground them well in the subjects- Thus it happens that many boys give up learning in despair and take to idle habits- He appears to me to be pretty well grounded in Euclid, but that is learnt too much by rote at school, and he has not been taught to apply what he has learned to the solution of easy problems not contained in Euclid.
I remain DrSir Yours very truly
H. F. Talbot
Notes:
1. Charles Henry Talbot, (2 Feb 1842 - 26 Dec 1916), 'Charlie'; 'Tally'; antiquary & WHFT's only son.
2. WHFT attended Harrow School from 1811-1815. The headmaster from 1805-1829 was the Rev George Butler (1774-1853), an accomplished athlete, Senior Wrangler at Cambridge, and a master of both mathematics and the classics. He remained in contact later and had a great influence on WHFT's life.