Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER IV SCHOOL DAYS Towards the close of my father's time at Nafferton I was sent to school at St. Andrew's College, Bradfield, where my two brothers were then being educated. It was a delightful place, situated in one of the most beautiful parts of Berkshire, about eight miles from Reading and four from Pangbourne on the Thames. The five or six years I spent at Bradfield were among the happiest of my life. Although the school was only founded in 185o it has had a remarkable history. Its founder was the Rev. Thomas Stevens, rector of the parish, warden of the college, and squire combined. Stevens was a man quite out of the ordinary line, and it will be fitting here to say something about him. He was admitted as a commoner at Oriel College early in 1827. The College at that time, and for years afterwards, ranked high in the University under the influence of its Provost, Edward Hawkins, and its tutors. Thomas Mozley, one of the Fellows of Oriel, in his Reminiscences gives a true and graphic account of Stevens, and I cannot do better than quote his words, since the two were co-temporaries. He says : ' To be the founder of a public school designed to emulate, and in some important respects to surpass, those which are the glories of England, was about the very last thing that could have been imagined of " Tom Stevens ". Nobody so easy, nobody so pleasant to get on with, nobody so full and overflowing with practical matters. But classics and literature did not seem his line. He was a true child of Nature and of her kindliest mould. There was a homely wit and rural dignity about him that alwaysrecalled green fields, water rights, timber falling, and harvest time. Such a character was a pleasant contrast to those who had their fortunes still to make, or had had large fo...