My parents were not long in perceiving this although I did not complain.

They told me it was for my good that I should go to school, and I thoroughly believed them.
Yet I could not understand why it should be associated with so much dislike and pain on my part, when my first school,--the beautiful world of nature, had been so lovely, and my first teachers had always increased the delight by removing my difficulties, and this so much so that I now longed for evening to come to have fresh light and instruction given.

My father now decided that I should not go to school, and he became my teacher as before, the world being my great book.

I was delighted with Robinson Crusoe, and this work became my companion, and to which was added the Pilgrim's Progress.

After these, my great favourite was Buffon's Natural History.