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 scholarship. His novel 'Julian Home' draws freely on his Cambridge experiences. He was a member of the Apostles' Club. He took no part in games. In 1852 he won the chancellor's medal for English verse with a poem on the Arctic regions. In 1854 he was bracketed fourth in the classical tripos and was a junior optime in the mathematical tripos; he graduated B.A. in 1854, proceeded M.A. in 1857, and D.D. in 1874.

Before the result of the tripos was announced, Farrar accepted a mastership at Marlborough College, where his friends E. S. Beesly and E. A. Scott were already at work. The headmaster, G. E. L. Cotton [q. v.], afterwards bishop of Calcutta, was engaged in the task of revivifying the school. Farrar at once showed special gifts as a master, readiness to make friends of his pupils and power of stimulating their literary and intellectual energies. On Christmas Day 1854 he was ordained deacon, and priest in 1857. He left Marlborough after a year to take a mastership under Dr. Vaughan at Harrow (November 1855). In the same year he won the Le Bas prize at Cambridge for an English essay, and in 1856 he won the Norrisian prize for an essay on the Atonement, and was elected a fellow of Trinity College. Dr. Whewell is said to have been impressed by his familiarity with Coleridge's philosophy.

Farrar soon became a house-master at Harrow, where he remained fifteen years, serving for the last eleven years under Dr. H. M. Butler on Vaughan's retirement (see Dr. Butler's estimate of him as a schoolmaster in Life, p. 138). At Harrow, Farrar devoted all his leisure to literary work — a practice which he followed through life. Before he left Harrow he had won for himself a public reputation in three departments of literature — in fiction, in philology, and in theology. He began with fiction. In 1858 he published 'Eric, or Little by Little,' a tale of school-life, partly autobiographical, which long retained its popularity; thirty-six editions appeared in his lifetime. 'Eric' lacks the mellowness and the organic unity of 'Tom Brown's School Days,' which appeared a year earlier. But it influences boys through its vividness and sincerity, which reflect Farrar's ardent temperament and unselfish idealism. There followed in 1859 'Julian Home: a Tale of College Life' (18th edit. 1905). In 1862 'St. Winifred's, or the World of School' (26th edit. 1903), was printed anonymously. In 1873, under the pseudonym of F. T. L. Hope, 'The Three Homes: a Tale for Fathers and Sons,' was contributed to the 'Quiver.' It was not acknowledged till 1896; it reached its 18th edition in 1903.

Philology and grammar were Farrar's first serious studies, and he was a pioneer in the effort to introduce into ordinary education some of the results of modern philological research. In 1860 he published 'An Essay on the Origin of Language: based on Modern Researches and especially on the Works of M. Renan.' It was followed in 1865 by 'Chapters on Language,' of which three editions appeared, and in 1870 by 'Families of Speech,' from lectures delivered before the Royal Institution. The last two were re-issued together in 1878 under the general title of 'Language and Languages.' Farrar was an evolutionist in philology, and his first essay caught Darwin's attention and led to a friendship between the two. On Darwin's nomination Farrar in 1866 was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in recognition of his work as a philologist. In order to improve the teaching of Greek grammar he composed a card of 'Greek Grammar Rules,' which reached its 22nd edition, and published 'A Brief Greek Syntax' (1867; llth edit. 1880). He explained his educational aims in two lectures at the Royal Institution, the first of which, 'On Some Defects in Public School Education,' urged the serious teaching of science and the defects in the current teaching of classics. His views elicited the sympathy of Darwin and Tyndall. In 1867 he edited, under the title of 'Essays on a Liberal Education,' a number of essays by distinguished university men advocating reforms. In theology Farrar first came before the public as contributor to Macmillan's 'Sunday Library for Household Reading' of a popular historical account of Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius, which he called 'Seekers after God' (1868; 17th edit. 1902). After the appearance of his first volume of sermons, 'The Fall of Man and other Sermons' (1868; 7th edit. 1893), he was appointed chaplain to Queen Victoria in 1869 (being made a chaplain-in-ordinary in 1873) and Hulsean lecturer at Cambridge in 1870. The Hulsean lectures were printed in 1871 as 'The Witness of History to Christ' (9th edit. 1892). Farrar was a candidate in 1867 for the headmastership of Haileybury, but was defeated by Dr. Bradby, one of his colleagues at Harrow. In 1871 he was appointed headmaster of Marlborough