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Rh right view of the matter. Yet his prescribed studies were those which constitute the usual preparation for a university course. Latin and Greek, which had been taken up at Derby, though but to little purpose, were resumed at Hinton, but they were pursued without interest, and no satisfactory progress was made in them. But in mathematics the pupil made rapid advancement, being the equal or superior of fellow-students several years his seniors, who were studying with him. Geometry, trigonometry, algebra, mechanics, and the beginning of Newton's "Principia," were gone through. Though his memory was never a good one for details, yet it is noted that principles were habitually so seized as to remain. The tendency to independent exploration was shown in the spontaneous making of problems, and finding out new demonstrations. The discipline to which Herbert was subjected was here more decided than it had been at home. Yet during his stay at Hinton there were various accusations of disobedience which led to temporary disgrace.

At sixteen (1836) Herbert returned home, and one year was passed in miscellaneous but not very persistent study. He went through perspective with his father, on the principle of independent discovery; the successive problems being put in such older that he was enabled to find out the solutions himself. There was evidently a natural readiness here, as during this year he hit upon a curious theorem in descriptive geometry, which was afterward published with the demonstration in the Civil Engineer's and Architect's Journal.

At midsummer, 1837, after being a year at home, he had three months' experience in teaching, taking the place of assistant in the school to which he had first gone as a boy. His father had always been anxious that he should follow the profession of teacher, the dignity of which he estimated highly. This wish was strengthened by the success which he had in this trial, as he evinced a strong natural faculty for exposition, and the capacity of leading pupils to feel an interest in their lessons by the use of copious and correct illustrations.

In the autumn of that year, young Spencer was offered an engagement under Mr. Charles Fox (afterward Sir Charles Fox), a civil-engineer who had been a pupil of his father, and who subsequently became widely known as the builder of the Great Exhibition building of 1850. He was at that time resident engineer on the London & Birmingham Railway, then in process of construction. Here, partly in making surveys and drawings, he passed nearly a year, still carrying on his mathematical studies, and showing in his letters that inventions and improvements were much in his thoughts. In the autumn of 1838 he was recommended to Captain Moorsum, engineer of the Birmingham & Gloucester Railway. He took this place, and some eighteen months were passed in making engineers' drawings, and other railway works, with some contributions to the Civil Engineer's Journal, describing improved methods and constructions. Toward