LIFE OF DR. APPLETON. CHARLES HARLES EDWARD APPLETON was born at Reading, on March 16, 1841. His father, the Rev. Robert Appleton, had at that time been recently appointed to the Head Mastership of Reading School, a well-known foundation of Henry VII. which, during its long and useful existence, has trained many eminent persons for the service of Church and State. The Head Master was an excellent classical scholar, and also gradually succeeded in organizing, under considerable difficulties, what would now be called the "modern side" of education; so that Mathematics, History, the German and French languages and general Literature formed, to a remarkable degree for those times, an important feature in the work of the School. To the very favourable circumstances of his home and school life must be attributed the early formation of those habits of industry and accuracy, as also the first beginnings of that wide and cultured sympathy, for which Dr. Appleton was afterwards so remarked. He himself was always most loyal and grateful to Reading School, where he received the whole of his education up to the time of his entering the University: he took great interest in its recent re-organization, and used any influence he might possess to secure for it, in a time of change, those features which he felt were of so much value in his own case. B As a young boy he was rather delicate, but strength seemed to come to him as he grew older, and he was able not only to study regularly, but also to take a fair share in the sports of the playground: indeed, he bore throughout his life distinct traces of an ugly blow he received in the cricket-field when about sixteen years old. He was of an impulsive, sanguine temperament, and this, rather than physical strength, supplied much of the motive power both in his boyhood and throughout his busy, energetic life; enabling him to carry out, to at least some measure of completeness, many schemes which in other hands would probably have fallen to the ground. His single-hearted zeal won him allies both at school and in the world; he was born to be the leader of a forlorn hope, and he was, to a remarkable degree, successful in his enterprises. One who knew him well in later life makes a remark which applies to a much earlier period of his career:-"He was one of those rare natures who convince practical people against their slower judgment, and achieve impossibilities by the contagion of their own enthusiasm. Possunt quia posse videntur." Fortunately, moreover, his impulsiveness did not merely accumulate force to be wasted, as so often happens, in spasmodic, ill-sustained effort. Method, rather in his case an acquired habit than a natural gift, characterized him even as a boy to quite a curious degree. He set an object steadily before his eyes, calculated, so far as he could, the means that would reach the end, and then sternly disciplined himself with a view to the accomplishment of his cherished purpose. An old friend, who had ample means of studying his character both at School and at Oxford, says,-"His days were bound each to each by conscientious adherence to a well-considered, selfimposed plan of life. In an age which is spendthrift of time and too much open to casual impulses, he never drifted: he always seemed to be steering straight at a mark. He was the least pushing of men, and little careful of external success; but nothing turned him aside from what seemed to him the line of his chosen duty."" And yet withal he was a most genial, lovable boy, full of fun and with a keen appreciation of all the lighter sides of life; of quick and ready sympathies, fond of society as he grew older, and generally popular. Indeed, it was an early and almost precocious realization of the risks to which he was exposed by his social gifts and natural temperament, that made him set himself firmly to acquire those habits of self-restraint and methodical study without which he felt any intellectual self-development was impossible. It is a great pleasure to me to recall that, while holding a curacy in Reading after taking my degree, I was able to be of service to my brother in his preparation for his University career. I have a very distinct recollection, for instance, of reading the Latin satirists. with him, and of the eager and intelligent interest he took in all the social and historical questions which arise in the course of such a study. This must have been in 1858 and in the first part of 1859. At this time it was proposed that Charles should compete at some scholarship examination at Oxford; but nothing definite had been arranged, when, quite unexpectedly, an opportunity came at St. John's College. Reading School had the privilege of sending two scholars to St. John's; but no vacancy was likely to occur, and consequently it seemed well nigh impossible that my brother could ever be upon the foundation of that college to which the thoughts of a Reading boy would naturally turn. But during a visit of a few hours to Oxford in June, 1859, I fortunately heard from one of the Reading Fellows that Tunbridge School, a sister foundation to Reading in the privilege of sending scholars to St. John's, had just presented a candidate whom the college had 1 From a letter from the Rev. Edward Harris, M.A., Head Master of Exeter School. |