SOME FAMOUS DUNCES

Taranaki Daily News, 20 November 1926, Page 18

SOME FAMOUS DUNCES

A WORD OF COMFORT TO MOTHERS (By Phillis Monkman.) “You care for nothing but rat-catch-ing, dogs and shooting, and you will be a disgrace to yourself and your family.” Mr. Darwin chastised his son, Charles, with these words, and there seems little doubt that the boy merited the rebuke. Yet years afterwards the name of Charles Darwin was world-famous!

:“A stupid, heavy blockhead.” Oliver Goldsmith’s old schoolmaster,, who looked upon the famous writer, as one of the biggest dunces he had ever had to teach, thus denounced his pupil. Yet Goldsmith wrote the poem “The Deserted Village”; the novel “The Vicar Of Wakefield” and the comedy ’‘She Stoops to Conquer,” and his name will be revered wherever English literature is found.

Notable instances of great national heroes who were dullards at school are Nelson and the Duke of Wellington. Robert Clive, known as the “Makef of India” was the dunce of every school he attended, and he was educated at four! 'He was packed oil to India to get him out of the way. Strange that in this distant land li* discovered his latent genius. The late W. P. Frith, R.A.. the painter of the famous picture, “Derby Day,” . was by no means brilliant at school. Carlyle also tells a. good story of two of ’iiis school fellows at the Edinburgh High School. One. was. an utter dunce; the other was a sharp lad. The second lived to be “plain John Hunter,” says Carlyle, “whilst the other became Sir Walter Scott.” ‘Sir Isaac Newton, the great scientist, was always at the bottom of the class, and it is said that Dickens showed no great gift for learning as a boy. Mothers need never despair if their sons and daughters do not show great brilliance at school! The men and women who have made names for themselves in business, art, science, and even politics, were amongst the steady scholars, whose hard work and persistent application gained for them ultimate success. The mushroom genius, •flashing .brilliantly , through school and college, rarely gains a greaty place in the world of men and affairs!