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work as a student now began. This was a school founded mainly with the aid of the benefactions of Captain Doveton of the Nizam's service, and it was attended chiefly by Anglo-Indian boys. When I joined the school I did not know a word of English. I had just finished the alphabet and was crawling through a spelling-book in which I had made very little progress. Thus equipped, I was thrown among boys who spoke nothing but English. My difficulties were great and my position most uncomfortable. But I muddled through somehow; and in a short time managed to speak the language, I presume not very correctly, and without knowing a word of the grammar.
The fact illustrates the truth, which is now recognized, that a language is best learnt through the ear and not with the aid of the grammar and the dictionary. As a matter of fact, I never studied English grammar as thoroughly as is now done by our boys; and when I went up for the Matriculation Examination my grammatical knowledge was confined to Lennie's little book. In these days, and perhaps rightly, a great deal of importance is attached to tutorial instruction and to the personal attention bestowed upon boys by the teachers. Throughout my career in school and college I never had a tutor, and had to depend entirely upon myself in learning two such difficult languages as English and Latin. Occasionally, when the situation seemed hopeless, I had to appeal to my father, who had himself been a teacher. It was hard and uphill work, but it afforded me a lesson in self-help that has been of infinite value to me through life. My career in school and college and in the University was fairly distinguished. I was a prizeman every year. I cannot say that I occupied the highest place, though I was always very near the top; but in the course of a few years, and in the long run, I left behind those boys who had beaten me at the start; and in life I think I have out-distanced every one of my school or college rivals. I presume it is tenacity of purpose that is the crowning quality of life.
My Anglo-Indian and European teachers and professors were throughout very kind to me, and they did not show a particle of racial feeling in their treatment of me. In that temple of learning, in which I passed some of my happiest years, I was never allowed to hear the faintest echo of those racial and sectarian controversies that sometimes distracted the country. From those early days the levelling influence of knowledge was presented to me in a concrete form, which in itself was a part of my education; and when, after