The life and letters of Benjamin Jowett, M. A., master of Balliol college, Oxford.

CHAPTER II

INFANCY AND BOYHOOD. I817-I836
EARLY training and companionships-Camberwell-BlackheathMitcham -Entrance at St. Paul's School at the age of twelveDr. Sleath and his methods-School-fellows and school successes
-The Balliol Scholarship-' Apposition Day.'
FROM the preceding survey of two hundred years
we return to the second decade of this century,
and to the child Benjamin. He, who all his life was
the friend of children, must have had a happy childhood; but few traces of it can be recovered now. There
is a family rumour or tradition that he was brought up
by two maiden aunts, but if there is any foundation for
this, it must be extremely slight. Mrs. Jowett was
never very strong, and in the years from I820-I823 her
maternal cares may have been largely engrossed by little
Frank, who died at four years old. Benjamin was then
a child of five or six, and would be often at his grandfather's, much petted by his father's sisters, Elizabeth
and Maria, after the grave and solemn manner of that
household. Their cousin, Mrs. Whiting (Henry of Little
Dunham's daughter), was often heard to remark on the
docility and gentleness of the child.
But this state of things ceased, as we know, in 1823,
when the old home at Camberwell Green was broken