The Darwin letters at Shrewsbury School

Abstract

With the naive innocence which was part of the charm of his childlike character, Darwin was less than fair to his old school, Shrewsbury. In his Autobiography , he wrote of it, ‘Nothing could have been worse for the development of my mind than Dr. Butler’s school, as it was strictly classical, nothing else being taught except a little ancient history and geography. The school as a means of education to me was simply a blank.’ It is true that his Headmaster upbraided him for wasting his time on chemistry, with his brother Erasmus, in a shed at his home, and this probably rankled; but it seems that Darwin was incapable of appreciating the imponderables in the formation of his own mental equipment, for Edinburgh and Cambridge fared no better at his hands than Shrewsbury School: ‘During the three years which I spent in Cambridge my time was wasted, as far as the academical studies were concerned, as completely as at Edinburgh and at school.’ Worse still, he went on: ‘Although as we shall presently see there were some redeeming features in my life at school, my time was sadly wasted there and worse than wasted.’ How, in the state of ignorance that prevailed in 1818 as regards science in general and biology in particular, would Darwin have preferred to spend his time, and on what subjects? The only one that can be identified straightaway, and which Darwin himself always regretted, was mathematics.