Ɛpsilon

To ?   20 February [1869]1

Down. | Bromley. | Kent. S.E. [6 Queen Anne Street, London.]

Feb 20th

Dear Sir

I have the pleasure to say that I have formed a very high opinion of Mr Rouse. I am not a mathematician, but I can implicitly trust my son & his brothers, & they think he has got on very well.—2 He is quite strongly attached to Mr Rouse.— My son has persuaded his great friend’s father3 to send him also to Mr Rouse’s; & it is no small advantage that there will now be there at least two young men who like working & have a strong taste for mathematicks.—

I had not heard that my son had a chance of a minor scholarship, though I know he is well advanced in mathematicks, but backward in other subjects.—4 I fear, however, that his health, which has not been strong, will interfere with success.—

As far as I can judge no one would repent of sending a young man to Mr Rouse; not that, as I presume you will agree, any tutor can make an idle young man, industrious.—

Dear Sir | Yours faithfully | Ch. Darwin

1
The year is established from the fact that Horace Darwin began studying with Rolla Charles Meadows Rouse in or after March 1868 (see Correspondence vol. 16, letter to Alfred Wrigley, 7 March [1868]), and from the headed notepaper, which is of a sort that CD stopped using in March 1869.
2
Horace’s brothers were William Erasmus, George Howard, Francis, and Leonard Darwin.
3
Horace’s friend has not been identified.
4
Horace was admitted to Trinity College, Cambridge, as a pensioner (that is, without financial support from the college) in October 1868, and matriculated in October 1870; there is no record of his having a scholarship (Alum. Cantab.).

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

1.5 at least] interl

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-6624F,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-6624F