Page:Father's memoirs of his child.djvu/126

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preceding letter, that Benjamin was learning Latin when he was between four and five years old. At the present time, when he is just eight, his progress is, to say the least of it, very respectable. But he seems particularly to aspire after a branch of knowledge, to which Thomas was but beginning to attend, and apparently with no very eager zeal. Benjamin began to learn arithmetic about two years ago; not from any supposed necessity for so early an entrance upon what is generally considered as a dry study, but led to it by a natural direction, the signs of which were as visible in him, as the bent to belles-lettres pursuits was evident in his brother. He is now become remarkably accurate in all his processes; and capable of carrying on in his head, without the assistance of noting them down, a very considerable series of computations. As an instance of this faculty, while he is now sitting at my elbow, I have desired him to calculate in his mind how many changes may be rung on ten bells. He tells me, that the number is