After he left school, his guardian wished to apprentice him to some kind of work that was very distasteful, so he left Chesham to carve out a different career for himself. For a time he worked at the trade of painter and paper-hanger in the town Of Luton, Bedfordshire, but even then he was anxious to enter a university, for his first teaching in the Chesham school had only fitted him for commercial life. Not communi cating this wish to those who would have will ingly aided him to Obtain a university scholar ship, which he could have easily won, be, hearing about the year 1853 that the American colleges were accessible to such as he, embarked for New York.