After taking his degree he wavered between classics and mathematics, but finally chose the latter.
In all literary matters the Ottoman Turks have shown themselves a singularly uninventive people, the two great schools, the old and the new, into which we may divide their literature, being closely modelled, the one after the classics of Persia, the other after those of modern Europe, and more especially of France.
He came of a middle-class Yorkshire family of pronounced Liberal and Nonconformist views, and was educated under Dr Edwin Abbott at the City of London school, from which he went as a scholar to Balliol, Oxford; there he had a distinguished career, taking a first-class in classics, winning the Craven scholarship and being elected a fellow of his college.
He was educated at Winchester and University College, Oxford, where he took a first class in classics and a second in mathematics, besides taking a leading part in the Union debates.
At first his favourite subject was classics.
