Writing of a meeting of old Norvicensians to greet the Rajah, Sir James Brooke, in 1858, when there was a great 'whip' of the 'old boys,' Dr.Jessopp tells us that Borrow, then living at Yarmouth, did not put in an appearance among his schoolfellows: My belief is that he never was popular among them, that he never attained a high place in the school, and he was a 'free boy.' In those days there were a certain number of day boys at Norwich school, who were nominated by members of the Corporation, and who paid no tuition fees; they had to submit to a certain amount of snubbing at the hands of the boarders, who for the most part were the sons of the county gentry.

Of course, such a proud boy as George Borrow would resent this, and it seems to have rankled with him all through his life....
To talk of Borrow as a 'scholar' is absurd.

'A picker-up of learning's crumbs' he was, but he was absolutely without any of the training or the instincts of a scholar.

He had had little education till he came to Norwich, and was at the Grammar School little more than two years.

It is pretty certain that he knew no Greek when he entered there, and he never seems to have acquired more than the elements of that language.[39] [Illustration: THE ERPINGHAM GATE AND THE GRAMMAR SCHOOL, NORWICH We pass through the Erpingham Gate direct to the Cathedral, the Grammar School being on our left.