auty of England, had fallen, through the silting of the
estuary and the broadening of the "Sands of Dee," to the level of a
hamlet in the time of Dr. Grenfell's boyhood. The broad stretch of
seaward trending sand, with its interlacing rivulets of fresh and
brackish water, made a tempting though treacherous playground,
alluring alike in the varied forms of life it harbored and in the
adventure which whetted exploration. Thither came Charles Kingsley,
Canon of Chester, who married a Grenfell, and who coupled his verse
with scientific study and made geological excursions to the river's
mouth with the then Master of Mostyn House School. In these excursions
the youthful Wilfred was a participant, and therein he learned some of
his first lessons in that accuracy of observation essential to his
later life work.

Here in this trained, but untrammeled, boyhood, with an inherited
incentive to labor and an educated thirst for knowledge, away from the
thrall of crowded communities, close to the wild places of nature,
with the sea always beckoning and a rocking boat as familiar as the
land, it is small wonder that there grew the fashioning of the purpose
of a man, dimly at first, conceived in a home in which all, both of
tradition and of teaching, bred faith, reverence, and the sense of
thanksgiving in usefulness.

From the school-days at Parkgate came the step to Marlborough College,
where three years were marked by earnest study, both in books and in
play, for the one gained a scholarship and the other an enduring
interest in Rugby football. Matriculating later at the University of
London, Grenfell entered the London Hospital, and there laid not only
the foundation of his medical education, but that of his friendship
with Sir Frederick Treves, renowned surgeon and daring sailor and
master mariner as well. With plenty of work to the fore, as a hospital
interne, the ruling spirit still asserted itself, and the young
doctor became an inspiration among the waifs of the teeming city; he
was one of the founders of the great Lads' Brigades which have done
much good, and fostered more, in the example that they have set for
allied activities. Nor were the needs of his own bodily machine
neglected; football, rowing, and the tennis court kept him in
condition, and his athletics served to strengthen his appeals to the
London boys whom he enrolled in the brigades. He founded the
inter-hospital rowing club at Putney and rowed in the first
in