Hardy is frequently characterised as an autodidact, which could lead one to expect that his work displays the impact of his reading and of models in a manner different from the work of an author embodying more complex relations of ‘raw living’, cognition, and aesthetics. With most writers with a conventional education, predecessors and competitors are mediated by tutors, lecturers, experiences in the classroom, experiences involving other students of similar age. Hardy did not lack group education totally. He attended briefly the Stinsford National School and spent three years in each of two schools in Dorchester, the British School and a commercial academy. Obviously, the number and range of topics a young student would customarily cover over a longer number of years in group or formal surroundings exceeded Hardy's experience. None the less, by the standards of his time, his education was not especially stinted. He was not as self-taught, nor as isolated from guidance, as the term autodidact implies. But his significant education was self-directed and adventitious. He learned Latin and a little Greek on his own. Eagerness to learn and personal interchange made up for and perhaps was more effective than rote study. While working in the office of a Dorchester architect, Hardy and Henry Bastow discussed the Greek of the New Testament, while outside the office he and Horace Moule discussed literary subjects. And he was a wide and eager reader all of his life.