Shelley's schooling began at six years of age, when he was placed under the Rev. Mr. Edwards, at Warnham. At ten he went to Sion House School, Brentford, of which the Principal was Dr. Greenlaw, the pupils being mostly sons of local tradesmen. In July, 1804, he proceeded to Eton, where Dr. Goodall was the Head Master, succeeded, just towards the end of Shelley's stay, by the far severer Dr. Keate. Shelley was shy, sensitive, and of susceptible fancy: at Eton we first find him insubordinate as well. He steadily resisted the fagging-system, learned more as he chose than as his masters dictated, and was known as 'Mad Shelley,' and 'Shelley the Atheist.' It has sometimes been said that an Eton boy, if rebellious, was termed 'Atheist,' and that the designation, as applied to Shelley, meant no more than that. I do not feel satisfied that this is true at all; at any rate it seems to me probable that Shelley, who constantly called himself an atheist in after-life, received the epithet at Eton for some cause more apposite than disaffection to school-authority.
He finally left Eton in July, 1810. He had already been entered in University College, Oxford, in April of that year, and he commenced residence there in October. His one very intimate friend in Oxford was Thomas Jefferson Hogg, a student from the county of Durham. Hogg was not, like Shelley, an enthusiast eager to learn new truths, and to apply them; but he was a youth appreciative of classical and other literature, and little or not at all less disposed than Percy to disregard all prescription in religious dogma. By demeanour and act they both courted academic censure, and they got it in its extremest form. Shelley wrote, probably with some co-operation from Hogg, and he published anonymously in Oxford, a little pamphlet called _The Necessity of Atheism_; he projected sending it round broadcast as an invitation or challenge to discussion. This small pamphlet--it is scarcely more than a flysheet--hardly amounts to saying that Atheism is irrefragably true, and Theism therefore false; but it propounds that the existence of a God cannot be proved by reason, nor yet by testimony; that a direct revelation made to an individual would alone be adequate ground for convincing that individual; and that the persons to whom such a revelation is not accorded are in consequence warranted in remaining unconvinced. The College authorities got wind of the pamphlet, and found reason for regarding Shelley as its author, and on March 25, 1811, they summoned him to appear. He was required to say whether he had written it or not. To this demand he refused an answer, and was then expelled by a written sentence, ready drawn up. With Hogg the like process was repeated. Their offence, as entered on the College records, was that of 'contumaciously refusing to answer questions,' and 'repeatedly declining to disavow' the authorship of the work. In strictness therefore they were expelled, not for being proclaimed atheists, but for defying academic authority, which required to be satisfied as to that question. Shortly before this disaster an engagement between Shelley and his first cousin on the mother's side, Miss Harriet Grove, had come to an end, owing to the alarm excited by the youth's sceptical opinions.