Following the Zevenberger boarding school, Vincent is sent to a secondary school in Tilburg. He lives at his parents' friends. It is a big secondary school, located in a beautiful palace. He spends a year there and gets good marks. He has good teachers, M. Huysman among others, a famous painter who published drawing lessons, and whose teaching was based upon the understanding and copying of famous works of art.

Why did he stop his studies at the end of the first term of the second year? He returns to Zundert where he spends a year and a half before his family finds a job for him in La Haye.