960 TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 



be giveu, and which with some slight improvement is believed to 

 be still given, by the Universities of England. This proposition 

 is very happily enforced by a British writer, whose strictures on 

 the system appeared in the London Times some twelve or thirteen 

 years ago. 



"Common things are quite as much neglected and despised in 

 the education of the rich as in that of the poor. It is wonderful 

 how little a young gentleman may know Avhen he has taken his 

 univei"sity degrees, especially if he has been industrious, and has 

 stuck to his studies. He may really spend a long time in looking 

 for somebody more ignorant than himself. If he talks with the 

 driver of the stage coach, that lands him at his father's door, he 

 finds he knows nothing of horses. If he falls into conversation 

 with a gardener, he knows nothing of plants or flowers. If he 

 walks into the fields, he does not know the difiereuce between 

 barley, rye and wheat; between rape and turnips; between lucerne 

 and saintfoin; between natural and artificial grass. If he goes 

 into a carpenter's yard, he docs not know one wood from another. 

 If he comes across an attorney, he has no idea of the diflerence 

 between common and statute law, and is wholly in the dark as to 

 those securities of personal and political liberty on which we 

 pride ourselves. If he talks with a county magistrate, he finds 

 his only idea of the office is. that the gentleman is a sort of Eng- 

 lish sheik, as the maj'or of the neighboring borough is a sort of cadi. 

 If he strolls into any workshop or place of manufacture, it is 

 ahvays to find his level, and that a level fiir below the present 

 company. If he dines out, and as a 3'outh of proved talents, and 

 perhaps university honors, is expected to be literary, his literature 

 is confined to a few popular novels — the novels of the last century, 

 or even of the last generation, history and poetry having been 

 almost studiously omitted in his education. The girl Avho has 

 never stirred from home, and whose education has been economized 

 not to say neglected, in order to send her own brother to college, 

 knows vastly more of those things than he does. The same 

 exposure awaits him wherever he goes, and whenever he has the 

 audacity to open his mouth. At sea he is a landlubber, in the 

 country a cochney, in town a greenliorn, in science an ignoramus, in 

 business a simpleton, in 2)lec(sia'e a miUcsop, — everywhere out of 

 his element, everywhere at sea, in the clouds, adrift, or by what- 

 ever word utter ignorance and incapacity are to be described. In 

 societj^ and in the Avork of life, he finds himself beaten by the 



