MORE WANDERINGS AND WORK 239 



him at least get the benefit of it in the things in which 

 he does well. The present system is eminently calculated 

 to discourage a boy from doing well in any one thing; 

 if he can scrape through poorly in all, he is safe. If he 

 has a taste for a study and does remarkably well, then 

 it is useless unless he can manage to do a certain amount 

 in something for which he may be totally unfitted. I 

 most decidedly object to any one department, I do not 

 care what it is, laying down the law as is now done that 

 unless a boy does such a per cent in a study he shall not 

 get his degree, and if he does not do well in a couple, 

 he may be dropped. In the present state of learning this 

 is an intolerable assumption, and one which is sure to 

 react on Cambridge by leaving the men who are edu- 

 cated there entirely out of the tide of what is going on, 

 and tending to make prigs of them. It will most as- 

 suredly tend to alienate the good will of the friends of 

 the college, if they find that the regulations are such 

 that they cannot educate their sons (of average capa- 

 city) there unless they manage to imbibe something 

 which they cannot possibly assimilate. We want to find 

 out what is in a boy and give him a chance to show it. 

 We do not want to judge him by what he cannot do, 

 but by what he accomplishes. He is measured so in after 

 life, and he must be the judge of the course he takes. 



The sooner the educators of the country recognize 

 the fact that at 16 to 18 a boy's brain will do some things 

 and not others, the better; and furthermore that all 

 brains are not alike and never will be, and cannot up to 

 that time be developed alike, nor in the same direction. 



A boy who shows aptitude in one line of study ought 

 to have the chance to remain in Cambridge and get his 

 degree. This is eminently just. Comparatively recently 



