46 SELECTIONS FROM HUXLEY 



to speak on such matters that it is so what is to be said of 

 classical teaching at its worst, or in other words, of the clas- 

 sics of our ordinary middle class schools ? I will tell you. 

 It means getting up endless forms and rules by heart. 

 5 It means turning Latin and Greek into English, for the mere 

 sake of being able to do it, and without the smallest regard to 

 the worth, or worthlessness, of the author read. It means 

 the learning of innumerable, not always decent, fables in such 

 a shape that the meaning they once had is dried up into utter 



10 trash ; and the only impression left upon a boy's mind is, that 

 the people who believed such things must have been the 

 greatest idiots the world ever saw. And it means, finally, 

 that after a dozen years spent at this kind of work, the sufferer 

 shall be incompetent to interpret a passage in an author he 



1 5 has not already got up; that he shall loathe the sight of a 

 Greek or Latin book ; and that he shall never open, or think 

 of, a classical writer again, until, wonderful to relate, he in- 

 sists upon submitting his sons to the same process. 



These be your gods, O Israel ! For the sake of this net 



20 result (and respectability) the British father denies his chil- 

 dren all the knowledge they might turn to account in life, 

 not merely for the achievement of vulgar success, but for 

 guidance in the great crises of human existence. This is the 

 stone he offers to those whom he is bound by the strongest 



25 and tenderest ties to feed with bread. 



If primary and secondary education are in this unsatisfac- 

 tory state, what is to be said to the universities ? This is an 

 awful subject, and one I almost fear to touch with my unhal- 

 lowed hands; but I can tell you what those say who have 

 30 authority to speak. 



The Rector of Lincoln College, in his lately published, 

 valuable " Suggestions for Academical Organization with es- 

 pecial reference to Oxford," tells us (p. 127) : 



