CHAPTER XXI 



Bramble0 anD %\)i^tU0 



Types of uselessness — Brambles in cultivation — Species of 

 Thistles — Their edible qualities. 



When Milton published his scheme of ' A Compleat 

 and Generous Education,' he described the education 

 then existing as a scheme by which 



* We have now to hale and drag our chiefest and hopefuUest 

 wits to that asinine feast of sow-thistles and brambles which is 

 commonly set before them, as all the food and nourishment of 

 their tenderest and most docible age.' — Of Ediication. 



In this way he showed his contempt for thistles and 

 brambles, but he was, as usual, speaking more as a 

 Biblical scholar than from personal knowledge of the 

 plant. In the Bible, thistles and brambles are always 

 spoken of as the proverbial types of bad husbandry, 

 and the pests of cultivation, because throughout the 

 Holy Land the general tendency of the native plants is 

 to be thickly set with thorns, unpleasant both to the 

 husbandman and to the traveller, so that Newton, 



235 



