268 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



pily we see in this country but very 

 few of the blooming specimens of what 

 the system can do, because our classical 

 standards in the colleges are not high, 

 and because the pressure of other sub- 

 jects is not to be entirely resisted. But 

 observation gives abundant assurance 

 that no man is so disqualitied for any de- 

 sirable use, so irremediably helpless in 

 the struggles of actual life, as he who has 

 attained to the high classical ideal, and 

 made himself at home in the literatures 

 of Greece and Rome. The following 

 sketch of a successful university prod- 

 uct appeared a few years ago in the 

 London " Times " : 



" 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 gentle- 

 man may know when he has taken his 

 university 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 ig- 

 norant 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 diflTerence between barley, 

 rye, and wheat ; between rape and tur- 

 nips ; between lucern and sainfoin ; be- 

 tween natural and artificial grass. If 

 he goes into a carpenter's yard, he does 

 not know one wood from another. If 

 he comes across an attorney, he has no 

 idea of the difference 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 English sheik, as the mayor of the 

 neighboring borough is a sort of cadi. 

 If he strolls into any workshop, or place 

 of manufacture, it is always to find his 

 level, and that a level far below the 



present company. If he dines out, and 

 as a youth of proved talents, and per- 

 haps 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 genera- 

 tion — history and poetry having been 

 almost studiously omitted in his educa- 

 tion. The girl who has never stirred 

 from home, and whose education has 

 been economized, not to say neglected, 

 in order to send her own brother to col- 

 lege, knows vastly more of those things 

 than he does. Tlie same exposure 

 awaits him wherever he goes, and when- 

 ever he has the audacity to open his 

 mouth. At sea he is a landlubber, in 

 the country a cockney, in town a green- 

 horn, in science an ignoramus, in busi- 

 ness a simpleton, in pleasure a milksop 

 — everywhere out of his element, every- 

 where at sea, in the clouds, adrift, or by 

 whatever word ntter ignorance and in- 

 capacity are to be described. In soci- 

 ety and in the work of life he finds 

 himself beaten by the youth whom at 

 college he despised as frivolous or ab- 

 horred as profligate. He is ordained, 

 and takes charge of a parish, only to be 

 laughed at by the farmers, the trades- 

 people, and even the old women, for he 

 can hardly talk of religion without be- 

 traying a want of common sense." 



Have we not here delineated the 

 natural outcome of a method of instruc- 

 tion which, despising utility and dis- 

 paraging modern knowledge, would, if 

 strictly carried out, multiply incapa- 

 bles on every hand? Classical stud- 

 ies are theoretically predominant in 

 most of our higher' institutions of edu- 

 cation. Could they be "successful," as 

 it is maintained they may be and ought 

 to be — that is, could they be pursued 

 with the thoroughness necessary to gain 

 the advantages claimed for them — what 

 other effect would follow than to fill the 

 community with weaklings, imbeciles, 

 and good-for-nothings, of which the 

 " Times " has portrayed for us a typical 

 example? Such a "success" of the 



