BROUGHT UP TO A TRADE. 43 ^ 



by one's coachman — if built to order, might be visited 

 when in the various stages of construction, so that the 

 owner might become famihar with the carriage he is 

 making use of; in consequence of which he would 

 be able to deal with the question of repairs, and not 

 be utterly at the mercy of his coach-builder when 

 time or accident rendered it imperative that the 

 carriage should go into dock. A gendeman and a 

 man of the world should have a smattering of all 

 knowledge and understand a little of everything ; 

 there are, of course, subjects a knowledge of which 

 is not necessary, but there is an enormous amount 

 of knowledge which would be extremely useful which 

 hitherto has not been considered as essential to 

 the education of a gentleman. 



It is difficult to say what is essential ; lately there 

 has been a great agitation amongst bodies of public 

 teachers with regard to the teaching of Greek, some 

 maintaining that a knowledge of Greek is essential 

 to the education of a gentleman, whilst others are 

 equally emphatic in pronouncing it to be utterly 

 unnecessary. So far as regards my own opinion, I 

 think that with such excellent translations as we have 

 of both Xenophon and Homer, it is utter waste of 

 time for a school-boy to attempt a task which has 

 already been accomplished for him. In my opinion, 

 the education of a gentleman should consist of what- 

 ever branch of knowledge will be likely to assist him 

 in after life. 



A tale is told of a gentleman who brought every 

 one of his sons up to a trade. When I say trade, 

 I mean that of an artisan, such as bricklayer, carpenter, 

 joiner, and blacksmith. At the same time he did not 

 omit to give them an excellent education, which should 



