EDUCATION OF A MAN OF SCIENCE 8i 



have been built into the structure of my mind 

 equally well, and would have saved much misery. 

 It is, of course, essential that what is learned 

 should be true. I have heard a credibly attested 

 story of a dame-school at the beginning of last 

 century, where class and teacher were heard 

 chanting together : Twice i is 2, twice 2 is 3, 

 twice 3 is 4, etc. 



I certainly believe in learning by heart, and I 

 am grateful for having learned many dates at 

 school ; most of them are forgotten, but enough to 

 be of some use are retained. The worst of it is 

 that I am as likely to know the date of the Flood as 

 that of the Fire of London, and of the battle of 

 Arbela as that of Worcester. 



I am also grateful for having been made to 

 learn Shakespeare by heart, although we had to do 

 it before breakfast. I do not imagine that I now 

 remember any of it, but it gave me some idea of 

 the beauty of literature, which I hardly gained at 

 all from the classics. It also started me reading 

 Shakespeare out of school. I believe this is the 

 easiest way of supplsdng some modicum of litera- 

 ture to a boy who cannot get it out of Latin and 

 Greek. And a kind of Cowper-Temple Shake- 

 speare, without note or comment, is more effective 

 than regular so-called literary lessons, and the 

 worrpng of boys about the metre or the differ- 

 ence between a hawk and a handsaw. A boy 

 does not want to understand everything, and he 

 likes to get his poetry in a book which looks as if it 

 were meant for reading, not for cramming or for 

 holiday tasks. 



