"UNIVERSITY INTELLIGENCE."
["A Skilled Labourer," writing to The Times, speaks of "the extremists" among the working classes as "cherishing a belief that the intelligence of educated persons is declining.">[
Doubtless, my Masters, you are right
As to the lore which they delight
To teach at Cambridge College;
Contented with a classic tone,
Those useful arts we left alone
By which we might have held our own
Against the Newer Knowledge.
Even if I could still retain
The ethics which my early brain
Imbibed from Aristotle,
It would not serve me much to speak
His views on virtue (in the Greek)
When buying table claret (weak)
At ten-and-six the bottle.
Or when my tailor claims his loot
Of twenty guineas for a suit
Of rude continuations,
I must remain his hopeless thrall,
Nor would it move his heart at all
Could I from Juvenal recall
Some apposite quotations.
If I engaged a working-man
To mend a leaky pot or pan
Or else a pipe that's porous,
He would not modify his fees
For hours and hours of vacant ease
Though out of Aristophanes
I said a funny chorus.
I am a failure, it appears;
I cannot cope with profiteers
Nor with enlightened Labour;
Too late I see, on looking back,
Where lies the blame for what I lack;
Why was I never taught the knack
Of beggaring my neighbour?
O. S.