"All right," I remarked mildly, "if knowledge is so important, why is a university professor usually a talker of platitudes? Why is the average medallist at a university a man of tenth-rate ideas?"
"Then our Scotch education is all in vain?"
"Speaking generally, it is."
I think it was at this stage that Simpson began to doubt my sanity.
"Young man," he said severely, "one day you will realise that work and knowledge and discipline are of supreme importance. Look at the Germans!"
He waved his hand in the direction of the sideboard, and I looked round hastily.
"Look what Germany has done with work and knowledge and discipline!"
"Then why all this bother to crush a State that has all the virtues?" I asked diffidently.
"It isn't the discipline we are trying to crush; it is the militarism."