“So, then, you confess that such would be your cause, sir?” said Ogden, triumphantly.
“No, sir; but it would partake so much the appearance of such a struggle, that I cannot accept it. What I called a humbug was the attempt to test men's fitness for the public service by an examination at which the most incapable might distinguish himself, and the ablest not pass. The system of examination begot the system of 'grinding,'—a vulgar term for a more vulgar practice, and a system the most fatal to all liberal education, limiting study to a question-and-answer formula, and making acquirements only desirable when within the rubric of a Government commission. Very different would have been the result if the diploma of certain recognized educational establishments had been required as qualification to serve the State; if the law ran, 'You shall be a graduate of this university, or that college, or possess the licentiate degree of that school.'”
“Your observations seem, then, rather directed against certain commissioners than the system they practise?” said Odgen, sarcastically.
“Scarcely, sir. My experience is very limited. I never met but one of them!”
The Colonel laughed heartily at this speech,—he could n't help it; and even the host, mortified as he was, gave a half-smile. As for Ogden, his pale face grew a shade sicklier, and his green eyes more fishy.
“To question the post-office clerk or the landing waiter,” continued Layton, with fresh warmth,—for when excited he could rarely control himself,—“to test some poor aspirant for eighty pounds per annum in his knowledge of mathematics or his skill in physical geography, while you make governors that cannot speak correctly, and vice-governors whose despatches are the scorn of Downing Street; to proclaim that you want your tide-waiter to be a moral philosopher, but that the highest offices in the State may be held by any political partisan active enough, troublesome enough, and noisy enough to make himself worth purchase; you demand logarithms and special geometry from a clerk in the Customs, while you make a mill-owner a cabinet minister on the simple showing of his persevering; and your commissioners, too,—'Quis custodiet, ipsos custodes!'”
“You probably, however, submitted to be examined, once on a time, for your medical degree?” asked Ogden.
“Yes, sir; and that ordeal once passed, I had ample leisure to unlearn the mass of useless rubbish required of me, and to address myself to the real cares of my profession. But do you suppose that if it were demanded of me to subject myself to another examination to hold the humble post I now fill, that I should have accepted it?”
“I really cannot answer that question,” said Ogden, superciliously.
“Then I will, sir. I would not have done so. Eighty pounds a year is a very attractive bribe, but it may require too costly a sacrifice to win it.”