See the fine loyalty of the young man; his failures were not to be put down to his school!
If the schools take credit for any one thing it is that they show their pupils ‘how to learn’; but do they? We are told that R—— set to work at a queer assortment of books and writes to F——:—
“Anyone can improve his memory: the best way is by learning by heart—no matter what—and then when you think you know it, say it or write it.... After two or three days you are sure to forget it again and then instead of looking at the book ‘strain your mind’ and try to remember it. Above all things always keep your mind employed. One great man (I forget which) used to see a number on a door, say 69, and tried to remember all that had happened in the years ending in 69. Or, see a horse and remember how many you have seen that day.... Asquith always learns things by heart, he never wastes a minute; as soon as he has nothing to do he picks up some book. He reads till 1-30 every night. When driving to the Temple next morning he thinks over what he has read. Result: he has a marvellous memory and knows everything.”
Think of the Herculean labours the poor fellow set for both himself and his brother! They ran an intellectual race across a ploughed field after heavy rain and the marvel is that they made way at all. Yet these two brothers had sufficient intellectual zeal to have made them great men as Ambassadors, Governors of Dominions, Statesmen, what not; whereas so far as things of the mind go, they spent their days in a hopeless struggle, alert for any indication which might help them to make up lee-way, and all because, according to their own confession, they ‘had learned nothing at school.’ Here are further indications of R——’s labours in the field of knowledge:—
“I am reading Rosebery’s Napoleon and will send it to you. What a wonder he was! Never spent a moment of his life without learning something.... I enclose an essay from Bacon’s book. Learn it by heart if you can. I have and think it a clinker.... I have also finished Life of Macaulay. I have always wondered how our great politicians and literary chaps live.... I also send you a Shakespeare. I learnt Antony’s harangue to the Romans after Cæsar’s death; I am also trying to learn a little about electricity and railroad organization, so have my time filled up. Pickwick Papers I also send to you. I have always avoided this sort of books but Dickens’ works are miles funnier than the rotten novels one sees.... I have learnt one thing by my reading and my conversation with Professors,—you and I go at a subject all wrong.” (Italics ours.)
These letters are pathetic documents and, that they are reassuring also, let us be thankful. They do go to prove that the desire of knowledge is inextinguishable whatever schools do or leave undone; but have these nothing to answer for when a pursuit which should yield ever recurring refreshment becomes dogged labour over heavy roads with little pleasure in progress?
Here, again, is another evidence of the limitations attending an utter absence of education. A cultivated sense of humour is a great factor in a joyous life, but these young men are without it. Perhaps the youth addicted to sports usually fails to appreciate delicate nonsense; sports are too strenuous to admit of a subtler, more airy kind of play and we read:—
“R—— heard Mr. Balfour and Lord Reay praising Alice in Wonderland. Deeply impressed he bought the book as soon as he returned to London and read it earnestly. To his horror he saw no sense in it. Then it struck him that it might be meant as nonsense and he had another try, when he concluded that it was rather funny but he remained disappointed.”
We need not follow the career of these interesting men further. Both fell early before they were forty. Their fine qualities and their personal fascination remained with them to the end, as did also, alas, their invincible ignorance. They laboured indefatigably, but, as R—— remarked,—“You and I go at a subject all wrong!”
The schools must tell us why men who attained mediocre successes and the personal favour due to charming manners and sweet natures were yet somewhat depressed and disappointed on account of the ignorance which they made blind and futile efforts to correct; but they never got so far as to learn that knowledge is delightful because one likes it; and that no effort at self-education can do anything until one has found out this supreme delightfulness of knowledge.