How slowly learns the child at school
The names of all the nobs that rule
From Ponsonby to Pennant;
Ere his bewildered mind find rest,
Knowing his host can be a Guest,
His landlord is a Tennant.
He knew not, at the age of three,
What Lord St. Leger next will be
Or what he was before;
A Primrose in the social swim
A Mr. Primrose is to him,
And he is nothing more.
But soon, about the age of ten,
He finds he is a Citizen,
And knows his way about;
Can pause within, or just beyond,
The line ’twixt Mond and Demi-Mond,
’Twixt Getting On—or Out.
The Citizen will take his share
(In every sense) as bull and bear;
Nor need this oral ditty
Invoke the philologic pen
To show you that a Citizen
Means Something in the City.
Thus gains he, with the virile gown,
The fasces and the civic crown,
The forum of the free;
Not more to Rome’s high law allied
Is Devonport in all his pride
Or Lipton’s self than he.
For he will learn, if he will try,
The deep interior truths whereby
We rule the Commonwealth;
What is the Food-Controller’s fee
And whether the Health Ministry
Are in it for their health.
SONGS OF EDUCATION:
V. The Higher Mathematics
Form 339125, Sub-Section M
Twice one is two,
Twice two is four,
But twice two is ninety-six if you know the way to score.
Half of two is one,
Half of four is two,
But half of four is forty per cent. if your name is Montagu:
For everything else is on the square
If done by the best quadratics;
And nothing is low in High Finance
Or the Higher Mathematics.