"But you didn't learn to despise your father either, did you, sir?" queried one of the farm hands, respectfully.
"My father's dead," answered Robin, curtly,—"and I honour his memory."
"So your own argument goes to the wall!" said Landon. "Education has not made you think less of him."
"In my case, no," said Robin,—"but in dozens of other cases it works out differently. Besides, you've got to decide what education IS. The man who knows how to plough a field rightly is as usefully educated as the man who knows how to read a book, in my opinion."
"Education," interposed a strong voice, "is first to learn one's place in the world and then know how to keep it!"
All eyes turned towards the head of the table. It was Farmer Jocelyn who spoke, and he went on speaking:
"What's called education nowadays," he said, "is a mere smattering and does no good. The children are taught, especially in small villages like ours, by men and women who often know less than the children themselves. What do you make of Danvers, for example, boys?"
A roar of laughter went round the table.
"Danvers!" exclaimed a huge red-faced fellow at the other end of the board,—"Why he talks yer 'ead off about what he's picked up here and there like, and when I asked him to tell me where my son is as went to Mexico, blowed if he didn't say it was a town somewheres near New York!"
Another roar went round the table. Farmer Jocelyn smiled and held up his hand to enjoin silence.