“1. We begin our studies by acknowledging that our teachers know more than we, and that we have much to learn; and then we have the wisdom of our age, and may be agreeable to the well-instructed.
“2. We acquire the rudiments of a few studies, and begin to think that we may soon know a great deal; and we are still tolerable to the well-instructed.
“3. We progress till we have a superficial knowledge of several subjects; and then we are liable to think ourselves so wise that we become disgusting to the well-instructed.
“4. We go a great deal farther, and if we have good sense, we perceive our own ignorance, and are ashamed of our past presumption; and then we begin to win the respect of the well-instructed.
“5. We progress farther and deeper, studying with modesty and assiduity; and after many years we learn that there is an ocean of wisdom to which all that we could acquire in a thousand years is as a drop of water; and then we are ourselves on the road to be one of the well-instructed.”
“It isn’t a useless lesson for any one to commit to memory,” she thought, closing the book.
CHAPTER XIII.
“It would be a great help to me if I could hear the language spoken in a longer discourse, so as to get the swing of it,” Tacita said one day to Iona, after having taken a lesson of her. “In conversation all my attention is occupied in listening to the sound of the words, and thinking of their meaning.”
“You can have to-morrow just what you want,” her teacher said. “Some of the college boys go up to Professor Pearlstein’s cottage with their compositions. He criticises both style and thought. Some of the compositions, if not all, will be in San Salvadorian. They will go up at eight o’clock in the morning. When you see them come across the town, follow them. You can do so freely. My brother Ion is one of the boys; and I sometimes go up to hear them. The cottage is a little above the Arcade, toward the north, and has a red roof. Half way up, the pathway branches. Turn to the right, and you will come to a little boudoir in the rocks from which you can hear perfectly.”
The next morning, therefore, Tacita followed the boys as directed, and presently found herself in a charming mossy nook with a roof, and a thick grapevine hanging between her and the little terrace where the professor sat before his cottage door with half a dozen boys in a semicircle before him.