Once I asked a nice and clever little boy what he wanted to be.
This little boy's papa was at the time enjoying the well-salaried far niente of a chaplaincy attached to an old philanthropical institution that had not had any inmates for many years past.
"Please, sir, I want to be like papa," he answered, ingenuously.
My young friend T. had no taste for languages, except, perhaps, bad language, if I am to believe certain rumors of a punishment inflicted upon him by the head-master not long ago.
He prepares for the army, but I doubt whether he will succeed in entering it, unless he enlists. I regret it for her Majesty's sake, for he would make a capital soldier. He is a first-rate athlete, resolute, strong, and fearless. He would never aim at becoming a field-marshal, and I hold that his qualities ought to weigh in an examination for the army as much as a little Latin and Greek.
I never heard of great generals being particularly good at Latin, except Julius Cæsar, who wrote his Commentaries on the Gallic Wars in that language, and without a dictionary, they say.
My young friend is the kind of boy who, in the army, would be sure to render great service to his country; for, whether he killed England's enemy or England's enemy killed him, it would eventually be for the good of England.
Ah! now, who is that square-headed boy, sitting on the second form near the window? He looks dull; he does not join in the games, and seldom speaks to a school-fellow. He comes to school on business, to get as much as he can for his money.