“Then I’ll stop. Those are things I don’t want to think of. By the way, how are you getting along in your classes, Tubb?”
“Fine. I never had much trouble with studies. Guess I learn easily.”
“I think you must,” responded Toby thoughtfully. “Wish I did. Shall we turn back?”
“Do you mean that you have trouble with your studies, Tucker?” asked Tubb when they were retracing their steps. “I thought you were a regular shark for work.”
“A shark,” answered Toby, “is a much misunderstood fish. Most folks think that a shark swallows things whole, but he doesn’t. He has to bite off a chunk at a time, just as I do. Where we differ, Mister Shark and I, is on chewing. He doesn’t have to chew what he bites off, and I do. I have to chew it a long while. And even then it isn’t always digested. I guess, Tubb, the truth of the matter is that I can learn easily enough if I set out to do it, but I have a rotten fashion of trying to do two hours’ study in one!”
Tubb laughed. “I know. If the instructor’s easy you can get by that way sometimes, but here at Yardley you can’t. I found that out the first week. Well, I suppose we’ve got to learn the dreary stuff, eh? What’s the good of it, though? A lot of it, I mean?”
“Don’t know, Tubb. I’ve wondered. Seems to me sometimes that if they’d teach us less Greek and Latin and higher mathematics and more things like horseshoeing and plumbing and—and ditch-digging we’d have a better chance when we got through. A lot of us will never get to college. I hope to, but I don’t know. If I don’t, what use to me is Latin and trigonometry and Greek? I suppose I’ll build boats most of my life—maybe. Being able to read the Odyssey in the original odiousness isn’t going to help me a whole lot!”
“Well, there are schools where a fellow can go and learn those things,” said Tubb. “Blacksmithing and electricity and—and practical things, you know.”
“Yes, but why not teach a little of them at every school? Seems to me a lot of us would be a sight better off if we knew something about a practical trade when we got out of prep school. Of course, we couldn’t learn much, but we might have a start. I guess it’ll come to that some day, Tubb.”