The young student was mute with surprise: 'This is a strange question,' muttered he to himself, 'to come from a teacher, and an admirer of Homer!' 'What, Sir, must I not study out all the proper names? I supposed I could not be a good scholar without it.'
'Why should you? If you will think of this question, and give me a satisfactory answer, I will set myself at once to helping you.'
'But why did the commentators study so much upon these things?'
'That is another question for you to think of; and instead of answering it myself, I will wait for you to give me your best conjecture on the subject.'
The poor fellow was amazed. Never had he been more entirely confounded: 'My teacher asks me, why should I learn it! How strange!' Such were his thoughts, as he returned to his studies. In a few days he called again. He seemed not to know how to begin the conversation.
'Well, have you made out an answer to the questions which startled you so much?'
'Why, Sir; I cannot say that I am able to give any satisfactory answer.'
'Well then, my young friend, I charge you not to spend time and strength in searching for the situation of Homer's Nisyrus, Crapathus, and Casus, until you give some valid reason for so doing. As to the commentators, what will not men do for fame? How many labors have men performed with this motive, which were not only useless, but pernicious?'
Such a reply was indeed unexpected. The young pupil seemed at once bewildered, and relieved from anxiety, by such a paradoxical sentiment. His mind had imbibed the common feeling that, mental labor never constitutes an abuse of time. The maxim, 'No item of knowledge is contemptible,' had misled his mind, and he had been accustomed to feel that learning must be great and good.