“Education, sir,” answered Mr Kipperson, with the tone of an oracle, “is altogether upon the advance. The science of instruction has reached a point of perfection, which was never anticipated; nay, I may say, we are astonished at ourselves. The time is now arrived when the only ignorant and uninformed persons are those who have had the misfortune to be educated at our public schools and universities: for in them there is no improvement. I have myself been witness of the most shocking and egregious ignorance in those men who call themselves masters of arts. They know nothing in the world about agriculture, architecture, botany, ship building, navigation, ornithology, political economy, icthyology, zoology, or any of the ten thousand sciences with which all the rest of the world is intimate. I have actually heard an Oxford student, as he called himself, when looking over a manufactory at Birmingham, ask such questions as shewed that he was totally ignorant even of the very first rudiments of button-making.”
“Astonishing ignorance,” exclaimed Mr Primrose, who was rather sleepy; “I dare say they make it a rule to teach nothing but ignorance at the two universities.”
“I believe you are right, sir,” said Mr Kipperson, rubbing his hands with cold and extacy; “those universities have been a dead weight on the country for centuries, but their inanity and weakness will be exposed, and the whole system exploded. There is not a common boys’ school in the kingdom which does not teach ten times more useful knowledge than both the universities put together, and all the public schools into the bargain. Why, sir, if you send a boy to school now, he does not spend, as he did formerly, ten or twelve years in learning the Latin grammar, but now he learns Latin and Greek, and French, German, Spanish, Italian, dancing, drawing, music, mapping, the use of the globes, chemistry, history, botany, mechanics, hydrostatics, hydraulics, hydrodynamics, astronomy, geology, gymnastics, architecture, engineering, ballooning, and many more useful and indispensable arts and sciences, so that he is fitted for any station in life, from a prime minister down to a shoe-black.”
Before this speech was finished, Mr Primrose was fast asleep; but short is the sleep in a coach that travels by night. The coach stopped and woke our foreigner from a frightful dream. We do not wish to terrify our readers, but we must relate the dream in consequence of its singularity. He dreamed then, that he was in the island of Laputa, and that having provoked the indignation of some of the learned professors by expressing a doubt as to the practicability of some of their schemes, he was sentenced to be buried alive under a pyramid of encyclopedias. Just as the cruel people were putting the sentence into execution, he woke and found his coat-collar almost in his mouth, and heard the word ‘ology’ from the lips of his fellow traveller. He was very glad to find that matters were no worse.
CHAPTER XV.
Few indeed are the adventures now to be met with in travelling by a stage coach, and few also, comparatively speaking, the accidents. But our travellers were destined to meet both with accident and adventure. The coach, as our observant readers have noticed, must necessarily have travelled all night. The nights in December are long and dark; and not unfrequently, during the long cold silence of a December night, there gently falls upon the dank surface of the earth a protecting and embellishing fleece of flaky snow. And the morning snow as yet untrodden has a brilliant and even cheerful look beneath a blue and brightly frosty sky; and when a wide expanse of country variegated with venerably-aged trees, and new enclosures and old open meadow lands, and adorned with here and there a mansion surrounded with its appurtenances of larch, pine, and poplar, and divided into unequal but gracefully undulating sections by means of a quiet stream—when a scene like this bursts upon the morning eye of a winter traveller, and shows itself set off and adorned with a mantle of virgin snow, it is indeed a sight well worth looking at. Mr Primrose had not seen snow for sixteen years, and the very sight of it warmed his heart; for it was so much like home. It was one of those natural peculiarities which distinguished the land of his birth from the land of his exile. He expressed to his fellow traveller the delight which he felt at the sight. Mr Kipperson coincided with him that the view was fine, and proposed that, as they were both well clad, and as the scenery was very magnificent, they should by way of a little variety seat themselves on the outside of the coach. The proposal was readily embraced, and they mounted the roof.
The carriage was proceeding at a tolerably rapid pace on high but level ground; and the travellers enjoyed the brightness of the morning, and the beauty of the valley which lay on their left hand. Shortly they arrived at a steep descent which led into the valley beneath, and there was no slacking of pace or locking of wheels, which had been customary in going down hill when Mr Primrose was last in England. He expressed, therefore, his surprise at the boldness or carelessness of the coachman, and hinted that he was fearful lest some accident might happen. But Mr Kipperson immediately dissipated his fears, by telling him that this was the usual practice now, and that the construction of stage-coaches, and the art of driving, were so much improved, that it was now considered a far safer and better plan to proceed in the usual pace down hill as well as upon level ground. Mr Kipperson, in short, had just proved to a demonstration that it was impossible that any accident could happen, when down fell one of the horses, and presently after down fell coach and all its company together.
Happily no lives were lost by the accident. But if Mr Kipperson’s neck was not broken by the fall, his heart was almost broken by the flat contradiction which the prostrate carriage gave to his theory, and he lay as one bereft of life. Equally still and silent lay Mr Primrose; for he was under the awkward difficulty of either denying his fellow traveller’s correctness or doubting the testimony of his own senses. The catastrophe took place near to a turnpike house; so that those of the passengers, who had experienced any injury from the overturning of the coach, could be speedily accommodated with all needful assistance. All the passengers, however, except Mr Primrose, were perfectly able, when the coach was put to rights again, to resume their journey. Mr Primrose, as soon as he recovered from the first shock of his fall, was very glad to take refuge in the turnpike house, and he soon became sensible that it would not be prudent for him then to pursue his journey. He had indeed received a severe shock from the accident, and though he had no bones broken he had suffered a violent concussion which might be doctored into an illness.
As soon as possible medical assistance was procured. The surgeon examined and interrogated the overturned gentleman with great diligence and sagacity. From the examination, it appeared not unlikely that the patient might promise himself the pleasure of a speedy removal. The truth of the matter was, that the poor gentleman was more frightened than hurt. Some cases there are, and this was one of them, in which no time should be lost in sending for the doctor, seeing that, if the doctor be not sent for immediately, he may not be wanted at all. This is one of the reasons why physicians keep carriages, and have their horses always in readiness; for by using great expedition they frequently manage to arrive before the patient recovers.
The surgeon who attended Mr Primrose thought proper to take some blood from his patient, and to supply the place of the same by as many draughts as could be conveniently taken, or be reasonably given in the time. It was also recommended that the gentleman should be put to bed.