We find, moreover, that his Greek and Latin were "mechanically" taught;
Hebrew scarce even mechanically; much else which they called History,
Cosmography, Philosophy, and so forth, no better than not at all. So that,
except inasmuch as Nature was still busy; and he himself "went about, as
was of old his wont, among the Craftsmen's workshops, there learning many
things;" and farther lighted on some small store of curious reading, in
Hans Wachtel the Cooper's house, where he lodged,--his time, it would
appear, was utterly wasted. Which facts the Professor has not yet learned
to look upon with any contentment. Indeed, throughout the whole of this
Bag _Scorpio_, where we now are, and often in the following Bag, he shows
himself unusually animated on the matter of Education, and not without some
touch of what we might presume to be anger.

"My Teachers," says he, "were hide-bound Pedants, without knowledge of
man's nature, or of boy's; or of aught save their lexicons and quarterly
account-books. Innumerable dead Vocables (no dead Language, for they
themselves knew no Language) they crammed into us, and called it fostering
the growth of mind. How can an inanimate, mechanical Gerund-grinder, the
like of whom will, in a subsequent century, be manufactured at Nurnberg out
of wood and leather, foster the growth of anything; much more of Mind,
which grows, not like a vegetable (by having its roots littered with
etymological compost), but like a spirit, by mysterious contact of Spirit;
Thought kindling itself at the fire of living Thought? How shall _he_ give
kindling, in whose own inward man there is no live coal, but all is burnt
out to a dead grammatical cinder? The Hinterschlag Professors knew syntax
enough; and of the human soul thus much: that it had a faculty called
Memory, and could be acted on through the muscular integument by appliance
of birch-rods.

"Alas, so is it everywhere, so will it ever be; till the Hod-man is