They were not to be clean of hand for hygienic reasons--but for fear
of what people might "think"; they were not to be honourable, gentle,
brave and truthful because these things are fine--but because of what
the World might dole out in reward; they were not to eat slowly and
masticate well for their health's sake--but by reason of "good
manners"; they were not to study that they might develop their powers
of reasoning, store their minds, and enlarge their horizons--but that
they might pass some infernal examination or other, _ad majorem
Smelliae gloriam_; they were not to practise the musical art that they
might have a soul-developing aesthetic training, a means of solace,
delight, and self-expression--but that they might "play their piece"
to the casual visitor to the school-room with priggish pride,
expectant of praise; they were not to be Christian for any other
reason than that it was the recommended way to Eternal Bliss and a
Good Time Hereafter--the whole duty of canny and respectable man being
to "save his soul" therefore.

Her charges were skilfully, if unintentionally, trained in hypocrisy
and mean motive, to look for low reward and strive for paltry ends--to
do what looked well, say what sounded well, to be false, veneered,
ungenuine.

And Miss Smellie was giving them the commonly accepted "education" of
their class and kind.

The prize product of the Smellie system was the Haddock whose whole
life was a pose, a lie, a refusal to see the actual. Perhaps she
influenced him more strongly than the others because he was caught
younger and was of weaker fibre. Anyhow he grew up the perfect and
heartless snob, and by the time he left Oxford, he would sooner have