on) is the growth of education. It sticks like a fungus to
everybody, and though, it is fair to say, mostly outside, does a
great deal of mischief. The scholastic interest has become so
powerful that nobody dares speak a word against it; but the fact
is, men are educated far beyond their wits. You can't fill any cup
beyond what it will hold, and the little cups are exceedingly
numerous. Boys are now crammed (with information) like turkeys (but
unfortunately not killed at Christmas), and when they grow up there
is absolutely no room in them for a joke. The prigs that frequent
my Midway Inn are as the sands in its hour-glass, only with no
chance, alas! of their running out. The wisdom of our ancestors
limited education, and very wisely, to the three R's; that is all
that is necessary for the great mass of mankind: whereas the pick
of them, with those clamping irons well stuck to their heels, will
win their way to the topmost peaks of knowledge.

At the very best--that is to say when it produces _anything_--what
does the most costly education in this country produce in ordinary
minds but the deplorable habit of classical quotation? If it could
teach them to _think_--but that is a subject, my dear friend, into
which you will scarcly follow me.

[I could have knocked his head off if he had not been so exceptionally
stout and strong, and as it was, I took up my hat to go, when a
thought struck me.]

'Among your valuable remarks upon the ideas entertained by society at
present, you have said nothing, my dear sir, about the ladies.'

'I never speak of anything,' he replied with dignity, 'which I do not