That was a hateful
thought! Had not the boy been right after all? Must one not somehow
link one's arm with life and share its pilgrimage, even in
weariness and tears?
There came a tap at the door, and one of his shyest pupils entered--
a solitary youth, poor and unfriended, who was doing all he could
to get a degree good enough to launch him in the world. He came to
ask some advice about work. Howard entered into his case as well as
he could, told him it was important that he should get certain
points clear, gave him an informal lecture, distinctly and
emphatically, and made a few friendly remarks. The man beamed with
unexpressed gratitude.
"What solemn nonsense I have been talking!" thought Howard to
himself as the young man slipped away. "Of course he must learn all
this--but what for? To get a mastership, and to retail it all over
again! It's a vicious circle, this education which is in touch with
nothing but the high culture of a nation which lived in ideas;
while with us culture is just a plastering of rough walls--no part
of the structure! Why cannot we put education in touch with life,
try to show what human beings are driving at, what arrangements
they are making that they may live? It is all arrangements with us--
the frame for the picture, the sheath for the sword--and we leave
the picture and the sword to look after themselves. What a wretched
dilettante business it all is, keeping these boys practising
postures in the anteroom of life! Cannot we get at the real thing,
teach people to do things, fill their minds with ideas, break down
the silly tradition of needless wealth and absurd success? And I
must keep up all this farce, simply because I am fit for nothing
else--I cannot dig, to beg I am ashamed.
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