herefore
doubly in need of tender treatment and fostering care, has been
hopelessly crushed out of existence by the conventional training of
school and university.

Under present conditions prigs can and do grow up everywhere. In some
educational institutions--notably in great public schools like Eton and
Harrow--they are more discouraged than in others; but the cramming
system has reached such proportions that all schools and colleges are
affected in a greater or less degree. They infect our public life, as
we have seen; largely recruit our public service; and are in evidence in
the pulpit, at the schoolmaster's desk, on public platforms, in the
lecture-room of the university, and wherever the services of educated
men are employed.

The ideals of men like Arnold and Thring cannot be carried out as long
as the examination system puts a premium upon cramming. 'I call that the
best theme,' said Dr. Arnold, alluding to original composition, 'which
shows that the boy has read and thought for himself; that the next best,
which shows that he has read several books, and digested what he has
read; and that the worst, which shows that he has followed but one book,
and followed that without reflection.'

There is no time nowadays for a boy to read and think for himself.
Besides the examinations inside his own school for which he has to be
prepared, there are scholarships, university examinations, competitive
examinations for the civil service, and a host of other possibilities of
the kind, all of which necessitate the acquisition of an enormous number
of useless facts in every branch of learning.

Too much attention is concentrated on the admirable physical product of
the athletic side of our public school and university life. This
advantage of the English system of education has been dwelt upon to such
an extent, that people are apt to overlook the fact that, side by side
with these fine specimens of healthy and for the most part
unintellectual manhood, we are manufacturing a purely academic article
of the least inspired and most retrogressive description.

If somebody, wishing to make you acquainted with a friend, says to you:
'I want you to meet So-and-so; he was at Eton and Trinity Hall, and came
out tenth in the mathematical tripos,' you know exactly the kind of man
to whom you are going to be introduced. He will have a very proper
contempt for made-up ties, and will refuse to fasten the bottom button
of his waistcoat.