and not outwards; into a _height_ quite sickly, and disproportioned to
its _breadth_?

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
discharged, or reduced to hod-bearing; and an Architect is hired, and on
all hands fitly encouraged: till communities and individuals discover,
not without surprise, that fashioning the souls of a generation by
Knowledge can rank on a level with blowing their bodies to pieces by
Gunpowder; that with Generals and Field-marshals for killing, there
should be world-honored Dignitaries, and were it possible, true
God-orda