what is said or
done in the world should be so ephemeral as to take itself away quickly;
it should keep good for twenty-four hours, or even twice as long, but it
should not be good enough a week hence to prevent people from going on to
something else. No doubt the marvellous development of journalism in
England, as also the fact that our seats of learning aim rather at
fostering mediocrity than anything higher, is due to our subconscious
recognition of the fact that it is even more necessary to check
exuberance of mental development than to encourage it. There can be no
doubt that this is what our academic bodies do, and they do it the more
effectually because they do it only subconsciously. They think they are
advancing healthy mental assimilation and digestion, whereas in reality
they are little better than cancer in the stomach.

Let me return, however, to the Erewhonians. Nothing surprised me more
than to see the occasional flashes of common sense with which one branch
of study or another was lit up, while not a single ray fell upon so many
others. I was particularly struck with this on strolling into the Art
School of the University. Here I found that the course of study was
divided into two branches--the practical and the commercial--no student
being permitted to continue his studies in the actual practice of the art
he had taken up, unless he made equal progress in its commercial history.

Thus those who were studying painting were examined at frequent intervals
in the prices which all the leading pictures of the last fifty or a
hundred years had realised, and in the fluctuations in their values when
(as often happened) they had been sold and resold three or four times.
The artist, they contend, is a dealer in pictures, and it is as important
for him to learn how to adapt his wares to the market, and to know
approximately what kind of a picture will fetch how much, as it is for
him to be able to paint the picture. This, I suppose, is what the French
mean by laying so much stress upon "values."

As regards the city itself, the more I saw the more enchanted I became. I
dare not trust myself with any description of the exquisite beauty of the
different colleges, and their walks and gardens. Truly in these things
alone there must be a hallowing and refining influence which is in itself
half an education, and which no amount of error can wholly spoil. I was
introduced to many of the Professors, who showed