his remark as personal, and gone away.]

Another cause of the absence of good fellowship amongst us (he went
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
thoroughly understand. Man I do know--down to his boots; but
woman'--here he sighed and hesitated--'no; I don't know nearly so much
of her.'

_THE CRITIC ON THE HEARTH._

It has often struck me that the relation of two important members of
the social body to one another has never been sufficiently considered,
or treated of, so far as I know, either by the philosopher or the
poet. I allude to that which exists between the omnibus driver and his
conductor. Cultivating literature as I do upon a little oatmeal, and
driving, when in a position to be driven at all, in that humble
vehicle, the 'bus, I have had, perhaps, exceptional opportunities for
observing their mutua