Why, the finest word I
know of in the English language was coined, not by my poor old
grandfather, whose education had left little to desire, nor by any of the
admirable scholars whom he in his turn educated, but by an old matron who
presided over one of the halls, or houses of his school.

This good lady, whose name by the way was Bromfield, had a fine high
temper of her own, or thought it politic to affect one. One night when
the boys were particularly noisy she burst like a hurricane into the
hall, collared a youngster, and told him he was "the
ramp-ingest-scampingest-rackety-tackety-tow-row-roaringest boy in the
whole school." Would Mrs. Newton have been able to set the aunt and the
dog before us so vividly if she had been more highly educated? Would
Mrs. Bromfield have been able to forge and hurl her thunderbolt of a word
if she had been taught how to do so, or indeed been at much pains to
create it at all? It came. It was her [Greek text]. She did not
probably know that she had done what the greatest scholar would have had
to rack his brains over for many an hour before he could even approach.
Tradition says that having brought down her boy she looked round the hall
in triumph, and then after a moment's lull said, "Young gentlemen,
prayers are excused," and left them.

I have sometimes thought that, after all, the main use of a classical
education consists in the check it gives to originality, and the way in
which it prevents an inconvenient number of people from using their own
eyes. That we will not be at the trouble of looking at things for
ourselves if we can get any one to tell us what we ought to see goes
without saying, and it is the business of schools and universities to
assist us in this respect. The theory of evolution teaches that any
power not worked at pretty high pressure will deteriorate: originality
and freedom from affectation are all very well in their way, but we can
easily have too much of them, and it is better that none should be either
original or free from cant but those who insist on being so, no matter
what hindrances obstruct, nor what incentives are offered them to see
things through the regulation medium.

To insist on seeing things for oneself is to be in [Greek text], or in
plain English, an idiot; nor do I see any safer check against general
vigour and clearness of thought, with consequent terseness of expression,
than that provided by the curricula of our universities an