He must be acquiring
the very freshest ideas about Sanscrit and Greek; about the Ogham
characters and the Cyprian syllabary; about early Greek inscriptions
and the origins of Roman history, in addition to reading the familiar
classics by the light of the latest commentaries.
What is the tangible result, and what the gain of all these labours?
The answer is the secret of University discontent. All this
accumulated knowledge goes out in teaching, is scattered abroad in
lectures, is caught up in note-books, and is poured out, with a
difference, in examinations. There is not an amount of original
literary work produced by the University which bears any due
proportion to the solid materials accumulated. It is just the
reverse of Falstaff's case--but one halfpenny-worth of sack to an
intolerable deal of bread; but a drop of the spirit of learning to
cart-loads of painfully acquired knowledge. The time and energy of
men is occupied in amassing facts, in lecturing, and then in eternal
examinations. Even if the results are satisfactory on the whole,
even if a hundred well-equipped young men are turned out of the
examining-machine every year, these arrangements certainly curb
individual ambition. If a resident in Oxford is to make an income
that seems adequate, he must lecture, examine, and write manuals and
primers, till he is grey, and till the energy that might have added
something new and valuable to the acquisitions of the world has
departed.
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