always declared that the great merit of the school was the liberty
allowed to the scholars. No attempt was made to cram or to produce model
pupils. Within limits they appear, in fact, to have been allowed to read
precisely what they pleased. In this way Wordsworth received in every
sense of the term a liberal education; and when he went to Cambridge,
'he enjoyed even more thoroughly than at Hawkshead whatever advantages
might be derived from the neglect of his teachers.'

The poet had a great contempt for academical training, and refused to go
through the usual Cambridge course. He finally graduated as B.A. without
honours, afterwards recording his indifference to academic distinction
in the well-known lines:

Of College labours, of the Lecturer's room,
All studded round, as thick as chairs could stand,
With loyal students faithful to their books,
Half-and-half idlers, hardy recusants,
And honest dunces--of important days,
Examinations, when the man was weighed
As in a balance! Of excessive hopes,
Tremblings withal and commendable fears,
Small jealousies, and triumphs good or bad--
Let others that know more speak as they know.
Such glory was but little sought by me,
And little won.

More forcibly expressed was Rousseau's derision of ordinary educational
methods. Writing in his 'Confessions' about the school days of his
cousin and himself, he says: 'We were sent together to Bossey, to board
with the Protestant minister Lambercier, in order to learn, together
with Latin, all the sorry trash which is included under the name of
education.... M. Lambercier was a very intelligent person who, without
neglecting our education, never imposed excessive tasks upon us. The
fact that, in spite of my dislike to restraint, I have never recalled my
hours of study with any feeling of disgust, and also that, even if I did
not learn much from him, I learnt without difficulty what I did learn,
and never forgot it, is sufficient proof that his system of instruction
was a good one.'

As far as the history of science is concerned, there is a long array of
self-cultured men to whom most of the discoveries that have been made
are due. In no other occupation is the faculty of thinking originally
and independently more essential than in the pursuit of scientific
knowledge, and it is significant that amongst famous scientists more
instances are to be found of men who owe nothing to school ins