e few who
had a special aptitude for it, therein following the doctrine of Dr.
Whewell, and leading the way to a notable reform in Public Schools. But
to read the best Latin and Greek authors was to be the staple of a boy's
education, and thereto were to be added a full and scholarly knowledge
of English, and a sufficiency, such as modern life demands, of Science
and Mathematics. He "ventured once, in the very Senate-House and heart
of Cambridge, to hazard the opinion that for the majority of mankind a
little of mathematics goes a long way." He thought it no particular gain
for a boy to know that "when a taper burns, the wax is converted into
carbonic acid and water." He thought it a clear loss that he should not
know the last book of the _Iliad_, or the sixth book of the _AEneid_, or
the _Agamemnon_. He encouraged the Eton boys to laugh at "Scientific
lectures, and lessons on the diameter of the sun and moon"; but he was
moved almost to tears when "Can you not wait upon the lunatic?" was
offered as a paraphrase of "Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased?"
He listened with amused interest to the teachers who deduced our descent
from "a hairy quadruped furnished with a tail and pointed ears,
probably arboreal in his habits." But he thought it deplorable that a
leading physicist should never have heard of Bishop Wilson of Sodor and
Man, and that a leading journalist should confound him with Bishop
Wilson of Calcutta.

To the Public Schools he would have entrusted that thorough drilling in
Greek, Latin and English which was to be the foundation of the pupils'
culture; and, this done, he would have required the University to offer
scope for the fullest development of any special aptitude which the
pupil might display. In brief, the school was to train in general
knowledge; the University was to specialize. In 1868 he wrote: "An
admirable English mathematician told me that he should never recover the
loss of the two years which after his degree he wasted without fit
instruction at an English University, when he ought to have been under
superior instruction, for which the present University course in England
makes no provision. I daresay he _will_ recover it, for a man of genius
counts no worthy effort too hard; but who can estimate the loss to the
mental training and intellectual habits of the country, from the
absence--so complete that it needs genius to be sensible of it, and
costs genius an effort to repair it--of all