Is a living example of the fact, that it does not require great
learning to make a great general; nor is great learning always
necessary to complete the character of the head of a college. The late
Rector of Exeter College, Dr. Cole, raised that society, by his
prudent management, from the very _reduced_ rank in which he found it
amongst the other foundations of Oxford, to a flourishing and high
reputation for good scholarship. Yet he is said one day to have
complimented a student at collections, by saying, after the gentleman
had construed his portion of Sophocles, "Sir, you have construed your
_Livy_ very well." He nevertheless redeemed his credit by one day
_posing_ a student, during his divinity examination, with asking him,
in vain, "_What Christmas day was?_" Another Don of the same college,
once asking a student of the society some divinity question, which he
was equally at a loss for an answer, he exclaimed--"Good God, sir,
you the son of a clergyman, and not answer such a question as that?"
Aristotle was of opinion that knowledge _could only be acquired_, but
our tutor seems to have thought, like the opponents of Aristotle, that
a _son of a parson_ ought to be _born to it_.