In a text book designed for the edification of research workers--a
specimen of peculiarly disagreeable tartuffery--the histologist, Ramón y
Cajal, who, as a thinker, has always been an absolute mediocrity,
explains what the young scholar should be, in the same way that the
Constitution of 1812 made it clear what the ideal Spanish citizen should
be.
So we know now the proper character of the young scholar. He must be
calm, optimistic, serene ... and all this with ten or twelve coppers in
his pocket!
Some friends inform me that in the Institute for Public Education at
Madrid, where an attempt is made to give due artistic orientation to the
pupils, they have contrived an informal classification of the arts in
the order of their importance; first comes painting; then, music; and,
last, literature.
Considering carefully what may be the reasons for such a sequence, it
would appear that the purpose must be to deprive the student of any
occasion for becoming pessimistic. Certainly nobody will ever have his
convictions upset by looking at ancient cloths daubed over with linseed
oil, nor by the bum-ta-ra of music. But, to my mind, in a country like
Spain, it is better that our young men should be dissatisfied than that
they should go to the laboratory every day in immaculate blouses,
chatter like proper young gentlemen about El Greco, Cezanne and the
Ninth Symphony, and never have the brains to protest about anything.
Back of all this correctness may be divined the optimism of eunuchs.