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MODERN EDUCATION.--“Larning--larning--larning,” is the cry of father an’
mother--if my boy had the “larning,” what a janius he’d be! In coorse,
ye old fools, your _bouchal_ would be a swan among the goslins; but it
isn’t “larning” half the world want: instead of “larning,” by which they
mean cobwebs picked out of dead men’s brains, if they would get some
discipline. Discipline--discipline--discipline, that’s the only education
I ever saw that brought a boy to any good. What’s the use of battering a
man’s brains full of Greek and Latin pothooks, that he forgets before he
doffs his last round jacket, to put on his first long-tailed blue, if ye
don’t teach him the old Spartan virtue of obedience, hard living, early
rising, and them sort of classics? Where’s the use of instructing him in
hexameters and pentameters, if you leave him ignorant of the value of a
penny piece? What height of bletherin’ stupidity it is to be fillin’ a
boy’s brains with the wisdom of the ancients, and then turn him out like
an _omadhaun_ to pick up his victuals among the moderns!--_Blackwood’s
Magazine._