A man who, without a good fund of knowledge and parts, adopts a Court
life, makes the most ridiculous figure imaginable. He is a machine,
little superior to the Court clock; and, as this points out the hours,
he points out the frivolous employment of them. He is, at most, a
comment upon the clock; and, according to the hours that it strikes,
tells you, now it is levee, now dinner, now supper time, &c. The end
which I propose by your education is, to unite in you all the knowledge
of a scholar, with the manners of a courtier, and to join, what is
seldom joined in any of my countrymen, Books and the World. They are
commonly twenty years old before they have spoken to anybody above their
Schoolmaster and the Fellows of their college. If they happen to have
learning, it is only Greek and Latin; but not one word of Modern History
or Modern Languages. Thus prepared, they go abroad, as they call it;
but, in truth, they stay at home all that while; for being very
awkward, confoundedly ashamed, and not speaking the languages, they go
into no foreign company, at least none good; but dine and sup with one
another only, at the tavern.--LORD CHESTERFIELD. _Letters to his Son._