Clerical Snobs, in which he describes the colleges as the last strongholds of Feudalism; concluding—[1]
"Why is the poor College servitor to wear that name and that
badge still? Because Universities are the last places into which
Reform penetrates. But now that she can go to College and
back for five shillings, let her travel down thither."
Squire Headlong inquires in vain at Oxford for "men
of taste and philosophers." Scythrop and Sir Telegraph
were both cured at college of their love for learning. Desmond
describes the university system as a "deep-laid conspiracy
against the human understanding, * * * a
ridiculous and mischievous farce." But Dr. Folliott refused
to succumb. Alluding to some one who cannot quote
Greek, he adds,—[2]
"But I think he must have finished his education at some
very rigid college, where a quotation, or any other overt act
showing acquaintance with classical literature, was visited with
a severe penalty. For my part, I made it my boast that I was
not to be so subdued. I could not be abated of a single quotation
by all the bumpers in which I was fined."
The same critic says elsewhere of the curriculum:[3]
"Everything for everybody, science for all, schools for all,
rhetoric for all, law for all, physic for all, words for all, and sense
for none."
Pelham testifies that at Eton he was never taught a syllable
of English literature, laws, or history; and was
laughed at for reading Pope out of school. On his graduation
from Cambridge, a place that "reeked with vulgar-*
