I was unable to discover that a knowledge of the hieroglyphical writing would ever be of any use to the candidates after they had obtained the office they desired. I was told that no useful information whatever could be got from the writing, that it mostly consisted of absurd myths and incredible fables and displayed an almost total unacquaintance with the simplest and best known physical facts. Yet, notwithstanding this, it was held that every person who aspired to a place under Government should show a tolerable acquaintance with the hieroglyphics, and give proof that he had wasted some years of his life in their study.
The colleges where these hieroglyphics are taught, are frankly denominated "Seminaries of Useless Knowledge," and it is generally believed that the acquirement of this useless knowledge is an excellent thing for exercising and opening the mind, and especially that it distinguishes the gentleman from the common herd.
When I ventured to express a mild doubt as to the expediency of devoting so much time to the acquisition of this useless knowledge, I was immediately met with the unanswerable argument that experience had shown that it expanded the intellect, led to habits of industry and application and enabled him who had been thoroughly grounded in it to acquire thereafter all the branches of mere utilitarian knowledge with the utmost facility. In short, I found the prejudice in favour of hieroglyphics so strong, that it almost seemed to be thought that if the study of hieroglyphics were done away with, the race would incontinently lapse into barbarism.
As it would have done no good to run counter to the settled prejudices of the natives, I did not attempt
