Tuesday, November 20, 2012
An Oxbridge Education
Sydney Smith (1771-1845), letter to the Countess of Morley (1831):
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——— has been to Cambridge to place his son; in other words, he has put him there to spend his money, to lose what good qualities he has, and to gain nothing useful in return. If men had made no more progress in the common arts of life than they have in education, we should at this moment be dividing our food with our fingers, and drinking out of the palms of our hands.See also his letter to Mrs. Meynell (1839):
I feel for ——— about her son at Oxford; knowing, as I do, that the only consequences of a University education are, the growth of vice and the waste of money.
