Laudator Temporis Acti

George G. Ramsay (1839-1921), Should Women Study the Classics?: Opening Lecture at the Arts Course at Queen Margaret College, Glasgow, November 3rd, 1891 (Glasgow: James MacLehouse & Sons, 1891), p. 6 ("that personage" = the "Practical Man"):

Almost everywhere nowadays—most of all in a commercial city like this—it is impossible even to discuss the question of culture and education without being told authoritatively by that personage 'Now, mind, I respect your theories; I've a great respect for Latin and Greek, and for all your 'ologies, and I want my son to get all the good he can out of College while he is there. But he has to make his way in the world; he must take, if he can, some money out of it; you must not unfit him for becoming a business man; and he must be done with the University before he is twenty. Teach him what you like, only teach him something that will pay.'

The simple culture of the mind for its own sake—the mere perfecting of the man—is, alas! but seldom considered among the 'things that pay'; so in the rush forward to grasp the means of living—often, no doubt, a matter of sheer necessity—the acquisition of that which makes life worth living is too often pushed aside altogether.

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