Reblogged from Tallis Steelyard (aka Jim Webster…):

Can one have too much education? Over the years I have come round to a feeling that one can. Yes I agree entirely that the young should be taught the finer arts necessary for an appreciation of poetry, but how much more education should they be burdened with?
In all candour I find there is something unnerving about young boys sitting quietly in a room reading books. They should be outside, knocking the hats of the pompous with well placed slingshots, or surreptitiously stealing sweetmeats from confectioners. Even the swift theft of a cooling pie from a kitchen window provides the youngster with many of the skills they will need when they embark upon adult life. Many an elderly usurer or senior lawyer will tell you that it’s the courage and dexterity that they acquired in their youth which stood them in good stead when facing the adversity of middle age.

This is why I feel obliged to share with you the sad story of Sidimor Emmercob. The Emmercobs had the disadvantage of being ‘new money’ and Madam Emmercob, Sidimor’s mother, was in awe of her husband, Tilandor. She felt that it was his mastery of the vertex, his understanding of both factors and variables, and his grasp of the properties of salts, airs, acids and spirits, were the bedrock upon which the family fortune was based. Indeed their prosperity rested on his production of salt of lemon, used to remove ink stains, but also in high demand by marble grinders everywhere.

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