I own that all this seemed rather hard, and not of a piece with the many
admirable institutions existing among them. I once ventured to say a
part of what I thought about it to one of the Professors of Unreason. I
did it very tenderly, but his justification of the system was quite out
of my comprehension. I remember asking him whether he did not think it
would do harm to a lad's principles, by weakening his sense of the
sanctity of his word and of truth generally, that he should be led into
entering upon a solemn declaration as to the truth of things about which
all that he can certainly know is that he knows nothing--whether, in
fact, the teachers who so led him, or who taught anything as a certainty
of which they were themselves uncertain, were not earning their living by
impairing the truth-sense of their pupils (a delicate organisation
mostly), and by vitiating one of their most sacred instincts.
The Professor, who was a delightful person, seemed greatly surprised at
the view which I took, but it had no influence with him whatsoever. No
one, he answered, expected that the boy either would or could know all
that he said he knew; but the world was full of compromises; and there
was hardly any affirmation which would bear being interpreted literally.
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