Their beauty and interest were extreme; it was impossible to see them
without being attracted towards them; and I thought to myself that he
must be indeed an ill-grained and ungrateful person who can have been a
member of one of these colleges without retaining an affectionate feeling
towards it for the rest of his life. All my misgivings gave way at once
when I saw the beauty and venerable appearance of this delightful city.
For half-an-hour I forgot both myself and Arowhena.
After supper Mr. Thims told me a good deal about the system of education
which is here practised. I already knew a part of what I heard, but much
was new to me, and I obtained a better idea of the Erewhonian position
than I had done hitherto: nevertheless there were parts of the scheme of
which I could not comprehend the fitness, although I fully admit that
this inability was probably the result of my having been trained so very
differently, and to my being then much out of sorts.
The main feature in their system is the prominence which they give to a
study which I can only translate by the word "hypothetics." They argue
thus--that to teach a boy merely the nature of the things which exist in
the world around him, and about which he will have to be conversant
during his whole life, would be giving him but a narrow and shallow
conception of the universe, which it is urged might contain all manner of
things which are not now to be found therein.
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