Читать книгу The Goose-step: A Study of American Education онлайн

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Missal of the Gothic age,

Missal with the blazoned page,

Whence, O Missal, hither come,

From what dim scriptorium?

Whose the name that wrought thee thus,

Ambrose or Theophilus,

Bending, through the waning light,

O’er thy vellum scraped and white!

I hope you know the tune of “Ta-ra-ra-ra-boom-de-ay,” so that you may get the full cultural benefit from this recitation!

However, my little Catholic professor of literature did one thing for me; he let me know of the existence of a poet by the name of Shelley. We read “The Skylark” and “The Cloud” in class, and there came over me a realization of the ghastly farce I was going through in this college. I was near the end of my senior year, but my store of patience gave out, and I presented a letter to the faculty, stating that I was obliged to earn my own living, and requesting that I be allowed two months’ leave of absence. The statement was strictly true, but the implication, that I was going to spend the two months in earning money, was not true; I spent the two months sitting on the bed in an eight by ten hall bedroom in a lodging-house, reading Shelley’s poetry and Emerson’s Essays and the prose of Ruskin and Carlyle. I went back to college and made up my lost months in a week or two, and passed my examinations without either credit or discredit—ranking just in the middle of my class.