Even our boasted educational system is half a Humbug. Too many of our professors fondly imagine that when they have crammed the dry formulas of half a dozen sciences into a small head--perhaps designed by the Deity to furnish the directive wisdom for a scavenger cart; when they have taught a two-legged moon-calf to glibly read in certain dead languages things it can in nowise comprehend --patiently pumped into it a whole congeries of things that defy its mental digestive apparatus--that it is actually educated, if not enlightened. And perhaps it is-- after the manner of the trick mule or the pig that plays cards. The attempt of Gulliver scientists to calcine ice into gunpowder were not more ridiculous than trying to transform a fool into a philosopher by the alchemy of education. If it be a waste of lather to shave an ass, what must it be to educate an idiot? True education consist in the acquirement of useful information; yet I have seen college graduates--even men sporting professional sheep- skins--who couldn't tell whether Gladstone's an English statesman or an Irish policeman. They knew all about Greek roots but couldn't tell a carrot from a parsnip. They could decipher a cuneiform inscription, perhaps, and state whether a pebble belonged to the paleozoic or some other period; but couldn't tell a subpoena from a search- warrant, a box of vermicelli from a bundle of fishworms. We pore over books too much and reflect too little; depend too much on others, too little upon ourselves. We make of our heads cold-storage warehouses for other people's ideas, instead of standing up in our own independent, god-like individuality. Bacon says that reading makes a full man. Perhaps so, but it makes a great deal of difference what a fellow's full of. Too many who fondly imagine themselves educated, much resemble Mark Twain's frog with its stomach full of shot--they are crushed to earth by the things they have swallowed. Neither the public nor any other school system has ever produced one really great man. Those who occupy the dais-throne among the immortals, contended single-handed with the darkness of ignorance and the devil of dogmatism. Columbus scorned the schools and discovered a world. Napoleon revolutionized the science of war and himself master of Europe. Bismarck mocked at precedent, and United Germany stood forth a giant. Jesus of Nazareth ignored the learning of the Levites, and around the world arose the fanes of a new faith.