The reflections of boys on the education to which they have been subjected are remarkably interesting, because they are so exceedingly rare. We have Rousseau's criticism of his upbringing, but it was penned when youth was behind, and it is tinged with an affectation of intellectual detachment and middle-aged self-consciousness which robs it of the spontaneity which would be its only recommendation. St. Augustine, when he wrote his confessions, knew far too much to be able to write with simple sincerity of his foolish youth. Labouchere's early note-books, unlike these masterpieces, possess the uncommon value of being youth's judgments upon youth, written with all the hardy ingenuousness of a clever boy, who was, besides being clever, extremely young for his age.[8] About the period of his life which has been described Labouchere wrote, at the age of twenty-one: "I will give ... an outline of my life, and the different courses that led to my discovery of early wisdom. I went through the usual numbers of schools, by which I learnt that an English education, for the time and money that it consumes, is the worst that the world has yet produced. One {22} clergyman alone of all my masters knew how to teach. His conduct was perfectly arbitrary, and he gave no reason for it--while, in the several branches of learning, his pupils either made rapid progress or left his house. My acquaintance with him was of short duration. He insisted on my teaching in an infant school on Sunday, or leaving his house--and I foolishly preferred the latter. I was then too young to go to college, so I was transferred to a clergyman in Norfolk, the very antipodes of my former master. Here I amused myself, and was flattered for a year or two, and then went to the university."