The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green | Page 7

Mrs. Green had been caught by the word
"matriculation," a phrase quite unknown to her; and she said, "If it's
vaccination that you mean, Mr. Larkyns, my dear Verdant was done
only last year, when we thought the small-pox was about; so I think
he's quite safe."
Mr. Larkyns' politeness was sorely tried to restrain himself from giving
vent to his feelings in a loud burst of laughter; but Mary gallantly came
to his relief by saying, "Matriculation means being entered at a
university. Don't you remember, dearest mamma, when Mr. Charles
Larkyns went up to Oxford to be matriculated last January two years?"
"Ah, yes! I do now. But I wish I had your memory, my dear."
And Mary blushed, and flattered herself that she succeeded in looking
as though Mr. Charles Larkyns and his movements were objects of
perfect indifference to her.
So, after luncheon, Mr. Green and the rector paced up and down the
long-walk, and talked the matter over. The burden of Mr. Green's
discourse was this: "You see, sir, I don't intend my boy to go into the
Church, like yours; but, when anything happens to me, he'll come into
the estate, and have to settle down as the squire of the parish. So I don't
exactly see what would be the use of sending him to a university, where,
I dare say, he'd spend a good deal of money - not that I should grudge

that, though; - and perhaps not be quite such a good lad as he's always
been to me, sir. And, by George! (I beg your pardon,) I think his
mother would break her heart to lose him; and I don't know what we
should do without him, as he's never been away from us a day, and his
sisters would miss him. And he's not a lad, like your Charley, that could
fight his way in the world, and I don't think he'd be altogether happy.
And as he's not got to depend upon his talents for his bread and cheese,
the knowledge he's got at home, and from you, sir, seems to me quite
enough to carry him through life. So, altogether, I think Verdant will do
very well as he is, and perhaps we'd better say no more about the
matriculation."
But the rector ~would~ say more; and he expressed his mind thus: "It is
not so much from what Verdant would learn in Latin and Greek, and
such things as make up a part of the education, that I advise your
sending him to a university;
[16 ADVENTURES OF MR. VERDANT GREEN]
but more from what he would gain by mixing with a large body of
young men of his own age, who represent the best classes of a mixed
society, and who may justly be taken as fair samples of its feelings and
talents. It is formation of character that I regard as one of the greatest of
the many great ends of a university system; and if for this reason alone,
I should advise you to send your future country squire to college.
Where else will he be able to meet with so great a number of those of
his own class, with whom he will have to mix in the after changes of
life, and for whose feelings and tone a college-course will give him the
proper key-note? Where else can he learn so quickly in three years -
what other men will perhaps be striving for through life, without
attaining - that self-reliance which will enable him to mix at ease in any
society, and to feel the equal of its members? And, besides all this - and
each of these points in the education of a young man is, to my mind, a
strong one - where else could he be more completely 'under tutors and
governors,' and more thoroughly under ~surveillance~, than in a place
where college-laws are no respecters of persons, and seek to keep the
wild blood of youth within its due bounds? There is something in the

very atmosphere of a university that seems to engender refined
thoughts and noble feelings; and lamentable indeed must be the state of
any young man who can pass through the three years of his college
residence, and bring away no higher aims, no worthier purposes, no
better thoughts, from all the holy associations which have been
crowded around him. Such advantages as these are not to be regarded
with indifference; and though they come in secondary ways, and
possess the mind almost imperceptibly, yet they are of primary
importance in the formation of character, and may mould it into the
more perfect man. And as long as I had the power, I would no more
think of depriving a child of mine