Foremost among the words of advice ranks this
maxim: Get an official list of the books you are to do, and examine
them carefully with a view to seeing what it is possible to do unseen.
Thus, if Virgil is among these authors, you can rely on being able to
do him with success. People who ought to know better will tell you that
Virgil is hard. Such a shallow falsehood needs little comment. A
scholar who cannot translate ten lines of _The Aeneid_ between the
time he is put on and the time he begins to speak is unworthy of pity
or consideration, and if I meet him in the street I shall assuredly cut
him. Aeschylus, on the other hand, is a demon, and needs careful
watching, though in an emergency you can always say the reading is
wrong.
Sometimes the compleat slacker falls into a trap. The saddest case I
can remember is that of poor Charles Vanderpoop. He was a bright young
lad, and showed some promise of rising to heights as a slacker. He fell
in this fashion. One Easter term his form had half-finished a speech of
Demosthenes, and the form-master gave them to understand that they
would absorb the rest during the forthcoming term. Charles, being
naturally anxious to do as little work as possible during the summer
months, spent his Easter holidays carefully preparing this speech, so
as to have it ready in advance. What was his horror, on returning to
School at the appointed date, to find that they were going to throw
Demosthenes over altogether, and patronize Plato.
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