Mr. Chamberlain on Wednesday unveiled a memorial to the boys
taught in University College School who have fallen in South Africa, and made quite a series of appetising and humorous speeches. In the first he recalled his old teachers, among whom were Professor Cook, who said that teaching boys mathematics was "firing a cannon ball into a mountain of mud," and Professor Merlet, who taught the French of Moliere by acting the scenes under study "as if he had just stepped from the boards of the Francais." There were Pessimists before the war who thought that the nobler qualities of Englishmen had been eaten out by the lust of gold; but the speaker said he had never been one of them, and he saw with thankfulness that never before had soldiers exhibited more -'011.rage, more cheerfulness under unexampled hardships, or sore complete abstinence from outrage or unnecessary severity. People sometimes question the value of optimism; but Mr. Chamberlain's optimism is, we believe, one source not only of his courage, but of his inclination to look all facts in the face. Wily dread the facts if all will at last go well?
Previous page
