The Firm of Girdlestone Chapter 5 - Modern Athenians

Ashton Hoffman (0:00)

Chapter 5 of the Fama Gettelstam by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, read by Ashton Hoffman, Modern Athenians. Edinburgh University may recall herself with Grammar Joe Sosinus, the alma mater of her students. But if she be a mother at all, she is one of a very heroic and spurtin cast, who conceals her maternal affection with remarkable success, the only signs of interest with which she ever designs to evidence towards her alimony or upon those that in frequent occasions, when genius are to be demanded from them.

Then one is surprised to find how carefully the old hen has counted her chickens and how properly the demand is conveyed. To each one of the thousands throughout the empire who, in spite of neglect, cherish a sneaking kindness for the old college, there is symbolism in the very look of her square and massive grimming gray, with never a pillar or curving to break the dead monotony of the great stone walls. She is learned, she is practical, and she is useful. There is little sentiment or romance in her composition. However, in this she does but confirm to the instincts of the nation, of which she is the youngest but the most flourishing teacher.

A lad coming up to an English university finds himself an enlarged and enlightened public school. If he has passed through Horo and Etton, there is no very abrupt transition between the life which he has led in the sixth form and that which he finds awaiting him on the banks of the Cam. The Isis's certain rooms are found for him, which have been inhabited by generations of students. In the past, it will buy as many in the future His religion is cared for and he is expected to put in an appearance at the hall. And at the chapel. He must be within bounds as.

The Isis's The article that is liable to be pounced upon and reported by special officials and a code of punishment is hung permanently over his head. In return for all this, his university takes a keen interest in him.

She pats him on the back if he succeeds. Prizes and scholarships. Find Fat Fellowship or Throughout Plentiful in his way. If you will girdle his loins and aspire to them. There is nothing of this in a Scottish university.

Byron pays his pound and finds himself a student. After that, he may do absolutely what he will. There are certain classes going on at certain hours, which he may attend if he chooses. If not, he may stay away without the slightest remonstrance from the college. As to religion, he may worship the sun or have a private fetish of his own.

Upon the mantelpiece of his lodgings, for all that the university cares, he may live where he likes, he may keep what hours he chooses, and he is at liberty to break every commandment in the deca-lodge, as long as he behaves himself with some approach to decency within the acc-a-dimential precincts, in every way he is absolutely his own master. Examinations are periodically held, which he may appear or not as he chooses. The university is a great and sympathetic machine, taken in stream of raw-boned, cordogenuous youths, at one end and turning them out the other, as learned divines, astute lawyers, and skillful medical men. Of every thousand of the raw material, about six hundred emerge at the other side. The remainder are broken in the process. The merits and faults of the Scotch system are like evident, left entirely to his own vices as a fair from moral city. Many a lad falls out the very starting point of his life's race, never to rise again. Many become idlers or take to drink, while others, after wasting time and money, which they could ill afford, leave the college with nothing or unsaved vices. On the other hand, those whose mamminess and good sense keep them straight, have gone through a training which lasts for life. They have been tired and have not been found wanting. They have learned a self-reliance, confidence, and in a word have become men of the world, while the confers in England are still magnified schoolboys.

High up in a third flat in Howe Street, one Thomas Dimsdale was going through his period of perturbation in a little bedroom and a large sitting room, which later more student-yum served the purpose of dining room, parlor, and study. A dingy sideboard with four still more dingy chairs and a orcheological sofa made up the whole of the furniture, with the exception of a circular mahogany center table.

Littered with notebooks and papers above the mantelpiece with a fly-blown mirror, with the innumerable codes and notices projecting in a fringe all around and a pair of pipe cracks flanking it on either side. Although the center of the sideboard arranged with suspicious neatness as though seldom disturbed stood a line of solemn books, Holden's Astrology, Quain's Autonomy, Kirk's Fifth Theology, and Huxley's Invertebrator. Together with the disarticulated human skull on one side of the fireplace, two thigh bones were stacked on the other, a pair of foils, two basket-heltered single sticks, and a set of boxing gloves on a shelf in a convenient niche was a small stock of general literature, which appeared to have been considerably more stumbled than the works upon medicine. Thackeray's Esmond and Mertis's Richard Fevret rubbed covers with Ivering's Conquest of Grananda, and a tattered line of paper-covered novels. Over the sideboard was a framed photograph of Edinburgh University Football 15, and opposite it a smaller one of Dimsdale himself, clad in a scantiest of garb as he appeared after winning the half-mile, at the Inter-University Handicap.