Quote for the day: how to get a great education by not doing your Greek homework (Parents' Review Volume 2)

"Greek in Modern Education," by by Oscar Browning.  The Parents' Review, Volume 2, 1891/92, pg. 001.

"I am myself under deep obligations to this kind of training. My master at school was very fond of reading Thucydides with me. I made it a point of honour never to learn the lesson, and when put on had to make out the sense on the spur of the moment. I adopted an ingenious device to gain time. My master was a very able man of well filled and discursive mind. At any provocation he would go off into talks on general subjects of a most stimulating and interesting kind and of different length. I therefore treated him as Meilanion [Hippomenes] treated Atalanta. Keeping my finger on the sentence which I had last construed I strained every effort to work ahead. If my tutor's discourse was coming to an end I dropped another apple, for I had got to know precisely how much each subject was good for, one, two, or three minutes. The valuable breathing space was utilised by me to the utmost and in the end I gained far more by not having learned my lesson than I should ever have gained if I had prepared it."