第42章

"Now, my boys," he said, "Why is it so necessary to avoid extremes of truthfulness?""It is not necessary, sir," said one youngster, "and the man who says that it is so is a scoundrel.""Come here, my boy, and hold out your hand." When he had done so, Mr. Turvey gave him two sharp cuts with a cane. "There now, go down to the bottom of the class and try not to be so extremely truthful in future." Then, turning to my father, he said, "I hate caning them, but it is the only way to teach them. I really do believe that boy will know better than to say what he thinks another time."He repeated his question to the class, and the head-boy answered, "Because, sir, extremes meet, and extreme truth will be mixed with extreme falsehood.""Quite right, my boy. Truth is like religion; it has only two enemies--the too much and the too little. Your answer is more satisfactory than some of your recent conduct had led me to expect.""But, sir, you punished me only three weeks ago for telling you a lie.""Oh yes; why, so I did; I had forgotten. But then you overdid it.

Still it was a step in the right direction."

"And now, my boy," he said to a very frank and ingenuous youth about half way up the class, "and how is truth best reached?""Through the falling out of thieves, sir."

"Quite so. Then it will be necessary that the more earnest, careful, patient, self-sacrificing, enquirers after truth should have a good deal of the thief about them, though they are very honest people at the same time. Now what does the man" (who on enquiry my father found to be none other than Mr. Turvey himself)"say about honesty?"

"He says, sir, that honesty does not consist in never stealing, but in knowing how and where it will be safe to do so.""Remember," said Mr. Turvey to my father, "how necessary it is that we should have a plentiful supply of thieves, if honest men are ever to come by their own."He spoke with the utmost gravity, evidently quite easy in his mind that his scheme was the only one by which truth could be successfully attained.

"But pray let me have any criticism you may feel inclined to make.""I have none," said my father. "Your system commends itself to common sense; it is the one adopted in the law courts, and it lies at the very foundation of party government. If your academic bodies can supply the country with a sufficient number of thieves--which I have no doubt they can--there seems no limit to the amount of truth that may be attained. If, however, I may suggest the only difficulty that occurs to me, it is that academic thieves shew no great alacrity in falling out, but incline rather to back each other up through thick and thin.""Ah, yes," said Mr. Turvey, "there is that difficulty; nevertheless circumstances from time to time arise to get them by the ears in spite of themselves. But from whatever point of view you may look at the question, it is obviously better to aim at imperfection than perfection; for if we aim steadily at imperfection, we shall probably get it within a reasonable time, whereas to the end of our days we should never reach perfection. Moreover, from a worldly point of view, there is no mistake so great as that of being always right." He then turned to his class and said -"And now tell me what did the Sunchild tell us about God and Mammon?"The head-boy answered: "He said that we must serve both, for no man can serve God well and truly who does not serve Mammon a little also; and no man can serve Mammon effectually unless he serve God largely at the same time.""What were his words?"

"He said, 'Cursed be they that say, "Thou shalt not serve God and Mammon, for it is the whole duty of man to know how to adjust the conflicting claims of these two deities."'