I said that young Englishmen know very little when they leave college. It would be very difficult for them to do otherwise, having given to study only the few hours left from cricket and boating. Most of the well-informed men that one meets have learnt all that they know after they left college. The educational system in this country has then a curious result. Whilst they are paying dearly for classes held by excellent professors, and for the use of the finest libraries in the world, they only learn boating, and it is quite impossible to study seriously, since all the time is passed in recreation. But some higher natures resent this deprivation of work so strongly that they leave college with a profound distaste for idleness, and they succeed in their self-instruction. Perhaps it would be more rational to work seriously during the years at college and to boat afterwards. This is the French system, only we exaggerate it so much that through unremitting study at college many of our young men are apt to dislike work afterwards. The true idea, according to the Romans, would be to have a _mens sana in corpore sano_. We Frenchmen, particularly in former years, have perhaps done rather too much for the development of the mind and not enough for the body; but really the English have always seemed to me to have gone too far in the opposite direction.
When I had ended my walk by the river-side, I returned across the fields and highway, talking to the peasants whom I met. Really, the more one sees of these fine Irishmen, the more one becomes attached to them. They have only two faults--they are very idle and horribly untruthful. But how witty they are! I am told that the other day an English tourist, a man already elderly, arrived at Castle Connell. He intended passing some weeks here, and on the recommendation of a friend, he had written to the inn to secure a room; he wished for one in the front of the house. He had been promised one, but did not get it. An honourable individual, living by his wits, introduced himself as having fishing rights in the river, and led him, for a consideration, to a certain spot, where he left him, promising him wonderful success. In five minutes he was arrested by a keeper, who threatened him with prosecution. After three or four adventures of the same kind he packed his portmanteau, vowing that he would never visit Ireland again.