I can fancy few
pieces of good fortune greater than this as happening to any man,
provided, of course, that he is not damaged irretrievably.
So strongly do I feel on this subject that if I had my way I would
have a speculation master attached to every school. The boys would
be encouraged to read the Money Market Review, the Railway News, and
all the best financial papers, and should establish a stock exchange
amongst themselves in which pence should stand as pounds. Then let
them see how this making haste to get rich moneys out in actual
practice. There might be a prize awarded by the head-master to the
most prudent dealer, and the boys who lost their money time after time
should be dismissed. Of course if any boy proved to have a genius
for speculation and made money -well and good, let him speculate by
all means.
If universities were not the worst teachers in the world I should
like to see professorships of speculation established at Oxford and
Cambridge. When I reflect, however, that the only things worth doing
which Oxford and Cambridge can do well are cooking, cricket, rowing
and games, of which there is no professorship, I fear that the
establishment of a professorial chair would end in teaching young
men neither how to speculate, nor how not to speculate, but would
simply turn them out as bad speculators.
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