Relate, my Muse, the fame of him
Whose calling and peculiar mission
It was to wage with courage grim
A battle ’gainst effete Tradition!
When Movements moved, with holy zest
He scaled the breach and led the stormers,—
And was among the first and best
Of Educational Reformers.

He saw the Boy at Public Schools
Regard his books with fear and loathing,
From Latin’s arbitrary rules
Deriving practically nothing:—
He said,—“O bounding human Boys,
Of all the fare whereon you batten,
What chiefly mars your simple joys?”
With one accord they answered “Latin!”

“Exactly so,” th’ Inquirer cried,
“This is the lore which cramps and stunts us;
O how can pedagogues abide
A course that makes their pupils dunces?
Since with the rules of Latin Prose
They can’t be brought to yield compliance,
This Fact conclusively it shows—
They’ve all a natural bent for Science!”

They sought for Scientific Truth,
And pedagogues with books and birches
Guided the faltering steps of Youth
In biological researches:
The infant in his nurse’s care
In Science’ terms was taught to stammer:
They practised vivisection where
They used to cut their Latin grammar;

’Twas all in vain—the Human Boy
Remained unalterably chilly:
Still less than Virgil’s tale of Troy
He liked compulsory bacilli!
Much grieved the Zealot was thereat:—
“We’ll try,” he said, “a course of Spelling” . . .
But O, the way they hated that
Quite overcomes my power of telling!

“There must be ways,” the good man said,
“(Though hitherto perhaps we’ve missed ’em)
Of putting things within the head:
We’ve something wrong about the System:”
And musing on the sacred flame
Of Genius, and the cause that hid it,
He unto this conclusion came—
Compulsion was the thing that did it.

“Within the Boy’s aspiring brain
For Study still there lies a craving,
And what is won against the grain
Is never really worth the having;
This boasted Categorical
Imperative is clearly vicious,—
Pastors and masters, one and all,
Must ascertain their pupils’ wishes!”

And now those simple human Boys,—
All, to a boy, for Culture yearning,—
No pedagogues with idle noise
Impede upon the path of Learning:—
Released from books and teachers both,
No intellectual pastures feed ’em;
And, if they lose in mental growth,
Think how they gain in moral freedom!