Tom shoved his hand into his back hair. "I'm not so sure," said he; "you two fellows carried me off my legs; I don't really think we tried one sentence fairly. Are you sure you remember what the Doctor said to you?"
"Yes. And I'll swear I couldn't make out one of my sentences to-day. No, nor ever could. I really don't remember," said East, speaking slowly and impressively, "to have come across one Latin or Greek sentence this half that I could go and construe by the light of nature. Whereby I am sure Providence intended cribs to be used."
"The thing to find out," said Tom, meditatively, "is how long one ought to grind at a sentence without looking at the crib. Now, I think, if one fairly looks out all the words one doesn't know, and then can't hit it, that's enough."
"To be sure, Tommy," said East, demurely, but with a merry twinkle in his eye. "Your new doctrine, too, old fellow," added he, "when one comes to think of it, is a cutting at the root of all school morality. You'll take away mutual help, brotherly love, or, in the vulgar tongue, 'giving construes,' which I hold to be one of our highest virtues. For how can you distinguish between getting a construe from another boy and using a crib? Hang it, Tom, if you're going to deprive all our school-fellows of the chance of exercising Christian benevolence and being good Samaritans, I shall cut the concern."
"I wish you wouldn't joke about it, Harry. It's hard enough to see one's way, a precious sight harder than I thought last night. But I suppose there's a use and an abuse of both, and one'll get straight enough somehow. But you can't make out anyhow that one has a right to use old Vulgus-books and copy-books."
"Hullo, more heresy! How fast a fellow goes down hill when once he gets his head before his legs! Listen to me, Tom. Not use old Vulgus-books! Why, you Goth,[7] aren't we to take the benefit of the wisdom, and admire and use the work of past generations? Not use old copy-books! Why, you might as well say we ought to pull down Westminster Abbey, and put up a go-to-meeting-shop with churchwarden windows;[8] or never read Shakespeare, but only Sheridan Knowles.[9] Think of all the work and labor that our predecessors have bestowed on these very books, and are we to make their work of no value?"