Reproofs of Ignorance Talking With the Confidence of Knowledge
He was once insisting on the importance of discipline, established by a wise system, and enforced with a steady hand, in schools, in colleges, in the navy, in the army; when he was somewhat suddenly and rudely taken up by a young officer who had just received his commission, and was not a little proud of his “blushing honours.” “What, sir,” said he, addressing the Doctor, “do you mean to apply that word discipline to the officers of the army? It may be well enough for the privates.” “Yes, sir, I do,” replied the Doctor, sternly: “It is discipline makes the scholar, it is discipline makes the soldier, it is discipline makes the gentleman, and the want of discipline has made you what you are.”
BEING MUCH ANNOYED
By the pert remarks of another tyro,—“Sir,” said he, “your tongue goes to work before your brain; and when your brain does work, it generates nothing but error and absurdity.” The maxim of men of experience, the Doctor might have added, is, “to think twice before they act once.” To a third person, of bold and forward but ill-supported pretensions, he said, “B——, you have read little, thought less, and know nothing.”