FRANK MUIR ON EDUCATION AND LITERATURE PART 2

YESTERDAY WE STARTED SELECTING CHOICE QUOTES from Frank Muir’s An Irreverent and Thoroughly Incomplete Social History of Almost Everything. We continue today in Part 2 with the likes of George Bernard Shaw, Bertrand Russell, Samuel Johnson, and even er… SimanaitisSays.

Frank Muir. Image from “My Word! My Music!”

Misplaced Education. “In 1876,” Muir notes, “attendance was compulsory for children up to the age of ten, and up to thirteen for those who could not get a grip on the three R’s:”

“Pressing people to learn things they do not want to know is as unwholesome and disastrous as feeding them on sawdust.—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950).”

George Bernard Shaw. Image from Wikipedia.

“ ‘Whom are you?’ said he, for he had been to night school.”—George Ade (1866–1944) Bang! Bang!: ‘The Steel Box.’ ”

The Importance of Literature. Muir relates a tale of Edward Gibbon, author of Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire: “Gibbon, on bended knee, presented a copy of Vol.2 to H.R.H. the Duke of Gloucester. The royal reaction indicated the measure of the Hanover dynasty’s interest in literature:”

“Another damned, thick, square book! Always scribble, scribble, scribble! Eh! Mr. Gibbon?—William Henry, Duke of Gloucester (1743–1805) Quoted by Henry Best: Personal and Literary Memorials.” 

Prince William Henry, Duke of Gloucester and Edinburgh. Image from Wikipedia.

Muir recounts of writers, “Their work is more important to them than their women-folk:”

“If a writer has to rob his mother, he will not hesitate; the ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn’ is worth any number of old ladies.—William Faulkner (1897–1962).”

William Faulkner. Image by Carl Van Vechten via Wikipedia.

“An American man of letters,” Muir observes, “held out hope for authors in the afterlife:”

“There is probably no hell for authors in the next world—they suffer so much from critics and publishers in this.—Christian Nestell Bovee (1820–1904) Summaries of Thought: ‘Authors.’ ”

“It is not surprising,” Muir comments, “that writers have expressed a few cogent thoughts on critics:”

“As for you, little envious Prigs, snarling, bastard, puny Crticks, you’ll soon have railed your last: Go hang yourselves.—François Rabelais (1490?–1553) Gargantua and Pantagruel.”

“A critic is a man who knows the way but can’t drive the car.—Kenneth Tynan (1927–1980).”

Kenneth Tynan. Image from wsj.com.  

On Writing for Money. Muir recounts, “Dr. Johnson was quite clear where he stood on the question of whether an author should require money for his services:”

“No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money.—Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) Boswell’s Life, 5 April 1776.” 

Gee, I wonder where SimanaitisSays fits into this giant scheme of things? ds 

© Dennis Simanaitis, SimanaitisSays.com, 2025