W. Somerset Maugham, Of Human Bondage:
“The masters had no patience with modern ideas of education, which they read of sometimes in The Times or The Guardian, and hoped fervently that King’s School would remain true to its old traditions. The dead languages were taught with such thoroughness that an old boy seldom thought of Homer or Virgil in after life without a qualm of boredom ; and though in the common room at dinner one or two bolder spirits suggested that mathematics were of increasing importance, the general feeling was that they were a less noble study than the classics.”
