John Alexander Smith, Speech to Oxford University students, 1914 Browse All Authors Famous Quotes by John Alexander Smith, Speech to Oxford University students, 1914 Gentlemen, you are now about to embark on a course of studies which will occupy you for two years. Together, they form a noble adventure. But I would like to remind you of an important point. Nothing that you will learn in the course of your studies will be of the slightest possible use to you in after life, save only this, that if you work hard and intelligently you should be able to detect when a man is talking rot, and that, in my view, is the main, if not the sole, purpose of education. John Alexander Smith, Speech to Oxford University students, 1914
