John Ruskin's ideas on education were far removed from those of his contemporary, John Henry, Cardinal Newman: "The university's business in any country in Europe," wrote Ruskin in the Pall Mall Gazette, "is to teach its youths as much Latin, Greek, mathematics and astronomy as they can quietly learn in the time that they are there - and nothing else. If they don't learn their own language at home, then they can't learn it at a university.
"If they want to learn Chinese, they should go to China, and if they want to learn Dutch, to Amsterdam; and after they've learned all they want, they should learn wholesomely to hold their tongues, except on extreme occasions, in all languages whatsoever."
This last virtue, obviously, was never one of Ruskin's fortes. He was one of the most voluminous and controversial writers of the 19th century, and was widely known for his outspoken views on English art. He championed, on the one hand, the somewhat unconventional style of Turner, while repeatedly denouncing James MacNeill Whistler in terms so outrageous that the latter sued successfully for libel. But he was kind to meteorologists.
"He whose kingdom is the heavens," he wrote, "can never meet with an uninteresting space or exhaust the phenomena of an hour; he is in a realm of perpetual change, of eternal motion, of infinite mystery.
"Light and darkness, cold and heat, are all to him as friends of familiar countenance - but of infinite variety of conversation; and while the geologist yearns for the mountain, the botanist for the field, and the mathematician for the study, the meteorologist is a spirit of a higher order than any, and rejoices in the kingdom of the air."
Ruskin was born 180 years ago today, on February 8th, 1819. He inherited from his parents a strong reliance on the Bible, an affection for romantic literature and a discerning taste in contemporary landscape painting. He himself developed a great affection for the French cathedral towns, the Alps - and meteorology.
And sometimes this love of meteorology would pleasingly intrude into his learned commentaries on art: "While it is true that the dusky atmosphere obscures all objects," he wrote, "it is also true that nature never intended the eye of man to be without delight, and has provided a rich compensation for shading the tints with darkness, in their brightening by moisture.
"Every colour, wet, is twice as brilliant as it is when dry; and when distances are obscured by mist, and bright colours vanish from the sky, the grass and foliage revive into their perfect green."