No. 6 - Quintet and Chorus - "To ascertain the knowledge."

Lyrics by Grant Stewart

[Pickwick:] To ascertain the knowledge
of the college I'll endeavor
[Arabella:] Did you ever?
[Girls:] No, I never, never did.
[Pickwick:] A bid I'm going to make to gain
your education reputation.
I want to know the whereabouts
of ev'rything you hear about;
my stock of information I'm desirous to enrich
on the when, why, what,
and the whither and the which!
[Chorus:] His stock of information
he's desirous to enrich
on the when, why, what,
and the whither and the which!
[Pickwick:] Jot it down.
[Tupman:] I've got it down.
[Snodgrass:] I've got it down.
[Winkle:] I've got it down.
[Pickwick:] Describe to me your notion
of the ocean!
[Arabella:] It is water.
[Tup., Snod. & Winkle:] Now who taught her?
[Girls:] And it's very very wet.
[Pickwick:] Please let me hear a little more
that's scientific and specific.
[Arabella:] It's agglomerated particles
of all cohesive articles,
reduced by liquefaction from an elemental state
to a wholly unified precipitate.
[Pickwick:] She is right!
[Tupman:] I see it quite,
[Snodgrass:] I see it quite,
[Winkle:] I see it quite.

[Pickwick:] Now gravity has laws of which
the cause was found by Newton,
why the fruit on apple trees was bound to fall.
I call upon you all to tell me
how he knew it had to do it.
[Arabella & Girls:] It's a question of vibration
that's produced by occillation;
his discovery of gravity we ought to celebrate
for it shows us why our hats won't
stay on straight!
[Pickwick:] So is does.
[Tupman:] We know it does.
[Snodgrass:] We know it does.
[Winkle:] We know it does.

[Pickwick:] The survival of the fittest
you'll admit is now acknowledged.
[Arabella:] Here at college we cannot admit it's so.
[Pickwick:] Oh! oh! The fittest are quite sure
to outlast us, say the masters.
[Arabella & Girls:] It's different you see with us.
We think you will agree with us,
it's clothes that make the woman
and the way her dresses sit,
so that we prefer the survival of the Fit.
[Pickwick:] What's the use!
[Tupman:] They're too abstruse.
[Snodgrass:] They're too abstruse.
[Winkle:] They're too abstruse.