IV A LIBERAL EDUCATION 77 



state, he keeps his thoughts to himself. In fact, 

 there is a chorus of voices, ahnost distressing in 

 their harmony, raised in favour of tlie doctrine 

 that education is the great panacea for human 

 troubles, and that, if the country is not shortly to 

 go to the dogs, everybody must be educated. 



The politicians tell us, " You must educate 

 the masses because they are going to be masters." 

 The clergy join in the cry for education, for they 

 affirm that the people are drifting away from 

 church and chapel into the broadest infidelity. 

 The manufacturers and the capitalists swell the 

 chorus lustily. They declare that ignorance 

 makes bad workmen; that England will soon be 

 unable to turn out cotton goods, or steam engines, 

 cheaper than other people; and then, Ichabod! 

 Ichabod! the glory will be departed from us. And 

 a few voices are lifted up in favour of the doctrine 

 that the masses should be educated because they 

 are men and women with unlimited capacities of 

 being, doing, and suffering, and that it is as true 

 now, as it ever was, that the people perish for lack 

 of knowledge. 



These members of the minority, with whom I 

 confess I have a good deal of sympathy, are doubt- 

 ful whether any of the other reasons urged in 

 favour of the education of the people are of much 

 value — whether, indeed, some of them are based 

 upon either wise or noble grounds of action. They 

 question if it be wise to tell people that you will 



