III. 



'A LIBERAL EDUCATION ; AND 

 WHERE TO FIND IT. 



The business which the South London Working Men's 

 College has undertaken is a great work ; indeed, I might- 

 say, that Education, with which that college proposes to 

 grapple, is the greatest work of all those which lie ready 

 to a man's hand just at present. 



And, at length, this fact is becoming generally recog- 

 nised. You cannot go anywhere without hearing a buzz 

 of more or less confused and contradictory talk on this 

 subject — nor can you fail to notice that, in one point at 

 any rate, there is a very decided advance upon like 

 discussions in former days. Nobody outside the agri- 

 cultural interest now dares to say that education is a 

 bad thing. If any representative of the once large and 

 powerful party, which, in former days, proclaimed this 

 opinion, still exists in a semi-fossil state, he keeps his 

 thoughts to himself. In fact, there is a chorus of voices, 

 almost distressing in their harmony, raised in favour of 

 the 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 



