ESSAY-REVIEWS 257 



first to the soul-destroying system of examinations, which in 

 France absorbs some ten to twelve years of the life of a vast 

 army of aspiring officials " rendered passive at the age of their 

 keenest intellectual activity," and secondly to an obligation 

 laid on those salaried by the State. This obligation the trans- 

 lator renders " obliged to be civil." But here, as elsewhere, 

 the edge and salt of the original are lost, M. Faguet's oblige 

 de devenir demi-agreable " being untranslatable. Against this 

 evil demand de devenir demi-agreable, too strong a protest can- 

 not be entered. All through the community, in the shop, the 

 factory, the shipyard, the office, the school, the university, 

 this demand for pliability is heard. Not so is greatness at- 

 tained. No one wishes to defend bad manners, they are too 

 common to be attractive : no one ought to excuse deliberate 

 boorishness. But that being agreed, it remains true that the 

 pressing need to-day is for efficiency, competence, not for in- 

 vertebrate, often insincere, pleasantness. Justice and effi- 

 ciency rank above cheap amiability, or should do so. Often 

 people of original power are not persona? gratissimce to the 

 mediocre and intellectually indolent. But even if they be 

 tiresome and difficult, they are the necessary pinch of salt, 

 lacking which, life loses its sapidity. The trade-union ini- 

 quity of setting the pace by the slowest least efficient worker 

 is robbed of some of its malfeasance by the cynical frankness 

 of its avowal. But in the worlds of business, of invention, 

 of learning, the same ill-practice is attempted cryptically : 

 wherever circumstances allow, ostracism is practised by the 

 heavy mass of the half-competent and unoriginal at the ex- 

 pense of the able and strenuous minority. It may be true 

 that the older universities present many imperfections, but, 

 at any rate, they have not raised ostracism to a fine art. That 

 may be the secret of some attacks on them. Again, the per- 

 petual trend of legislation, still more of administration, is to 

 reduce schools to one pattern. Apart from all other con- 

 siderations, those acquainted with youth's struggles to grow 

 up will admit that the immense variety of individual abilities 

 and temperaments demand at least some difference in their 

 places of education. M. Faguet is temerarious enough to 

 plead for a little consideration even for Vautodidacte ! He 

 admits that " the man who has taught himself is apt to be 

 a vain, conceited fellow, who takes pleasure in thinking for 



