EDITOR'S TABLE. 



413 



ers," whose limbs were stiffened by 

 toil, and whose lives were so destitute 

 of light, we thought the editor of " The 

 Varsity" was about to come forward 

 with some chivalrous scheme for dimin- 

 ishing their burdens and helping the 

 light to penetrate into the dark places. 

 But, no ; his cry is, " Keep them down ! 

 They can never learn to spell English 

 according to the present rules ; so let 

 us see to it that we, the nurslings of 

 culture, the children of light, resist all 

 attempts to introduce any simpler, even 

 though more scientific and more philo- 

 logical, system of spelling. Otherwise 

 wnat will there be to distinguish us in- 

 tellectually from those poor, toil-stiff- 

 ened creatures?" One is tempted to 

 say in reply that, if superiority in the 

 matter of spelling is needed to distinguish 

 men of culture from men destitute of 

 culture, then culture itself must be a 

 very poor and unsubstantial thing. Im- 

 agine, for a moment, two men, one of 

 whom has had a university education, 

 while the other has lived such a life of 

 bodily toil that no light has shone into 

 his mind; and then imagine, further, 

 the gentleman of the first part asking 

 that spelling may be kept a difficult 

 and mysterious art, in order that there 

 may be something to distinguish him 

 from his illiterate brother, whose con- 

 dition, however, he hastens to say, ex- 

 cites his profound sympathy! The 

 thing is most ridiculous ; but, in so far 

 as it may be held to indicate the spirit 

 in which university journals are con- 

 ducted, it has its serious and lamentable 

 side. A university sustained by public 

 moneys should have as its one great 

 object the rendering of service to the 

 community as a whole. If it can only 

 train a limited class, that class should 

 look upon themselves as trustees for 

 the whole people of the superior ad- 

 vantages their education confers upon 

 them. "Why should public money be 

 spent in making A. B. a particularly 

 intelligent and accomplished man, if he 



is going to put on fine intellectual airs, 

 and even ask for special protection 

 against the unlettered multitude? In 

 this matter we have not yet got down to 

 "hard pan," but we must get down to 

 it. We are no advocates of a " misty 

 socialism " ; but we do not only advo- 

 cate but demand the strict and scrupu- 

 lous appropriation of public moneys 

 to public purposes in the very widest 

 sense of the term. To establish a sys- 

 tem of intellectual caste is not a public 

 purpose nor a social purpose, but an 

 anti-social one. Let men who want to 

 strut in intellectual broadcloth find 

 their finery for themselves ; but when 

 a great educational institution has been 

 established by the aid of public funds, 

 let those who avail themselves of its 

 advantages recognize that they are 

 called to a ministry of public useful- 

 ness, and that it is theirs to see that, 

 in some way, the toiling classes get a 

 share of the benefits provided. Never 

 shall we have a society worthy of the 

 name, until those who have — whether 

 in a material or an intellectual sense — 

 are actuated by a sense of duty toward 

 those who have not. "When that day 

 comes, we shall not hear it urged, as an 

 argument for the retention of a difficult 

 system of spelling, that it serves as a 

 convenient mode of distinguishing the 

 cultured from the uncultured classes. 

 In that day, too, culture will probably 

 mean something more than the ability 

 to spell. It will be a thing of ideas 

 and of real knowledge, a thing expan- 

 sive by nature, and in the best sense 

 of the word democratic. We should 

 strongly advise the universities of to- 

 day to prepare for the new culture of 

 the future, and meantime to do their 

 best to purge themselves thoroughly of 

 that spirit of exclusiveness so plainly 

 manifested in the passage quoted from 

 " The Varsity," and of which it 

 probably would not be difficult to 

 gleam examples in other similar quar- 

 ters. 



