250 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL chap. 



National Rectors, whose duty and pleasure it would be to 

 convey to the minds of their parishioners, in interesting 

 and instructive series of lectures, some idea of the 

 beauties of literature, of the marvels of science, and of 

 the instruction to be derived from the example of great 

 and good men. Is it possible to foresee the ultimate 

 effects of such teaching, as a supplement to our new 

 system of National Education, carried out systematically, 

 not in our great towns only, but in every country parish, 

 not by the occasional visits of itinerant superficial 

 lecturers, but continued week by week, year by year, and 

 from one generation to another, by a body of the best 

 educated, the most earnest, and the most practical teachers 

 the countr}^ can produce. 



Men of this stamp would be able to influence all classes 

 for good ; they would aid in introducing the best methods 

 of agriculture and of household economy ; they would be 

 the men to see that sanitar}^ inspectors and School Boards 

 did their duty ; they would take care that in their district 

 no common lands were wrongfully enclosed, no public 

 paths stopped up, and generally no injustice done to those 

 who did not know, or could not enforce, their legal rights. 

 Not coming into competition with any class of men, and 

 not exciting any sectarian or religious animosity, the 

 National Rectors might be in our age all that the monks and 

 abbots were in the best monastic days — and much more — 

 respected by the rich, loved by the poor, feared by the 

 evil-doer, centres of culture and of morality throughout 

 the land ; by their example their teaching and their 

 assistance helping on the higher civilization, and thus 

 fulfilling the noblest function that can fall to the lot of any 

 body of men. 



But besides these direct benefits to society, which such 

 an institution would be naturally expected to produce, 

 there are others of hardly less value which would incident- 

 ally flow from it, and a few of these I should wish to 

 touch upon. One of the results of the extreme competi- 

 tive activity of modern life, and of the somewhat com- 

 mercial character of our institutions, is, that there are 

 exceedingly few positions open to men of high intellectual 



