IV AND WHERE TO FIND IT 95 



apprehension of, and obedience to the laws of the 

 creation and distribution of wealth, and of the 

 stable equilibrium of the forces of society, it is 

 precisely this nation. And yet this is what these 

 wonderful people tell their sons : " At the cost of 

 from one to two thousand pounds of our hard- 

 earned money, we devote twelve of the most 

 precious years of your lives to school. There you 

 shall toil, or be supposed to toil ; but there you 

 shall not learn one single thing of all those you 

 will most want to know directly you leave school 

 and enter upon the practical business of life. You 

 will in all probability go into business, but you 

 shall not know where, or how, any article of com- 

 merce is produced, or the difference between an 

 export or an import, or the meaning of the word 

 " capital." You will very likely settle in a colony, 

 but you shall not know whether Tasmania is part 

 of New South Wales, or vice versd. 



"Very probably you may become a manufac- 

 turer, but you shall not be provided with the 

 means of understanding the working of one of 

 your own steam-engines, or the nature of the raw 

 products you employ ; and, when you are asked to 

 buy a patent, you shall not have the slightest 

 means of judging whether the inventor is an im- 

 postor who is contravening the elementary prin- 

 ciples of science, or a man who will make you as 

 rich as Croesus. 



"You will very likely get into the House of 



