METHODS OF SCHOLASTIC TEACHING 323 



could write, but all could make their mark ; but now, when 

 all can write, none can make his mark." Lord Byron and the 

 two Pitts were certainly men of great achievements. These 

 with the Dukes of Marlborough and Wellington, who received 

 the greater part of their education in the rough-and-tumble 

 of a soldier's life, practically exhaust the list. Stronger evi- 

 dence of the essential leanness, meanness and barrenness of 

 patrician education is hardly necessary. Some great orators 

 there have been among the peers, but oratory, appealing as 

 it usually does to the passions and prejudices rather than to 

 the reason of mankind, is often indicative of nothing more 

 than misdirected natural powers. Savages are sometimes 

 eloquent. Few of the greater thinkers and workers of history 

 have been so. 



507. The mental inefficiency of the aristocracy has been 



an incalculable evil. Progress, material, intellectual, and 



social, is always quicker when intelligently directed from 



above. The nation has suffered from the loss of those who 



should have been its best. Many dull and indolent men, 



who might have been keen and capable thinkers and workers, 



have occupied positions of national importance. In stirring 



modern times nations suffer eclipse, not as a rule because 



they regress, but because other peoples progress faster. The 



masses of other nations are becoming, or have become as 



well trained as our own. In some cases their ruling classes 



are becoming better trained. A needlessly bad tone has 



been given to society. Whenever a successful man has 



risen by virtue of innate capacity or acquired excellence, the 



imitative faculties of his descendants have lowered them to 



the prevailing standard. Periodically a cry is raised to end 



or mend the House of Lords ; but so long as wealthy men 



exist they will exercise a dominant social and political 



influence, and will, as a rule, bequeath wealth and influence 



to their descendants. A practical, a speedy, indeed an ideal 



way to mend the peerage would be to raise the mental status 



of its members by giving them a better, a scientific training. 



Their wealth and leisure should enable them to command 



the best possible. 



508. What is a scientific training ? It is not necessarily 

 opposed to religion. Certainly it can never be opposed to a 

 true religion. It is opposed only to such doctrinal assertions 

 as are known to be untrue, for example the assertion that 

 the universe is but six thousand years old. It does not 

 consist in a mere cramming of facts connected with this or 

 that department of science. Such a cramming may be as 



