30 SELECTIONS FROM HUXLEY 



and then, Ichabod ! Ichabod ! the glory will be departed from 

 us. And a few voices are lifted up in favor of the doctrine 

 that the masses should be educated because they are men and 

 women with unlimited capacities of being, doing, and suffering, 

 5 and that it is as true now, as ever it was, that the people per- 

 ish for lack of knowledge. 



These members of the minority, with whom I confess I 

 have a good deal of sympathy, are doubtful whether any of the 

 other reasons urged in favor of the education of the people 



10 are of much value whether, indeed, some of them are based 

 upon either wise or noble grounds of action. They question 

 if it be wise to tell people that you will do for them, out of 

 fear of their power, what you have left undone, so long as 

 your only motive was compassion for their weakness and their 



15 sorrows. And, if ignorance of everything which it is needful 

 a ruler should know is likely to do so much harm in the gov- 

 erning classes of the future, why is it, they ask reasonably 

 enough, that such ignorance in the governing classes of the 

 past has not been viewed with equal horror ? 



20 Compare the average artisan and the average country 

 squire, and it may be doubted if you will find a pin to choose 

 between the two in point of ignorance, class feeling, or preju- 

 dice. It is true that the ignorance is of a different sort 

 that the class feeling is in favor of a different class, and that 



2 5 the prejudice has a distinct favor of wrong-headedness in 

 each case but it is questionable if the one is either a bit 

 better or a bit worse, than the other. The old protectionist 

 theory is the doctrine of trades unions as applied by the 

 squires, and the modern trades unionism is the doctrine of 



30 the squires applied by the artisans. Why should we be worse 

 off under one regime than under the other ? 



Again, this skeptical minority asks the clergy to think 

 whether it is really want of education which keeps the 

 masses away from their ministrations whether the most 



