40 SELECTIONS FROM HUXLEY 



either the one or the other ? If I am a knave or a fool, teach- 

 ing me to read and write won't make me less of either one or 

 the other unless somebody shows me how to put my read- 

 ing and writing to wise and good purposes. 

 5 Suppose any one were to argue that medicine is of no use, 

 because it could be proved statistically, that the percentage of 

 deaths was just the same, among people who had been taught 

 how to open a medicine chest, and among those who did not 

 so much as know the key by sight. The argument is absurd ; 



10 but it is not more preposterous than that against which I 

 am contending. The only medicine for suffering, crime, and 

 all the other woes of mankind, is wisdom. Teach a man to 

 read and write, and you have put into his hands the great keys 

 of the wisdom box. But it is quite another matter whether 



15 he ever opens the box or not. And he is as likely to poison as 

 to cure himself, if, without guidance, he swallows the first 

 drug that comes to hand. In these times a man may as well 

 be purblind, as unable to read lame, as unable to write. 

 But I protest that, if I thought the alternative were a neces- 



20 sary one, I would rather that the children of the poor should 

 grow up ignorant of both these mighty arts, than that they 

 should remain ignorant of that knowledge to which these arts 

 are means. 



It may be said that all these animadversions may apply to 

 25 primary schools, but that the higher schools, at any rate, must 

 be allowed to give a liberal education. In fact, they profes- 

 sedly sacrifice everything else to this object. 



Let us inquire into this matter. What do the higher 

 schools, those to which the great middle class of the country 

 30 sends its children, teach, over and above the instruction given 

 in the primary schools? There is a little more reading 

 and writing of English. But, for all that, every one knows 

 that it is a rare thing to find a boy of the middle or upper 



