38 SELECTED ESS A YS FROM LA Y SERMONS 



Again, this sceptical minority asks the clergy to think 

 whether it is really want of education which keeps the masses 

 away from their ministrations — whether the most com- 

 pletely educated men are not as open to reproach on this 

 score as the workmen; and whether, perchance, this may 

 not indicate that it is not education which lies at the bottom 

 of the matter? 



Once more, these people, whom there is no pleasing, 

 venture to doubt whether the glory which rests upon being 

 able to undersell all the rest of the world, is a very safe 

 kind of glory — whether we may not purchase it too dear; 

 especially if we allow education, which ought to be directed 

 to the making of men, to be diverted into a process of manu- 

 facturing human tools, wonderfully adroit in the exercise 

 of some technical industry, but good for nothing else. 



And, finally, these people inquire whether it is the masses 

 alone who need a reformed and improved education. They 

 ask whether the richest of our public schools might not 

 well be made to supply knowledge, as well as gentlemanly 

 habits, a strong class feeling, and eminent proficiency in 

 cricket. They seem to think that the noble foundations of 

 our old universities are hardly fulfilling their functions in 

 their present posture of half-clerical seminaries, half race- 

 courses, where men are trained to win a senior wranglership, 

 or a double-first, as horses are trained to win a cup, with as 

 little reference to the needs of after-life in the case of a man 

 as in that of the racer. And, while as zealous for education 

 as the rest, they affirm that, if the education of the richer 

 classes were such as to fit them to be the leaders and the 

 governors of the poorer; and, if the education of the poorer 

 classes were such as to enable them to appreciate really 

 wise guidance and good governance, the politicians need 

 not fear mob-law, nor the clergy lament their want of flocks, 



