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were fed at alms-houses or who literally begged their bread 

 from door to door. The education of these poor scholars was 

 provided out of the income of religious endowments founded 

 both by sovereigns and private individuals. The dissociation 

 of education from religion in this country under the British 

 Government has rendered this resource unavailable, and un- 

 less the State supports higher education in a liberal manner 

 the progress of the country will be seriously arrested. The 

 outlay on higher education will prove in the long run to 

 be a most profitable investment even from a commercial 

 point of view. As observed by Mr. Marshall : " The 

 wisdom of expending public and private funds on educa- 

 tion is not to be measured by its direct fruits alone. It will 

 be profitable as a mere investment to give the masses of the 

 people much greater opportunities than they can generally 

 avail themselves of. For by this, many who would have 

 died unknown get the start that is required to bring out their 

 latent abilities. And the economical value of one great indus- 

 trial genius is sufficient to cover the expenses of the educa- 

 tion of a whole town. One new idea, such as Bessemer's chief 

 invention, adds as much to England's productive power as the 

 labour of a hundred thousand men. Less direct, but not less 

 in importance is the aid given to production by such medical 

 discoveries as those of Jenner or Pasteur which increase our 

 health and working power, and again by scientific work, such 

 as that of mathematics or biology, even though many genera- 

 tions may pass away before it bears visible fruit in greater 

 material well-being. All that is spent during many years 

 in opening the means of higher education to the masses would 

 be well paid for, if it called out one more Newton or Darwin, 

 Shakespeare or Beethoven." It may be that the chances of the 

 appearance of such great benefactors of the human race who 

 widen the bounds of knowledge are too remote to justify 

 a large outlay on higher education in a poor country, but the 

 urgent necessity that exists for effecting reforms in practices 

 which retard the material well-being of the nation, and the 

 extreme improbability of the occurrence in this country of any 

 religious upheaval which, under favourable conditions, often 

 has the effect of imbuing whole peoples with a new spirit 

 and by a sudden impulse of lifting them high in the scale of 

 civilization, render the rapid advance of secular education 

 almost the only available resource for social regeneration and 

 progress ; and no amount of money expended by the State 

 would be ill- spent in perfecting this instrument. This being so, 

 there need be no fear that higher education is being pushed 



