82 TECHNICAL EDUCATION. [LEOT. 



Now, the most important object of all educational 

 schemes is to catch these exceptional people, and turn 

 them to account for the good of society. No man 

 can say where they will crop up ; like their opposites, 

 the fools and knaves, they appear sometimes in the 

 palace, and sometimes in the hovel ; but the great 

 thing to be aimed at, I was almost going to say the 

 most important end of all social arrangements, is to 

 keep these glorious sports of Nature from being either 

 corrupted by luxury or starved by poverty, and to 

 put them into the position in which they can do the 

 work for which they are specially fitted. 



Thus, if a lad in an elementary school showed 

 signs of special capacity, I would try to provide him 

 with the means of continuing his education after his 

 daily working life had begun; if, in the evening 

 classes, he developed special capabilities in the direc- 

 tion of science or of drawing, I would try to secure 

 him an apprenticeship to some trade in which those 

 powers would have applicability. Or, if he chose 

 to become a teacher, he should have the chance of 

 so doing. Finally, to the lad of genius, the one in 

 a million, I would make accessible the highest and 

 most complete training the country could afford. 

 Whatever that might cost, depend upon it the invest- 

 ment would be a good one. I weigh my words when 

 I say that if the nation could purchase a potential 

 Watt, or Davy, or Faraday, at the cost of a hundred 

 thousand pounds down, he would be dirt-cheap at the 

 money. It is a mere commonplace and everyday 

 piece of knowledge, that what these three men did 



