THE GREAT MAN AS TEACHER 137 



of acquiring knowledge, by laying up this treasure Book n 

 in a napkin, or by showing it secretly to one another. 

 They do so only by diffusing it, in such measure as 

 is practicable, amongst a circle of men much wider 

 than themselves. They do so, that is to say, by 

 influencing the minds of others, by guiding their 

 attention to this and to that fact, by providing, as it 

 were, a go-cart for their weaker intellectual faculties, 

 and compelling them to confront and assent to such 

 and such propositions. All that mass of developing 

 knowledge and expanding ideas which forms not 

 only the basis but a part of all progressive civilisa- 

 tion, and is commonly called by the general name 

 of enlightenment, is produced solely by the influence 

 on average minds of the minds that are " decidedly 

 exceptional." It is not produced by the fact that They promote 

 the "decidedly exceptional" minds are stocked with conveying their 

 such ideas and with such knowledge themselves, andTmposing' 

 but by the fact that they communicate such a thei y con - 



J J elusions on, 



measure of these to average minds as average thers - 

 minds are severally able to receive. 



To realise the truth of this we need do no more 

 than consider for a moment the ordinary process 

 of education. The schoolmaster and the college 

 tutor, by the State or some other authority, are 

 compelled to give their pupils instruction in certain 

 subjects. But there is another kind of compulsion 

 involved in the matter also ; and this has to do not 

 with the selection of the subjects that are to be 

 taught, but with what is to be taught about them. 

 The general progress of a community depends 



