PT. m. Progress and Civilisation. 165 



at his loom and passing years in sending his shuttle 

 to and fro ? Those modern disciples of progress who 

 conceive that they have in Education a panacea for 

 raising all Mankind to the same level, forget that 

 acquirements when not used are lost. A weaver can 

 move his shuttle, a navvy can fill and empty his 

 barrow, without the slightest occasion for, or indeed 

 the possibility of using, the arts of reading and 

 writing. What is never used is speedily forgotten, 

 and although good fortune or superior natural ability 

 may enable an individual here and there to profit 

 by those acquirements, yet the probability is that a 

 very small residuum will remain to the masses after 

 a few years of toil in the performance of these mere 

 manual tasks. Yet it is imperative that they should 

 be performed or the civilised world would perish, 

 and the truth becomes apparent, that the amount of 

 mere manual labour, requiring the smallest amount 

 of mental capacity, increases in a far more rapid 

 ratio than do those offices which demand even a very 

 moderate exercise of the intellectual faculties. The 

 tendency of the advance of Civilisation is rather to 

 widen than to lessen the lines of demarcation, which 

 divide the possessors of intelligence and capital from 

 the mere labouring class, and all attempts to efface 



