30 NATURE AND NURTURE 



out of the way with the idea that the relative intensity 

 of these two factors is of secondary importance or un- 

 determinable ; then you can give no aid to the working 

 man on the points where he needs most education at 

 the present critical time in our national history. But 

 if you have formed your opinion on these points and seen 

 their wide, if not all-dominating, bearing on national 

 life and social progress, then your task of education will 

 be a definite, if not an easy one. For truth at first is often 

 an unpalatable medicine, and the sympathy which arises 

 almost unconsciously between lecturer and audience 

 when he voices their personal needs, is as tempting and 

 even more dangerous than the wine of applause. 



Of this point I would quote the memorable words of 

 Seeley : — 



' Think that you are the apostles, not of any political 

 opinions, but of a method. This means that you do not 

 want your audiences to applaud you or to agree with 

 you, but to begin to think for themselves. Now if they 

 begin to think for themselves, they will very probably show 

 it by grumbling at you and arguing with you. I have 

 sometimes had a misgiving when I have heard it said of 

 a lecturer that the people were delighted with him ; for 

 I have said to myself, Ought they to have been delighted ? ' 



I must apologize for quoting words so familiar to all 

 of you, yet they come back to me after twenty-seven 

 years with an even intensified sense of their truth, and 

 a still higher appreciation of the spirit of the man who 

 delivered them. Our working classes need more than ever 

 educational help, they need more than ever some other 

 guidance than that of the politician and the journalist ; 

 neither of these will lead them to see beyond the horizon 

 of class-interest, will enable them to look upon the nation 

 as an ever-changing organization susceptible of advance 



