46 ATTAINABLE IDEALS. 



wide or general fulfilment, that an accidental and 

 exceptional effect may be mistaken for the true 

 use and main value of better education. Let us 

 illustrate our meaning by a simple and naive old 

 English saw. " When land is gone and money 

 spent, then learning is most excellent," says the 

 ancient proverb, thus staking the whole import- 

 ance of education, as it were, upon its mere inci- 

 dental and casual nse as a lat>t resource, a some- 

 thing to fall back npon in case of a serious reverse 

 of fortune. It says, in fact, to the aspiring and in- 

 telligent young woman of the period — " You had 

 better do your best to learn hard now that you are 

 young, for if your husband — when you get one — 

 should happen to die and leave you unprovided 

 for, you will then be able at least to open a ladies' 

 school." Could any ground be more ridiculous 

 on which to base the claims of learning? The in- 

 finite every-day uses and joys of knowledge and 

 culture are overlooked in favor of a remote and 

 doubtful contingency. And yet it is on grounds 

 scarcely less ridiculous than these that young men 

 and boys are often called upon by well-meaning 

 advisers to exert themselves to the utmost in their 

 own trade or profession. " Be diligent in taking 

 round your loaves of bread every morning," we 

 say in effect to the London baker's boy, "and 

 then, perhaps, when you grow up, you may rise to 

 be First Lord of the Admiralty." " Learn all you 



