ADBRESS. XCl 



cause of education, means will soon be found to carry out the necessary 

 legislative enactments. 



The highest offices in the State are on our present system filled by men 

 ■who, ■whatever their political opinions and party ties, almost infallibly agree 

 in their disinterested desire to signalize their respective terms of office by 

 doing any good in their po^wer. Convince them that a measure desired by 

 the leaders of public opinion is in itself good and useful, and you are sure to 

 carry it. 



And, on the other hand, England is not ■wanting in men both able and 

 Avilliug to come forward as the champions of any great cause, and to devote 

 their best po^wers to its service. 



I may ■v\'ell say this at Bradford after the results achieved by your Member 

 in the Elementary Education Act. 



• Objections ■will of course be raised to any system on the score of difficulty 

 and expense, more especially to a complete and good system. Difficult of 

 realization it certainly must be, for it will need the devoted and indefatigable 

 exertions of many an able and high-minded man for many a long year. 

 Only show how such exertions can be made to produce great and abiding 

 results, and they will not be wanting. And as for expense, you will surely 

 agree with me that the more money is distributed in such frugal and effective 

 manner, the better for the real greatness of our country. 



"What nobler privilege is attached to the j^ossession of money than that of 

 doing good to our fellow men ? and who would grudge giving freely from 

 his surplus, or even depriving himself of some comforts, for the sake of pre- 

 paring the rising generation for a life of the utmost usefulness and consequent 

 happiness ? 



I confidently trust that the time will come when the chief item in the 

 annual budget of the Chancellor of the Exchequer will be the vote for 

 National Education. And when in some later age our nation shall have 

 passed away, when a more true civilization has grown up and has formed 

 new centres for its throbbing life, when there are but broken arches to tell 

 of our bridges and crumbling ruins to mark the sites of our great cathedrals 

 ■ — then will the greatest and noblest of England's works stand more jDerfect 

 and more beautiful than ever ; then will some man survey the results of Old 

 England's labours in the discovery of imperishable truths and laws of 

 nature, and see that her energy and wealth were accompanied by some 

 nobler attributes — that while Englishmen were strong and ambitious enough 

 to gi'asp power, they were true enough to use it for its only worthy purpose, 

 that of doiug good 'to others. 



I must not, however, trespass longer upon your time and your kind at>- 

 tcntion. !My subject would carry me on, yet I must stop without having 

 half done justice to it. 



If I have succeeded in convincing you that a National system of Educa- 

 tion is now necessary and possible, and in persuading you to do what you 

 respectively can to prepare the way for it, I shall feel that the first step is 

 made towards that great result. 



