AS INSTRUMENTS OF EDUCATION. 13 



yet prove true, although the issue may be brought about otherwise, 

 than as the speaker imagined. The most acute of men are often at fault 

 in their foresight. When the " Emperor of the French" pronounced 

 these noble words, he was surrounded by a group such as may possibly 

 be never seen assembled together again. On his right hand sat the 

 Sultan himself, Abdul- Azziz-Khan; there sat also the heir apparent of 

 England, the heir apparent of the Netherlands, his own son, the heir 

 apparent of France, the Prince of Saxony, Prince Teck, the Duke of 

 Cambridge, the Due d' Aosta. On his left were to be seen the heir 

 apparent of Prussia, the heir apparent of Italy, Prince Hermann of 

 Saxony, Prince Napoleon, the Duke of Leuchtenberg, Mohammed- 

 Mourat-Effendi, Abdul-Mamid. Behind him and the Empress were * 

 arranged, besides a number of Princesses and Duchesses, the eldest 

 son of the Sultan, the brother of the (so-called) Tycoon of Japan 

 Prince Lucien Murat, Prince Joachim Murat, Prince Achille Murat, 

 Prince Napoleon Charles Bonaparte, with the great officers of imperial 

 France and the suites of the foreign Princes. 



All of this assemblage, with thousands of others present, applauded 

 the esalted ideas of Louis Napoleon at the moment doubtless with 

 sincerity ; and all anticipated possibly as little as the speaker himself 

 the bewildering collapse which was about so swiftly to ensue. 



Nevertheless no thoughtful person familiar with the history of man 

 in the past can doubt of the progress of man in the future. That 

 progress will no doubt still be beset with impediments, as usual ; but 

 its rate may, in the age which is close at hand, be accelerated. 



Unparalleled disasters have fallen upon Europe. Quidquid delirant 

 reges, plecttmtur Achivi, has proved true again, and this time on a scale 

 more gigantic than ever. On a scale more gigantic than ever have the 

 many been made to suffer by the few. The rivalry, the ambition, the 

 caprice of rulers have brought lamentations, and mourning, and woe 

 into every household of the ruled. Will not the very enormity of the 

 desolations created hasten the day when nations, peoples and languages 

 will effectually secure themselves against an evil so dire? Through the 

 reaction which is sure to ensue on the termination of the existing most 

 lamentable condition of things, is it not reasonable to hope that peace 

 and happiness, truth and justice, will more rapidly and widely prevail 

 among men in the immediate future, than they have done in the past ? 



I now ask you to transport yourselves in imagination from the City 

 of Paris to Oxford. 



