FUTUEE OF THE SCIENCE OF BREEDING 187 



Then, knowing something of the cost of these things, I 

 asked one by me how it came about that they could obtain 

 the money for all this work. But he only laughed, saying 

 that even it the cost were ten times as great it would be 

 as nothing in comparison with the wealth that they created. 

 Had I not yet learned, he asked, that knowledge was the 

 ultimate source of wealth, and that the chief thing was to 

 obtain the knowledge, for when once that had been gained, the 

 application of it would take care of itself. And you must 

 know, he went on, that knowledge is not only created here but 

 it is also disseminated. This country is but a small portion of 

 a great world state, though for this branch of learning the 

 place you see before you is the centre or brain. It is in the 

 closest touch with many lands, in all parts of the world, that 

 are hnked to it in one great system. From them flows a 

 constant stream of students hither, to learn from us and to be 

 trained in our methods. Later they return whence they came 

 and apply themselves to the betterment of the products of 

 their own lands. These, however, are not the only students 

 who come to us. We have long recognised that the stability 

 of a state depends largely upon the extent of the knowledge 

 spread out among its citizens. Social unrest and disorder have 

 their springs in ignorance, and men are most often discontented 

 when opportimity is withheld from them of attempting to per- 

 form those things of which in reality they are often incapable. 

 Our systeni of education aims at instructing all our citizens in 

 the natural history of man, and in the diversified nature of the 

 population of which each one forms a part. 



When a man knows enough to realise in good time the in- 

 evitable limitations with which he was born into the world, he 

 is more likely to settle down and become a valuable and con- 

 tented member of the community. To this end it is part of 

 our duty to train chosen teachers, whose business it is to spread 

 over the whole country the knowledge which we gather together, 

 and especially such parts of it as affect our conceptions of the 

 nature of man himself. Nor is the task so difficult as at first 

 sight it might appear. For in the growing mind there is a craving 

 for the knowledge of reality — an instinct to provide itself with 



