PROTECTIVE INTELLIGENCE. 79 



have had the benefit of instruction of the loftiest grade, are in after 

 time inclined to undervalue the reputation of the scholar, because 

 thej* absurdly contend that a rigid educatiou is too monstrous for 

 any one who has no special duties except to keep pace with his su- 

 percillious associates, and to conceive from day to day some new 

 plan or idea for creating gossip and sensations either defamatory, 

 expensive or demoralizing. This assertion can be substantiated by 

 the parents of many young men who would indeed have been indus- 

 trious and useful, had the}* been comparatively poor. Nevertheless, 

 there is hope for their ultimate reformation, simply because their 

 early education does them good service when they are obliged to act 

 at least the part of gentlemen, or when the grace and gentleness of 

 the opposite sex demands some deference ; it then becomes protec- 

 tive, if only for the occasion. 



Through our public school system, moreover, the great avenue to 

 intelligence in this country is open to all classes, and no special ex- 

 pense being required, the children of the poorest people can enjoy 

 the most valuable privileges of a good education. The conception 

 of the system so thoroughly American was most opportune, and even 

 admitting that its maintenance is occasionally associated with politi- 

 cal influence. Yet the grand result is beneficial to the masses who 

 have become accustomed to such influence". It has been remarked 

 by a learned physician who deprecated the fact that the mechanical 

 work of the teacher has been so exalted that his real work has been 

 sunk into insignificance. "It follows," he asserts, "that if a teacher 

 knows all science, literature and art, and does not know the mind and 

 its growth, he is not prepared to teach. His work is impirical." He, 

 like the rest of us, must acknowledge that worldly experience is the 

 most useful teacher, but it needs more than ordinary study to obtain 

 it. There is a style of intelligence also which requires a measure of 

 effrontery, we may say, to hold its position, and that same effrontery 

 is but the companion of sharp practice. It may be connected with 

 business success now and then, but it is nevertheless not entitled to 

 recognition where truthful affairs predominate — it is trickery in the 

 garb of intelligence. 



* The late Matthew Arnold did great service in England in the cause of National Education, and 

 in his reports as a School Inspector, his views were based upon wide observation and solid reflection, 

 of pleas for the steady and practical improvement of elementary education, and an intense desire to 

 get the middle class education better organized. It was one of his chief titles, says an English au- 

 thority, to the regard of his countrymen, that in spite of the difference of party leaders, he continued 

 to the end to press, with all the force of exhortation and of irony of which he was master, for this 

 most penetrating of all reforms, 



