Family Life of the Middle Glass. 215 



their profit depends upon their supplying what their customers 

 demand, and until the heads of families entertain more worthy 

 ideas on the subject of education, or are willing- to be led by 

 those whose judgment is enlightened, it will only be in rare 

 cases that a schoolmaster or mistress can get a living by doing 

 justice to the pupils. At the present moment there are many 

 schools in advance of the average requirements of their sup- 

 porters, and the best schoolmasters evince a laudable anxietyr 

 to improve the system of instruction. We must also recollect, 

 that it is very hard work for a schoolmaster to be continually 

 engaged in pulling his pupils upwards, if the family life to* 

 which they are periodically remitted pulls them down again. 



The composition, habits, and education of middle-class 

 families leads to a general deficiency in taste for intellectual 

 pursuits. It is the exception, not the rule, even for a single 

 member of the family to have- a decided taste for science,, 

 literature, or art, or to cultivate it so as to reach any con- 

 siderable degree of proficiency or knowledge. Taking the 

 whole of our middle class, with its vast numbers, it is, of 

 course, easy to select some thousands of persons to whom these- 

 remarks do not apply ; but they are unfortunately applicable^ 

 to the great majority of those who are rich, as well as of those- 

 who are comparatively poor. The number of families in which 

 any member has attempted to make a study of Shakspeare, 

 Milton, or Bacon, is — relatively — very small; and still smaller 

 the number of those who systematically study, for pleasure, a 

 science or an art. One conspicuous proof of this may be found 

 in the absence of demand for lectures of a high class, and in the 

 small number of copies of first-rate books that any publisher 

 can sell. Many excellent works are with difficulty pushed 

 through a sale of five hundred copies, and few first-class books 

 reach a sale of a thousand copies, except after years of recog- 

 nition, and strenuous efforts on the part of the bookseller. 

 Rubbishing books, on the contrary, often enjoy a large imme- 

 diate sale. 



The ordinary middle-class family is not much given to the 

 purchase of books. If somewhat feeble in intellect, it will 

 have its Tupper ; if stronger, its Longfellow or Tennyson : 

 but what thousands of homes in which the upholstery is 

 excellent, the comestibles costly, and the grand piano unex- 

 ceptionable, both for cabinet work and tone, in which not a 

 readable book is to be found in secular literature, and in 

 which, if any question arises on points of history, science, or 

 art, it is in vain to appeal to the " library" for a reply ! England 

 is, in this respect, far behind the New England States of 

 America. The close of a school career leaves " young ladies 

 and gentlemen" as euphuism always describes them — boys 



