MY LIFE 



[Chap. 



not directly available for the benefit of all. As it has no 

 right to give class preferences in legislation, so it has no right 

 to give class preferences in the expenditure of public money. 

 If we follow this principle, national education is not forbidden, 

 whether given in schools supported by the State, or in 

 museums, or galleries, or gardens fairly distributed over the 

 whole kingdom, and so regulated as to be equally available 

 for the instruction or amusement of all classes of the com- 

 munity. But here a line must be drawn. The schools, the 

 museums, the galleries, the gardens must all alike be popular 

 — that is, adapted for and capable of being fully used and 

 enjoyed by the people at large — and must be developed by 

 means of public money to such an extent only as is needful 

 for the highest attainable popular instruction and benefit. 

 All beyond this should be left to private munificence, to 

 societies, or to the classes benefited, to supply. 



" In art, all that is needed only for the special instruction of 

 artists or for the delight of amateurs, should be provided by 

 artists or amateurs. To expend public money on third-rate 

 prints or pictures, or on an intrinsically worthless book, both 

 of immense money value on account of their rarity, and as 

 such of great interest to a small class of literary and art 

 amateurs, and to them only, I conceive to be absolutely 

 wrong. So, in science, to provide museums such as will at 

 once elevate, instruct, and entertain all who visit them may 

 be a worthy and just expenditure of public money ; but to 

 spend many times as much as is necessary for this purpose in 

 forming enormous collections of all the rarities that can be 

 obtained, however obscure and generally uninteresting they 

 may be, and however limited the class who can value or 

 appreciate them, is, as plainly, an unjust expenditure. It 

 will perhaps surprise some of your readers to find a naturalist 

 advocating such doctrines as these ; but though I love nature 

 much, I love justice more, and would not wish that any man 

 should be compelled to contribute towards the support of an 

 institution of no interest to the great mass of my countrymen, 

 however interesting to myself. 



" For the same reason, T maintain that all schools of art or 



