escaped to dry land, when he sees
his shipwrecked companions still struggling in the waves. This is too
heathenish a sentiment; but I confess I have sometimes experienced a
touch of it, when I have beheld one who has distinguished himself by
his incisiveness, while still on the _terra firma_ of criticism,
suddenly dropped into the bottomless sea of actual life and learning,
amidst his first struggles in the waves, not without gulps of
salt-water, the difference between intention and performance.

* * * * *

But do not suppose that I am persuading you to give up criticism. On
the contrary, this is the natural function of the stage at which you
are; and probably those who throw themselves most vigorously into it
now may also discharge most successfully the functions of the stages
yet to come. The world reaps not a little advantage from criticism. It
is a very imperfect world; no generation of its inhabitants does its
work as well as it ought to be done, and it is the undoubted right of
the next generation to detect its defects; for in this lies the only
chance of improvement. There is something awe-inspiring in the first
glance cast by the young on the world in which they find themselves.
It is so clear and unbiassed; they distinguish so instantaneously
between the right and the wrong, the noble and the base; and they
blurt out so frankly what they see. As we grow older, we train
ourselves unawares not to see straight or, if we see, we hold our
peace. The first open look of young eyes on the condition of the world
is one of the principal regenerative forces of humanity.

To begin with, therefore, at all events I will rather come to your
standpoint than ask you to come to mine. Indeed, although I have for
some time been among the criticized, and my sympathies are with the
practical workers, my sense of how imperfectly the work is done, and
of how inadequate our efforts are to the magnitude of the task, grows
stronger instead of weaker. And it is from this point of view that I
mean to enter into our subject. I will make use of the facts of my own
country, with which I am familiar; but I do not suppose that the state
of things among you is substantially different; and you will not have
much difficulty in correcting the picture, to make it correspond with
your circumstances, whilst I speak.

* * * * *

In the present century there has certainly been an unparal