is
preliminary stage, we shall find that the equality of opportunity is to
a large extent illusory. Let us suppose that there are two boys, equal
in general intelligence, and unequal only in their powers of mental
concentration, who start their study of German side by side in the same
class-room. One boy, in the course of a year or so, will be able to read
German books almost as easily as books in his own language, while the
other will hardly be able to guess the drift of a sentence without
laborious reference to his hated grammar and dictionary. Now, when once
a situation such as this has arisen, the opportunities of the two boys
have ceased to be equal any longer. The one has placed himself at an
indefinite advantage over the other, which is quite distinct from the
superiority originally inherent in himself. Among the educational
opportunities which reformers desire to equalise, one of the chief is
that of access to adequate libraries; and it is, they say, in this
respect more perhaps than any other that the rich man has at present an
unfair advantage over the poor. It is virtually this precise advantage
that will now be in possession of the boy who has thus far outstripped
his classmate. In his mastery of German he has a key to a vast
literature--a key which the other has not. He is now like a rich man
with an illimitable library of his own, while the other by comparison is
like a poor man who can get at no books at all. Thus if opportunity, in
its most fundamental form, were equalised for all boys, no matter how
completely, the equality would be only momentary. It would begin to
disappear by the end of the first few months, not because the boys would
still, as they did at starting, be bringing to their tasks intrinsically
unequal faculties, but because some of them would have already
monopolised the aid of an adventitious knowledge by which the practical
efficiency of their natural faculties would be multiplied.

But education is merely a preliminary to the actual business of life.
Let us pass on to the case of our equally educated youths when they
enter on the practical business of making their own fortunes. What kind
of equal opportunity can be possibly provided for them now?

Since socialists are the reformers who, in dealing with objects aimed
at, are least apt to be daunted by practical difficulties, let us see
how equality of opportunity in business life is conceived of and
described by them. The general cont