ed--namely, an equality of
opportunity which is relative--is the only kind of equality which is
even theoretically possible; and it is one, moreover, to which a
constant approximation can be made. The absolute equality which is
contemplated by socialists, and by others who are more or less vaguely
influenced by socialistic sentiment, is, on the contrary, an ideal which
either could not be realised at all, or which, in proportion as it was
realised, would be ruinous to the nation which provided it, and would
bring nothing but disappointment to those who were most importunate in
demanding it. The only conceivable means, indeed, by which it could be
extended beyond the first few years of life, would be by a constant
process of handicapping--that is to say, by applying to education the
same policy that trade-unions apply to ordinary labour. If one
bricklayer has laid more bricks than his fellows, he virtually has to
wait until the others have caught him up. Similarly, if equality of
opportunity, other than an equality that is relative, were to be
maintained in the sphere of education, a clever boy who had learned to
speak German in a year would have to be coerced into idleness until
every dunce among his classmates could speak it as well as he; and a
similar process would be repeated in after-life. This policy, as has
been pointed out already, is, even if wasteful, not ruinous in the
sphere of ordinary labour--a fact which shows how wide the difference is
between the ordinary faculties, as applied to industry, and the
exceptional; but no one in his senses, not even the most ardent apostle
of equality, would dream of recommending its application to efforts of a
higher kind, and demand that the clever boys should periodically be made
to wait for the stupid, or that the best doctor in the presence of a
great pestilence should not be allowed to cure more patients than the
worst one.

If, then, it is, as it must be, the ideal aim of social arrangements
generally to enable each to raise his capacities to their practical
maximum, and adjust his desires and his expectations to the practical
possibilities of attainment, "relative equality of opportunity," firstly
in education and secondly in practical life, is a formula which
accurately expresses the means by which this end is to be secured; but
the absolute equality which is contemplated by socialists and others is
an ideal which, the moment we attempted to translate it into terms