this change; nor can any one rejoice
more than I in its practical results. But the completion--I will not
venture to say, correction--of a system established by the highest
wisdom of noble ancestors, cannot be too reverently undertaken: and it
is necessary for the English people, who are sometimes violent in change
in proportion to the reluctance with which they admit its necessity, to
be now, oftener than at other times, reminded that the object of
instruction here is not primarily attainment, but discipline; and that a
youth is sent to our Universities, not (hitherto at least) to be
apprenticed to a trade, nor even always to be advanced in a profession;
but, always, to be made a gentleman and a scholar.

3. To be made these,--if there is in him the making of either. The
populaces of civilised countries have lately been under a feverish
impression that it is possible for all men to be both; and that having
once become, by passing through certain mechanical processes of
instruction, gentle and learned, they are sure to attain in the sequel
the consummate beatitude of being rich.

Rich, in the way and measure in which it is well for them to be so, they
may, without doubt, _all_ become. There is indeed a land of Havilah open
to them, of which the wonderful sentence is literally true--"The gold of
_that_ land is good." But they must first understand, that education, in
its deepest sense, is not the equaliser, but the discerner, of men;[1]
and that, so far from being instruments for the collection of riches,
the first lesson of wisdom is to disdain them, and of gentleness, to
diffuse.

[Footnote 1: The full meaning of this sentence, and of that which closes
the paragraph, can only be understood by reference to my more developed
statements on the subject of Education in "Modern Painters" and in "Time
and Tide." The following fourth paragraph is the most pregnant summary
of my political and social principles I have ever been able to give.]

It is not therefore, as far as we can judge, yet possible for all men to
be gentlemen and scholars. Even under the best training some will remain
too selfish to refuse wealth, and some too dull to desire leisure. But
many more might be so than are now; nay, perhaps all men in England
might one day be so, if England truly desired her supremacy among the
nations to be in kindness and in learning. To which good end, it will
indeed contribute that we add some practice of the lower arts to