en versed in all
the lore of their chosen subject. If they are also men of transcendent
ability (as often happens), they can give us a comprehensive view of
their own chosen field such as few Englishmen (except Sir Archibald
Geikie, and he's a Scot) can equal. If I wanted to select a learned man
for a special Government post--British Museum, and so forth--I dare say
I should often be compelled to admit, as Government often admits, that
the best man then and there obtainable is the German. But if I wanted to
train Herbert Spencers and Faradays, I would certainly _not_ send them
to Bonn or to Berlin. John Stuart Mill was an English Scotchman,
educated and stuffed by his able father on the German system; and how
much of spontaneity, of vividness, of _verve_, we all of us feel John
Stuart Mill lost by it! One often wonders to what great, to what still
greater, things that lofty brain might not have attained, if only James
Mill would have given it a chance to develop itself naturally!

Our English gift is originality. Our English keynote is individuality.
Let us cling to those precious heirlooms of our Celtic ancestry, and
refuse to be Teutonised. Let us discard the lessons of the Potsdam
grenadiers. Let us write on the pediment of our educational temple, "No
German need apply." Let us disclaim that silly phrase "A mere amateur."
Let us return to the simple faith in direct observation that made
English science supreme in Europe.

And may the Lord gi'e us Britons a guid conceit o' oorsel's!

XII.

_A SQUALID VILLAGE._

Strange that the wealthiest class in the wealthiest country in the world
should so long have been content to inhabit a squalid village!

I'm not going to compare London, as Englishmen often do, with Paris or
Vienna. I won't do two great towns that gross injustice. And, indeed,
comparison here is quite out of the question. You don't compare Oxford
with Little Peddlington, or Edinburgh with Thrums, and then ask which is
the handsomest. Things must be alike in kind before you can begin to
compare them. And London and Paris are not alike in kind. One is a city,
and a noble city; the other is a village, and a squalid village.

No; I will not even take a humbler standard of comparison, and look at
London side by side with Brussels, Antwerp, Munich, Turin. Each of those
is a city, and a fine city in its way; but each of them is small. Still,
even by their side, London is again but a squalid village. I i