nd the possible amount of their production;
the meaning of "Civilization," its advantages and dangers; the meaning
of the term "Refinement;" the possibilities of possessing refinement in
a low station, and of losing it in a high one; and, above all, the
significance of almost every act of a man's daily life, in its ultimate
operation upon himself and others;--all this might be, and ought to be,
taught to every boy in the kingdom, so completely, that it should be
just as impossible to introduce an absurd or licentious doctrine among
our adult population, as a new version of the multiplication table. Nor
am I altogether without hope that some day it may enter into the heads
of the tutors of our schools to try whether it is not as easy to make an
Eton boy's mind as sensitive to falseness in policy, as his ear is at
present to falseness in prosody.

I know that this is much to hope. That English ministers of religion
should ever come to desire rather to make a youth acquainted with the
powers of nature and of God, than with the powers of Greek particles;
that they should ever think it more useful to show him how the great
universe rolls upon its course in heaven, than how the syllables are
fitted in a tragic metre; that they should hold it more advisable for
him to be fixed in the principles of religion than in those of syntax;
or, finally, that they should ever come to apprehend that a youth likely
to go straight out of college into parliament, might not unadvisably
know as much of the Peninsular as of the Peloponnesian War, and be as
well acquainted with the state of Modern Italy as of old Etruria;--all
this however unreasonably, I _do_ hope, and mean to work for. For though
I have not yet abandoned all expectation of a better world than this, I
believe this in which we live is not so good as it might be. I know
there are many people who suppose French revolutions, Italian
insurrections, Caffre wars, and such other scenic effects of modern
policy, to be among the normal conditions of humanity. I know there are
many who think the atmosphere of rapine, rebellion, and misery which
wraps the lower orders of Europe more closely every day, is as natural a
phenomenon as a hot summer. But God forbid! There are ills which flesh
is heir to, and troubles to which man is born; but the troubles which he
is born to are as sparks which fly _upward_, not as flames burning to
the nethermost Hell. The Poor we must have with us always, and s