eople
in trade; and it is beginning to be perceived that their
amusements--also, which seems the last straw, their vices--can
actually be enjoyed by the base mechanical sort, insomuch that, if
this kind of thing goes on, there must in the end follow an effacement
of all classes, and the peer will walk arm and arm with the
blacksmith. But class distinctions die hard, and the working men are
not yet all ready for the disciplined recreation which will help to
break down the barriers, and we may not look for this millennium
within the lifetime of living men. It is enough to note that the old
feeling still lingers even among those who, a hundred years ago, when
class distinctions were in their worst and most odious form, would
have been ranked among those incapable of refinement and ignorant of
polite manners.

The third objection, that the people should only be helped in the way
of education and self-improvement, is, at first sight, worthy of
respect. But it involves the theory that it is the duty of the working
man when he has done his day's work to devote his evenings to more
work of a harder kind. There is a kind of hypocrisy in this feeling.
Why should the working man be fired with that ardour for knowledge
which is not expected of ourselves? I look round among my own
acquaintances and friends, and I declare that I do not know a single
household, except where the head of it is a literary man, and
therefore obliged to be always studying and learning, in which the
members spend their evenings after the day's work in the acquisition
of new branches of learning. One may go farther: even of those who
belong to the learned professions, few indeed there are who carry on
their studies beyond the point where their knowledge has a marketable
value. The doctor learns his craft as thoroughly as he can, and, after
he has passed, reads no more than is just necessary to keep his eyes
open to new lights; the solicitor knows enough law to carry on his
business, and reads no more. As for the schoolmaster--who ever heard
of a classical master reading any more Latin and Greek than he reads
with the boys? and who ever heard of a mathematical master keeping up
his knowledge of the higher branches, which put him among the
wranglers of his year, but are not wanted in the school? Even the lads
who have just begun to go into the City, and who know very well that
their value would be enormously increased by a practical and real
knowledge of Fre