s fundamental bluntness. He was a
little vague as to the monopoly of education his Company possessed; it
was done by contract with the syndicate that ran the numerous London
Municipalities, but he waxed enthusiastic over educational progress
since the Victorian times. "We have conquered Cram," he said,
"completely conquered Cram--there is not an examination left in the
world. Aren't you glad?"

"How do you get the work done?" asked Graham.

"We make it attractive--as attractive as possible. And if it does not
attract then--we let it go. We cover an immense field."

He proceeded to details, and they had a lengthy conversation. The
Surveyor-General mentioned the names of Pestalozzi and Froebel
with profound respect, although he displayed no intimacy with their
epoch-making works. Graham learnt that University Extension still
existed in a modified form. "There is a certain type of girl, for
example," said the Surveyor-General, dilating with a sense of his
usefulness, "with a perfect passion for severe studies--when they are
not too difficult you know. We cater for them by the thousand. At
this moment," he said with a Napoleonic touch, "nearly five hundred
phonographs are lecturing in different parts of London on the influence
exercised by Plato and Swift on the love affairs of Shelley, Hazlitt,
and Burns. And afterwards they write essays on the lectures, and the
names in order of merit are put in conspicuous places. You see how your
little germ has grown? The illiterate middle-class of your days has
quite passed away."

"About the public elementary schools," said Graham. "Do you control
them?"

The Surveyor-General did, "entirely." Now, Graham, in his later
democratic days, had taken a keen interest in these and his questioning
quickened. Certain casual phrases that had fallen from the old man
with whom he had talked in the darkness recurred to him. The
Surveyor-General, in effect, endorsed the old man's words. "We have
abolished Cram," he said, a phrase Graham was beginning to interpret
as the abolition of all sustained work. The Surveyor-General became
sentimental. "We try and make the elementary schools very pleasant for
the little children. They will have to work so soon. Just a few simple
principles--obedience--industry."

"You teach them very little?"

"Why should we? It only leads to trouble and discontent. We amuse them.
Even as it is--there are troubles--agitations. Where the labourers get
the ideas, one