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seminated among their ranks. The only question, of course, is whether such a result would not be purchased at too high a cost, and that question must be decided by the success of those who do pass through all the stages of life intended to be laid open before them by this measure: and who therefore derive all the benefit intended to be derived from the system.

But there is a second alternative far preferable to the first, namely, that men so educated should be further provided for by the state.

It is surely not too much to say that every artizan has a right to assistance in his need from the state, provided that that need be not attributable to his own fault. It is true that such a right is but imperfectly recognized at present, but that does not disprove its existence or repudiate the charge of disgraceful selfishness against nine-tenths or more of the rich in the kingdom-men whose houses are literally overflowing with every sort of luxury, while neighbours are reduced to the extremities of poverty: whose life is passed in a pleasing succession of stays at their sea side, their shooting and their town residences, of which three establishments two are at any given moment not only unproductive to their owners and their country, but a positive source of expense. And thus they wander on through all the pleasant paths of life, in happy unconsciousness of everything but present pleasure or gain, many of them perhaps not spending their money on themselves from greediness for enjoyment, but from ignorance of any better way in which it might be spent. Luxury in such an aggravated form makes one pause to consider whether after all our modern politicians are so far advanced, and whether old Cato was not right with his Sumptuary Laws to check the growing spirit of luxury, by forbidding jewels, expensive clothes and all articles not highly profitable to the state. This is surely the crying sin of England and every other state, that we have no keen feelings of humanity and brotherhood. To take one instance of heartless extravagance, from a multitude that might be adduced, how many millions worth of jewels are simply wasted in the trinket boxes of rich ladies.

It is this selfishness of society which retards not only the progress of education, but a thousand other improvements, and this is the key to the beneficial admission of the lower classes to an association with the higher. In short if we can but be unselfish enough, and be educated enough.

Something yet remains to be said of the advisability of

the proposed plan: but the remarks on this head shall be as brief as possible.

It would be easy at the first sight of such a question, for a reformer to ask, on what principles of economy we should be justified in neglecting any measure that may increase our resources? to ask, what would be thought of a landowner who refused to work new mines of hidden treasures on his property, of a millowner who neglected to employ a large part of the power at his command, which might be applied to the working of fresh engines, but which is allowed to be simply wasted? and it would be hard to defend such a system. The argument, in fact, is in theory incontrovertible, but when applied to practice would be probably found less hard to meet.

Let us then take the facts, or such of them as are manifest and undeniable when regarded as future. And we shall obtain the following results:

There are more than fifty counties in England and Wales, if we omit Ireland and Scotland from consideration, as capable of looking to their own interests in this matteran hypothesis sufficiently doubtful. Each of these countries, if the proposed scheme is to have as wide an influence as it ought, should contain one at least of the middle class Government Schools. Each of these could hardly have less than six on an average, and it is hard to see how they should not have a larger number to send up yearly to the classical school. The number of Public classical schools, at present, where such boys could be received so as to derive any of the great benefits of the English Public School principally, cannot be computed at much more than twenty, but for the purposes of calculation, let us state it at twenty-six, viz: half the number of counties in England and Wales together.

If the above calculations are correct, and I fully believe that they greatly understate the facts of the case, each of the public schools would have to provide accommodation for twelve boys every year from middle class schools, that is, allowing that such boys would stay at the classical school three or four years, for between forty and fifty boys.

This would be a great burden to inflict on a school of not more than three or four hundred: and it is impossible to imagine that the school would escape in many instances considerable deterioration from the admixture of so large a lump of the new leaven. Moreover, injustice would seem to be done. to the present frequenters of our public schools, by giving a preference to those who gained exhibitions from the middle

class schools; for of course their procedure to the upper classical school would be a necessity, and each school would be obliged to reserve twelve vacancies for such comers every year. With our present number of public classical schools, then, any scheme which would require the absorption of so large a number of those who are not what is called 'gentlemen' into their body, would appear to be unadvisable.

And wholly, as far as I can see, on these grounds, namely that they would injure our existing great schools, or at any rate, most of them. Wholly on these grounds, for on the more general ground of injury to society at large, whether that rank of it to which the national scholars would be raised, or that from which they rose, no fears need surely be entertained of admitting men who would have undergone such a thorough course of training as those brought up on the graduated school principle. But for this too the remedy is easy-let fresh large classical schools be established throughout England: not schools intended exclusively for such as have raised themselves from the middle class schools, for that would deprive them of the advantages to be gained from the company of gentlemen in the upper classical schools, but such establishments as Haileybury, Wellington, Clifton, and their contemporaries in the scholastic world, where sons of gentlemen will congregate from the small private schools, and form a society which will be able to hold its own against new comers; but will by their association with them confer on them incalculable advantages.

If this were done, and if a severe education-tax were levied, and, above all, if by a ready submission to that tax were to show that we had the interests of our countrymen at heart, I believe a system of national education, such as that under our consideration, would be both possible and advisable.

H. G. H.

THE WAVE.

I WATCHED a wave on the restless sea

At morn, and said "where art thou going?" But it halted not as it answered me,

"Where fate may lead and the winds are blowing. I must wander on for a little while

'Mid the storm and the wind and the roar,

But at last I shall reach the peaceful isle

Where the palm leaves glance in the sunbeam's smile, And rest on its golden shore."

So all day long was the wavelet tost,

And the foam from its crest in white flakes flew, But never a whit of courage it lost,

Though shrieked the storm and the fierce wind blew. And at eve it sighted the welcome strand;

It smiled as it neared the shore,

Then gently it broke on the golden sand,
And gained in its death the promised land,
And rested for evermore.

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E.

TENNYSON'S AYLMER'S FIELD AND OTHER POEMS.

(Continued from p. 183.)

THE poem which stands next in order to Enoch Arden seems intended by the poet to be a direct contrast to it. Not only is the development of its plot quite different, but the language in which it is clothed seems much less artistic, and less worked up than that of the preceding poem. But perhaps the most striking difference of all is to be found in the course of life which the two heroes pursue. In Enoch Arden the actions of the hero were strictly in obedience to the voice of conscience. However dark and awful was the ruin into which he was hurried, however cruel the destiny that awaited him, still we always find him true to his God and his faith. He always feels that he and his absent wife are under the divine protection, and he commits himself to the care of an all-seeing God. So in the Ancient Epic we hear of the trials and dangers which beset an Eneas or an Achilles, but still they are always assisted by some friendly god in their struggles with destiny "which ruleth all, even gods though they be." In Aylmer's Field however, as in most of the Greek Tragedies, we find this picture quite reversed. The central figure of the poem is no longer obeying the will of heaven or the voice of his conscience: he is swayed by pride, by self-conceit, and selfishness. He is not the victim of circumstances forced upon him in despite of his loyalty and devotion to duty-He is the just victim of his own selfwill. To this may

be ascribed all the sad calamities which visit him and his house, even to the last and greatest tragedy; and then the poet leaves him without one word of pity. This cardinal vice of overweening pride is most often found in that class to which the hero of this piece belongs. For just as in Enoch Arden the poet had described the trials which beset a man in low life and reduced circumstances, even though he may be a most deserving and heroic man; so in Aylmer's Field has

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