ember that," said Norman Lloyd. "The child would never tell
where she had been. A curious case."

"Well," said the school-master, "leaving that childish episode out
of the question, she has a really remarkable mind. If she were a
boy, I should advise a thorough education and a profession. I should
as it is, if her family were able to bear the expense. She has that
intuitive order of mind which is wonderful enough, though not, after
all, so rare in a girl; but in addition she has the logical, which,
according to my experience, is almost unknown in a woman. She ought
to have an education."

"But," said Risley, "what is the use of educating that unfortunate
child?"

"What do you mean?"

"What I say. What is the use? There she is in her sphere of life,
the daughter of a factory operative, in all probability in
after-years to be the wife of one and the mother of others. Nothing
but a rich marriage can save her, and that she is not likely to
make. Milk-maids are more likely to make rich marriages than factory
girls; there is a certain savor of romance about milk, and the dewy
meadows, and the breath of kine, but a shoe factory is brutally
realistic and illusionary. Now, why do you want to increase the poor
child's horizon farther than her little feet can carry her? Fit her
to be a good female soldier in the ranks of labor, to be a good wife
and mother to the makers of shoes, to wash and iron their uniforms
of toil, to cook well the food which affords them the requisite
nourishment to make shoes, to appreciate book-lore, which is a
pleasure and a profit to the makers of shoes; possibly in the
non-event of marriage she will make shoes herself. The system of
education in our schools is all wrong. It is both senseless and
futile. Look at the children filing past to school, and look at
their fathers, and their mothers too, filing past to the factory.
Look at their present, and look at their future. And look at the
trash taught them in their text-books--trash from its utter
dissociation with their lives. You might as well teach a Zulu
lace-work, instead of the use of the assagai."

"Now look here, Mr. Risley," said the school-master, his face
flushing, "is not--I beg your pardon, of course--this view of yours
a little narrow and ultra-conservative? You do not want to establish
a permanent factory-operative class in this country, do you? That is
what your theory would ultimately tend towards. Ought not these
children be give