kind people, or their cries for help disdained by unkind
ones. But we can't clear them. The whole nation is, in fact, bound
together, as men are by ropes on a glacier--if one falls, the rest must
either lift him or drag him along with them[16] as dead weight, not
without much increase of danger to themselves. And the law of right
being manifestly in this--as, whether manifestly or not, it is always,
the law of prudence--the only question is, how this wholesome help and
interference are to be administered.

[Note 16: It is very curious to watch the efforts of two
shop-keepers to ruin each other, neither having the least idea that his
ruined neighbour must eventually be supported at his own expense, with
an increase of poor rates; and that the contest between them is not in
reality which shall get everything for himself, but which shall first
take upon himself and his customers the gratuitous maintenance of the
other's family.]

128. The first interference should be in education. In order that men
may be able to support themselves when they are grown, their strength
must be properly developed while they are young; and the State should
always see to this--not allowing their health to be broken by too early
labour, nor their powers to be wasted for want of knowledge. Some
questions connected with this matter are noticed farther on under the
head "trial schools": one point I must notice here, that I believe all
youths, of whatever rank, ought to learn some manual trade thoroughly;
for it is quite wonderful how much a man's views of life are cleared by
the attainment of the capacity of doing any one thing well with his
hands and arms. For a long time, what right life there was in the upper
classes of Europe depended in no small degree on the necessity which
each man was under of being able to fence; at this day, the most useful
things which boys learn at public schools are, I believe, riding,
rowing, and cricketing. But it would be far better that members of
Parliament should be able to plough straight, and make a horseshoe, than
only to feather oars neatly or point their toes prettily in stirrups.
Then, in literary and scientific teaching, the great point of economy is
to give the discipline of it through knowledge which will immediately
bear on practical life. Our literary work has long been economically
useless to us because too much concerned with dead languages; and our
scientific work will yet, for some time, be a go