sell my quills for brushes.

The conclusion from all this, then, is that I was not holding Germany
up as a paragon just now, but leading up to an obvious improvement--a
gentleman-citizen. Whoever thinks he fulfils the conditions implicated
in the _role_ may know that not only is he an uncommon and a great man,
but also the embodiment of a high, practicable ideal; in the attainment
of which lies the solution of the whole educational question--how, of
the two component parts, to maintain the moral position of the first
and create one for the second.

Except for the few, favoured with a productive imagination, the public
school can as yet do nothing in this direction. It would be useless,
for instance, to crowd a dull, technical science of politics on an
already over-amended curriculum. One day it may not be useless. But
until a new species of governess can be bred, it is. Of the species in
question, I know of one example. There may be more, but not many,
though of course they are, I am aware, rapidly multiplying. The only
possible children's governess is the governess who attempts to teach
nothing except how to learn. The ideal education is undoubtedly an _a
la carte_ one, but as this is impossible both physically and because a
public school master has not the time to find out how to teach any
particular boy, the difficulty is solved if the boy has found out how
to learn from any particular master.

A man's life depends altogether on the first morsel of education he
receives, so that a governess's responsibility is colossal. And, of
course, a competent governess is a far holier thing than any parson's
wife. Not only must she teach not so much what he will have to learn
(which would scarcely encourage him in view of its magnitude) as how he
will have to learn (which could only make him eager to put the theory
to the test of practice--all the more so when he finds it succeeds),
but also she must attempt to discover and develop, even at this very
early stage, the seeds of mental independence and originality, which
alone can make him a competent citizen. Think how much easier
legislation would be in a state composed of such as these! It is the
only condition that really justifies democracy. There could be no
question of denying a people of this quality a voice in their own
government. Representation could no longer be a game for gamblers and
contortionists.

As things are, however, the progress of the public