ainst competition. The respectable citizen asks, What are we to do
with our boys? The obvious reply is, that he really means, What are we
to do with our fools? A clever lad can now get on by his cleverness;
and of course those who are not clever are thrust aside. That is a
misfortune, perhaps, for them; but we can hardly regard it as a
misfortune for the country. And clearly, too, pressure of this kind is
likely to increase. We have come to believe that it is a main duty of
the nation to provide general education. When the excellent Miss Hannah
More began to spread village schools, she protested warmly that she
would not teach children anything which would tend to make the poor
discontented with their station. They must learn to read the Bible, but
she hoped that they would stop short of such knowledge as would enable
them to read Tom Paine. Now, Hannah More deserves our gratitude for her
share in setting the ball rolling; but it has rolled far beyond the
limits she would have prescribed. We now desire not only that every
child in the country should be able to acquire the elements of learning
at least; but, further, we hope that ladders may be provided by which
every promising child may be able to climb beyond the elements, and to
acquire the fullest culture of which his faculties are capable. There
is not only no credit at the present day in wishing so much, but it is
discreditable not to do what lies in one's power to further its
accomplishment. But, then, is not that to increase enormously the field
of competition? I, for example, am a literary person, after a fashion;
I have, that is, done something to earn a living by my pen. I had the
advantage at starting of belonging to the small class which was well
enough off to send its children to the best schools and universities.
That is to say, I was one of the minority which had virtually a
monopoly of education, and but for that circumstance I should in all
probability have taken to some possibly more honest, but perhaps even
worse paid, occupation. Every extension of the margin of education,
everything which diffuses knowledge and intellectual training through a
wider circle, must increase the competition among authors. If every man
with brains, whether born in a palace or a cottage is to have a chance
of making the best of them, the capacity for authorship, and therefore
the number of competitors, will be enormously spread. It may also, we
will hope, increase the demand