elsewhere, in
defiance of the loudest clamour that agitators can raise. The remainder
of my task is easy. For, if the great principle for which I have been
contending is admitted, the objections which have been made to the
details of our plan will vanish fast. I will deal with those objections
in the order in which they stand in the amendment moved by the
honourable Member for Finsbury.

First among his objections he places the cost. Surely, Sir, no person
who admits that it is our duty to train the minds of the rising
generation can think a hundred thousand pounds too large a sum for that
purpose. If we look at the matter in the lowest point of view, if we
consider human beings merely as producers of wealth, the difference
between an intelligent and a stupid population, estimated in pounds,
shillings, and pence, exceeds a hundredfold the proposed outlay. Nor
is this all. For every pound that you save in education, you will spend
five in prosecutions, in prisons, in penal settlements. I cannot believe
that the House, having never grudged anything that was asked for the
purpose of maintaining order and protecting property by means of pain
and fear, will begin to be niggardly as soon as it is proposed to effect
the same objects by making the people wiser and better.

The next objection made by the honourable Member to our plan is that it
will increase the influence of the Crown. This sum of a hundred thousand
pounds may, he apprehends, be employed in corruption and jobbing. Those
schoolmasters who vote for ministerial candidates will obtain a share
of the grant: those schoolmasters who vote for opponents of the ministry
will apply for assistance in vain. Sir, the honourable Member never
would have made this objection if he had taken the trouble to understand
the minutes which he has condemned. We propose to place this part of
the public expenditure under checks which must make such abuses as the
honourable Member anticipates morally impossible. Not only will there
be those ordinary checks which are thought sufficient to prevent the
misapplication of the many millions annually granted for the army, the
navy, the ordnance, the civil government: not only must the Ministers of
the Crown come every year to this House for a vote, and be prepared to
render an account of the manner in which they have laid out what had
been voted in the preceding year, but, when they have satisfied the
House, when they have got their vote, they