_April 3, 1867._
103. I am not quite sure that you will feel the awkwardness of the
dilemma I got into at the end of last letter, as much as I do myself.
You working men have been crowing and peacocking at such a rate
lately; and setting yourselves forth so confidently for the cream of
society, and the top of the world, that perhaps you will not
anticipate any of the difficulties which suggest themselves to a
thoroughbred Tory and Conservative, like me. Perhaps you will expect a
youth properly educated--a good rider--musician--and well-grounded
scholar in natural philosophy, to think it a step of promotion when he
has to go and be made a tailor of, or a coalheaver? If you do, I
should very willingly admit that you might be right, and go on to the
farther development of my notions without pausing at this
stumbling-block, were it not that, unluckily, all the wisest men whose
sayings I ever heard or read, agree in expressing (one way or another)
just such contempt for those useful occupations, as I dread on the
part of my foolishly refined scholars. Shakespeare and Chaucer,--Dante
and Virgil,--Horace and Pindar,--Homer, AEschylus, and Plato,--all the
men of any age or country who seem to have had Heaven's music on their
lips, agree in their scorn of mechanic life. And I imagine that the
feeling of prudent Englishmen, and sensible as well as sensitive
Englishwomen, on reading my last letter, would mostly be--"Is the man
mad, or laughing at us, to propose educating the working classes this
way? He could not, if his wild scheme were possible, find a better
method of making them acutely wretched."
104. It may be so, my sensible and polite friends; and I am heartily
willing, as well as curious, to hear you develop your own scheme of
operative education, so only that it be universal, orderly, and
careful. I do not say that I shall be prepared to advocate my
athletics and philosophies instead. Only, observe what you admit, or
imply, in bringing forward your possibly wiser system. You imply that
a certain portion of mankind must be employed in degrading work; and
that, to fit them for this work, it is necessary to limit their
knowledge, their active powers, and their enjoyments, from childhood
upwards, so that they may not be able to conceive of any state better
than the one they were born in, nor possess any knowledge or
acquirements inconsistent with the coarseness, or disturbing the
monotony, of their vulgar occupation. And by their labor in this
contracted state of mind, we superior beings are to be maintained; and
always to be curtseyed to by the properly ignorant little girls, and
capped by the properly ignorant little boys, whenever we pass by.
105. Mind, I do not say that this is _not_ the right state of things.
Only, if it be, you need not be so over-particular about the
slave-trade, it seems to me. What is the use of arguing so
pertinaciously that a black's skull will hold as much as a white's,
when you are declaring in the same breath that a white's skull must
not hold as much as it can, or it will be the worse for him? It does
not appear to me at all a profound state of slavery to be whipped into
doing a piece of low work that I don't like; but it is a very profound
state of slavery to be kept, myself, low in the forehead, that I may
not dislike low work.
106. You see, my friend, the dilemma is really an awkward one,
whichever way you look at it. But, what is still worse, I am not
puzzled only, at this part of my scheme, about the boys I shall have
to make _workmen_ of; I am just as much puzzled about the boys I
shall have to make _nothing_ of! Grant, that by hook or crook, by
reason or rattan, I persuade a certain number of the roughest ones
into some serviceable business, and get coats and shoes made for the
rest,--what is the business of "the rest" to be? Naturally, according
to the existing state of things, one supposes they are to belong to
some of the gentlemanly professions; to be soldiers, lawyers, doctors,
or clergymen. But alas, I shall not want any soldiers of special skill
or pugnacity. _All_ my boys will be soldiers. So far from wanting any
lawyers, of the kind that live by talking, I shall have the strongest
possible objection to their appearance in the country. For doctors, I
shall always entertain a profound respect; but when I get my athletic
education fairly established, of what help to them will my respect be?
They will all starve! And for clergymen, it is true, I shall have a
large number of episcopates--one over every hundred families--(and
many positions of civil authority also, for civil officers, above them
and below), but all these places will involve much hard work, and be
anything but covetable; while, of clergymen's usual work, admonition,
theological demonstration, and the like, I shall want very little done
indeed, and that little done for nothing! for I will allow no man to
admonish anybody, until he has previously earned his own dinner by
more productive work than admonition.
Well, I wish, my friend, you would write me a word or two in answer to
this, telling me your own ideas as to the proper issue out of these
difficulties. I should like to know what you think, and what you
suppose others will think, before I tell you my own notions about the
matter.