going on on the stage, because a word lost would have been a chasm which it was impossible for them to fill up. With such reflections we consoled our pride then, and I appeal to you whether, as a woman, I met generally with less atten5 tion and accommodation than I have done since in more expensive situations in the house? The getting in, indeed, and the crowding up those inconvenient staircases, was bad enough, but there was still a law of civility to woman recognised to quite as great an extent as we ever found in 10 the other passages and how a little difficulty overcome heightened the snug seat, and the play, afterward! Now we can only pay our money, and walk in. You cannot see, you say, in the galleries now. I am sure we saw, and heard too, well enough then-but sight, and all, I think, is gone 15 with our poverty.

"There was pleasure in eating strawberries, before they became quite common-in the first dish of peas, while they were yet dear-to have them for a nice supper, a treat. What treat can we have now? If we were to treat ourselves 20 now-that is, to have dainties a little above our means, it would be selfish and wicked. It is the very little more that we allow ourselves beyond what the actual poor can get at, that makes what I call a treat-when two people living together, as we have done, now and then indulge themselves 25 in a cheap luxury, which both like; while each apologises, and is willing to take both halves of the blame to his single share. I see no harm in people making much of themselves in that sense of the word. It may give them a hint how to make much of others. But now-what I mean by the word -we never do make much of ourselves. None but the poor can do it. I do not mean the veriest poor of all, but persons as we were, just above poverty.

30

"I know what you were going to say, that it is mighty pleasant at the end of the year to make all meet,—and 35 much ado we used to have every Thirty-first Night of December to account for our exceedings-many a long face did you make over your puzzled accounts, and in contriving

to make it out how we had spent so much-or that we had not spent so much-or that it was impossible we should spend so much next year-and still we found our slender capital decreasing-but then, betwixt ways, and projects, and compromises of one sort or another and talk of curtail- 5 ing this charge, and doing without that for the future-and the hope that youth brings, and laughing spirits (in which you were never poor till now), we pocketed up our loss, and in conclusion, with lusty brimmers ' (as you used to quote it out of hearty, cheerful Mr. Cotton,1 as you called him), 10 we used to welcome in the 'coming guest.' Now we have no reckoning at all at the end of the old year; no flattering promises about the new year doing better for us."

Bridget is so sparing of her speech, on most occasions, that when she gets into a rhetorical vein, I am careful 15 how I interrupt it. I could not help, however, smiling at the phantom of wealth which her dear imagination had conjured up out of a clear income of poor-hundred pounds a year. "It is true we were happier when we were poorer, but we were also younger, my cousin. I am afraid 20 we must put up with the excess, for if we were to shake the superflux into the sea, we should not much mend ourselves. That we had much to struggle with, as we grew up together, we have reason to be most thankful. It strengthened and knit our compact closer. We could never have been what 25 we have been to each other, if we had always had the sufficiency which you now complain of. The resisting power, those natural dilations of the youthful spirit, which circumstances can not straiten-with us are long since passed away. Competence to age is supplementary youth, a sorry 30 supplement indeed, but I fear the best that is to be had. We must ride where we formerly walked: live better and lie softer and shall be wise to do so-than we had means to do in those good old days you speak of. Yet could those days return, could you and I once more walk our thirty 35 miles a day, could Bannister and Mrs. Bland again be young,

1 Charles Cotton, a humorist of the seventeenth century.

5

and you and I be young to see them, could the good old one shilling gallery days return-they are dreams, my cousin, now, but could you and I at this moment, instead of this quiet argument, by our well-carpeted fireside, sitting on this luxurious sofa-be once more struggling up those inconvenient staircases, pushed about and squeezed, and elbowed by the poorest rabble of poor gallery scramblers-could I once more hear those anxious shrieks of yours, and the delicious Thank God, we are safe, which always followed, when To the topmost stair, conquered, let in the first light of the whole cheerful theatre down beneath us-I know not the fathom line that ever touched a descent so deep as I would be willing to bury more wealth in than Croesus had, or the great Jew Ris supposed to have, to purchase it. And now 15 do just look at that merry little Chinese waiter holding an umbrella, big enough for a bed-tester, over the head of that pretty insipid half-Madonna-ish chit of a lady in that very blue summer-house."

ΙΟ

WHAT IS EDUCATION? 1

THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY

WHAT is education? Above all things, what is our ideal of a thoroughly liberal education?-of that education which, if we could begin life again, we would give ourselvesof that education which, if we could mould the fates to our own will, we would give our children? Well, I know not 5 what may be your conceptions upon this matter, but I will tell you mine, and I hope I shall find that our views are not very discrepant.

Suppose it were perfectly certain that the life and fortune of every one of us would, one day or other, depend 10 upon his winning or losing a game of chess. Don't you think that we should all consider it to be a primary duty to learn at least the names and the moves of the pieces; to have a notion of a gambit, and a keen eye for all the means of giving and getting out of check? Do you not think that 15 we should look with a disapprobation amounting to scorn, upon the father who allowed his son, or the state which allowed its members, to grow up without knowing a pawn from a knight?

Yet it is a very plain and elementary truth, that the life, 20 the fortune, and the happiness of every one of us, and, more or less, of those who are connected with us, do depend upon our knowing something of the rules of a game infinitely more difficult and complicated than chess. It is a game which has been played for untold ages, every man 25 and woman of us being one of the two players in a game of

1 From "A Liberal Education; and Where to Find It," 1868.

his or her own. The chess-board is the world, the pieces are the phenomena of the universe, the rules of the game are what we call the laws of Nature. The player on the other side is hidden from us. We know that his play is 5 always fair, just and patient. But also we know, to our cost, that he never overlooks a mistake, or makes the smallest allowance for ignorance. To the man who plays well, the highest stakes are paid, with that sort of overflowing generosity with which the strong shows delight in strength. 10 And one who plays ill is checkmated-without haste, but without remorse.

My metaphor will remind some of you of the famous picture in which Retzsch has depicted Satan playing at chess with man for his soul. Substitute for the mocking 15 fiend in that picture a calm, strong angel who is playing for love, as we say, and would rather lose than win-and I should accept it as an image of human life.

20

Well, what I mean by Education is learning the rules of this mighty game. In other words, education is the instruction of the intellect in the laws of Nature, under which name I include not merely things and their forces, but men and their ways; and the fashioning of the affections and of the will into an earnest and loving desire to move in harmony with those laws. For me, education means neither 25 more nor less than this. Anything which professes to call itself education must be tried by this standard, and if it fails to stand the test, I will not call it education, whatever may be the force of authority, or of numbers, upon the other side.

It is important to remember that, in strictness, there is no such thing as an uneducated man. Take an extreme case. Suppose that an adult man, in the full vigour of his faculties, could be suddenly placed in the world, as Adam is said to have been, and then left to do as he best might. 35 How long would he be left uneducated? Not five minutes. Nature would begin to teach him, through the eye, the ear, the touch, the properties of objects. Pain and pleasure