Inant during the Middle Age have been sinking downward, often to the rank of mere day-labourers, and carrying downward with them--sometimes in a very tragical and pathetic fashion--somewhat of the dignity and the refinement which they had learnt
from their ancestors. Thus has the English nation (and as far as I can see, the Scotch
likewise) become more homogeneous than any nation of the Continent, if we except France since the extermination of the Frankish nobility. And for that very reason, as it seems to me, it is more fitted than any other European nation for the exercise of equal political rights; and not to be debarred of them by arguments drawn from countries which have been governed--as England has not been--by a caste. The civilisation, not of mere book-learning, but of the heart; all that was once meant by "manners"--good breeding, high feeling, respect for self and respect
for others--are just as common (as far as I have seen) among the hand-workers of England and Scotland, as among any other class; the only difference is, that these qualities develop more early in the richer classes,
owing to that severe discipline of our public schools,
which makes mere lads often fit to govern, because they have learnt to obey: while they develop later--generally not till middle age--in the classes who have not gone through in their youth that Spartan training, and who indeed (from a mistaken conception of liberty) would not endure it for a day. This and other social drawbacks which are but too patent, retard the manhood of the working classes. That it should be so, is a wrong. For if a citizen have one right above all others to demand anything of his country, it is that he should be educated; that whatever capabilities he may have in him, however small, should have their fair and full chance of development. But the cause of the wrong is not the existence of a caste, or a privileged class, or of anything save the plain fact, that some men will be always able to pay more for their children's education than others; and that those children will, inevitably, win in the struggle of life. Meanwhile, in this fact is to be found the most weighty, i
