the sweetness of Paradise.

They are far off, very far off, to the boy, and the cry is as a voice in a dream, distant and dim. The present is tempting, all cannot win, and high wages are not life. "Figs" have little charm for the eager foot standing on life's bright threshold with an untried world in front. A better spell must be found to conjure with than this. There is another spell, which many conjure with, and its power over some cannot be denied. It is a louder and fiercer cry, but not more true; though true, high feelings are often marshalled under it; and there is a noble side of human nature of which this parody of truth takes advantage, and reaps the benefit. The appeal to success, Prizes, and Prizewinning, bids fair to be the watchword of the day. But what does this do for the majority, for the non-competing crowd; who nevertheless do not politely die off, and make room; and cannot through modern squeamishness, be killed off, and buried? There they are, and there they insist on remaining. The character of the appeal is noteworthy. About the year 400 A.D. the Goth, and the Vandal, the Viking, and the whole North, Danes, and Saxons, and Jutes, began to pour in on the civilized Roman world, and brought their battleaxes against all the civilization of the old order. Physical force was let loose, and smashed everything, and a thousand years were used up before the

THE SWINEHERD'S HORN.

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finer and nobler life of the earlier times had reasserted its preeminence, conquered the conquerors, and given birth to Modern Europe. We are accustomed to call this period the Dark Ages. The name is deserved as far as the triumphs of the strong arm and the battle-axe were real and prevailing. Modern Europe scorns the Dark Ages. But is the axe the only weapon? or physical force the only force? In what respect morally does the strong arm differ from the strong head? Both are mere instruments of a power behind both that uses them. And what is a nation doing which calmly stands up and says, "We will only regard in our schools the breeding of the strong head; and we will give all our honour and power to the wielders of strength"? "Glory to the strong. Boys, whet your tusks, rush, rend, tear, win, make yourselves a name, be great." This is but the Vandal over again, and a swineherd's call. The worship of force, no doubt, is an idolatry of a more stirring kind than the greed for market price, but only the more deadly on this account. Glory to the strong on the reverse side of the shield is oppression to the weak. The weak are pushed into a corner, and neglected; their natural tendency to shrink from labour is educated into despair, by their being constantly reminded, directly or indirectly, that their labour is no good. All cannot stand in a conspicuous pillory of success.

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THE DARKER AGE.

A base preeminence of brutal strength, however full the trough may be of coronets, or pride of place, belongs to but few; and few comparatively in early years are fired by the thought. Alas for the many, alas for the pith, and working fibre of the nation; alas for all the gentler, and finer qualities by which society lives. The rain, and the dew, and the sunlight, and the crops, and grass that covers the hills with minute blades of life-sustaining power innumerable, must be banished from the world; the volcano carries the day. All tender influences, all prevailing, patient, unpretending good may pack and be gone. There is no room for them in the heart of the modern coming world. Blind Sampson is to be king; and Hercules Furens next heir to the throne. The pride of intellect is to be unchained; and with the break-up of humility, reverence, holiness, and genius the child of love, the Darker Age will set in, to be wondered at in turn in years to come. There is to be no room for the weak. So a conviction is gradually forced on the practical worker that it is useless for the many to strive for individual skill, and they accordingly accept their doom. Utter deadness to the true power of Education is the natural result of this; and produces an impossibility under the present circumstances of its being got. Yet it is an axiom that a system, which takes no count of the weak,

THE AUCTIOneer, the SWINEHERD. 73

is no part of God's true world. "Gather up the fragments that remain that nothing be lost," is the watchword of Truth for ever. Now on all sides there is but the dull fierceness of mechanic greed and the auctioneer's hammer, or the neglected idler's snores, only broken by the hoarse clamour round the trough, and the loud droning of the swineherd's horn.

CHAPTER VI.

THE THEORY OF TEACHING.

Real Value. Growing Eyes.

THE market value of higher culture has been briefly dealt with, and the plain principles on which it can be calculated pointed out. It has been proved that mental skill is costly, and that the skilled workman must be paid a high price if the nation is to benefit by his skill. At the same time the auctioneer's hammer, and the swineherd's horn, have been shown to reach but little way, to be very inadequate as motives even where they reach, to be destructive of the welfare of the many, and not to touch the main subject at all. Plato has given a standard to refer to, which may serve by an entirely independent experience to introduce in a striking manner another side of the question. He is engaged in arguing for the immortality of the soul, and bringing proof that human life is not bounded by the narrow limits