choosing ladlefuls of punch instead of claret, because I was then able, unperceived, to pour them into my waistcoat instead of down my throat, stood it out to the end, and helped to carry four of my fellow students, one of them the son of the head of a college, head foremost, down stairs and home.

149. Such things are no more; but the fruit of them remains, and will for many a day to come. The labourers whom you cannot now shut out of the alehouse are only the too faithful disciples of the gentlemen who were wont to shut themselves into the dining-room. The gentlemen have not thought it necessary, in order to correct their own habits, to diminish their incomes; and, believe me, the way to deal with your drunken workman is not to lower his wages, but to mend his wits.*

150. And if indeed we do not yet see quite clearly how to deal with the sins of our poor brother, it is possible that our dimness of sight may still have other causes that can be cast out. There are two opposite cries of the great liberal and conservative parties, which are both most right, and worthy to be rallying cries. On their side 'let every man have his chance;' on yours 'let every man stand in his place.' Yes, indeed, let that be so, every man in his place,

* See Appendix, Modern Education,' and compare § 70 of Time and Tide.

and every man fit for it. See that he holds that place from Heaven's Providence; and not from his family's Providence. Let the Lords Spiritual quit themselves of simony, we laymen will look after the heretics for them. Let the Lords Temporal quit themselves of nepotism, and we will take care of their authority for them. Publish for us, you soldiers, an army gazette, in which the one subject of daily intelligence shall be the grounds of promotion; a gazette which shall simply tell us, what there certainly can be no detriment to the service in our knowing, when any officer is appointed to a new command,-what his former services and successes have been,-whom he has superseded, and on what ground. It will be always a satisfaction to us; it may sometimes be an advantage to you and then, when there is really necessary debate respecting reduction of wages, let us always begin, not with the wages of the industrious classes, but with those of the idle ones. Let there be honorary titles, if people like them; but let there be no honorary incomes.

151. So much for the master's motto, Every man in his place.' Next for the labourer's motto, 'Every man his chance.' Let us mend that for them a little, and say, 'Every man his certainty '— certainty, that if he does well, he will be honoured, and aided, and advanced in such degree as may be

fitting for his faculty and consistent with his peace; and equal certainty that if he does ill, he will by sure justice be judged, and by sure punishment be chastised; if it may be, corrected; and if that may not be, condemned. That is the right reading of the Republican motto, 'Every man his chance.' And then, with such a system of government, pure, watchful and just, you may approach your great problem of national education, or in other words, of national employment. For all education begins in work. What we think, or what we know, or what we believe, is in the end, of little consequence. The only thing of consequence is what we do: and for man, woman, or child, the first point of education is to make them do their best. It is the law of good economy to make the best of everything. How much more to make the best of every creature! Therefore, when your pauper comes to you and asks for bread, ask of him instantly-What faculty have you? What can you do best? Can you drive a nail into wood? Go and mend the parish fences. Can you lay a brick? Mend the walls of the cottages where the wind comes in. Can you lift a spadeful of earth? Turn this field up three feet deep all over. Can you only drag a weight with your shoulders? Stand at the bottom of this hill and help up the overladen horses. Can you weld iron and chisel stone? Fortify this wreck

strewn coast into a harbour; and change these shifting sands into fruitful ground. Wherever death was, bring life; that is to be your work; that your parish refuge; that your education. So and no otherwise can we meet existent distress. But for the continual education of the whole people, and for their future happiness, they must have such consistent employment as shall develop all the powers of the fingers and the limbs, and the brain; and that development is only to be obtained by hand-labour, of which you have these four great divisions-hand-labour on the earth, hand-labour on the sea, hand-labour in art, hand-labour in war. Of the last two of these I cannot speak to-night, and of the first two only with extreme brevity.

152. I. Hand-labour on the earth, the work of the husbandman and of the shepherd;-to dress the earth and to keep the flocks of it-the first task of man, and the final one-the education always of noblest lawgivers, kings and teachers; the education of Hesiod, of Moses, of David, of all the true strength of Rome; and all its tenderness: the pride of Cincinnatus, and the inspiration of Virgil. Hand-labour on the earth, and the harvest of it brought forth with singing:—not steam-piston labour on the earth, and the harvest of it brought forth with steam-whistling. You will have no prophet's voice accompanied by

that shepherd's pipe, and pastoral symphony. Do you know that lately, in Cumberland, in the chief pastoral district of England,-in Wordsworth's own' home, a procession of villagers on their festa day provided for themselves, by way of music, a steamplough whistling at the head of them.

153. Give me patience while I put the principle of machine labour before you, as clearly and in as short compass as possible; it is one that should be known at this juncture. Suppose a farming proprietor needs to employ a hundred men on his estate, and that the labour of these hundred men is enough, but not more than enough, to till all his land, and to raise from it food for his own family, and for the hundred labourers. He is obliged under such circumstances to maintain all the men in moderate comfort, and can only by economy accumulate much for himself. But, suppose he contrive a machine that will easily do the work of fifty men, with only one man to watch it. This sounds like a great advance in civilization. The farmer of course gets his machine made, turns off the fifty men, who may starve or emigrate at their choice, and now he can keep half of the produce of his estate, which formerly went to feed them, all to himself. That is the essential and constant operation of machinery among us at this

moment.