serious fluctuations are avoided. The occurrence of war, or great social or political catastrophes, cannot fail to produce severe derangements; but these do not in the aggregate equal the mischief produced by panics which occur, partly, at any rate, from what is called "overtrading." Previous to a panic it will be found that credit transactions have exceeded not only prudential, but honourable limits; and particular markets have been overstocked to an extent that could not take place if the laws of trade were better understood, and there was a more prompt diffusion of accurate information.

The frauds and bankruptcies of the last few years have shown how easy it is for clever rogues to obtain almost any amount of discount for fictitious bills; but it cannot be supposed that the bankers who afford this accommodation would take the large risks involved in this sort of business, if good employment of their capital was offered on safer terms; and the fact is, that the known means of legitimately employing money are often too small to absorb the spare capital of the country. This arises partly from the deficiency of knowledge on trade questions, but still more from the want of its adequate diffusion. In due time the middle class will be sick of returning panics, and of the immoralities of Joint Stock Company management; and when this is the case

there can be no difficulty in finding suitable remedies. This accomplished, we may expect a large extension of steady remunerative employment -larger, in fact, than the increase of population; and then the working class will rapidly rise in social position and prosperity. It is probable that fifty years of education and commercial development would leave few skilled workmen entirely dependent upon weekly wages, and would multiply indefinitely co-operative associations and arrangements by which the artisans were participators in profits, and had a personal interest in the prosperity of the concern to which they were attached. Already the most advanced of the working classes have many of the tastes and pursuits of the better portion of the middle class. They read the same books, get up concerts and oratorios, study physical science, and exercise a taste and capacity for the fine arts. As these influences expand, the assimilation between different ranks must progress, for it is not so much money as similarity of pursuits and manners that determines who will associate together. A democracy too soon emancipated from control is apt to be rude and offensive in its bearing; but there is no reason why the working men of this country should not in a few years become as polished as the middle class are now. They are peculiarly sus

ceptible to the fascinations of gentlemanly manners, as electioneering candidates well know, and they will soon find that polish is a power as well as an ornament and source of pleasure. As a rule the manners of different classes are better in proportion to their distance from public-house life. Those

⚫ workmen who live in good homes are incomparably better behaved than those who for want of domestic comforts habitually pass their evenings in publichouses.

By degrees trade societies will see the advantage of having their own halls and club-rooms for the transaction of their business; and as they will associate with their benefit societies the means of giving lectures and concerts, together with reading-rooms and libraries, their social standing will resemble that now held by respectable tradesmen, but have a more intellectual caste, because they will learn from ambition and better feelings that it is only by mental culture that they can enjoy a good position at a small expense.

In this country it is not likely that the possessors of political power will yield it to the working classes sooner than they can help; and the struggle for political rights will in itself be an education that will teach them how to use them when obtained. Aristocracy, like all other institutions, must modify

itself to suit the changes of the times; but there is no necessity that the natural progress of democracy should be connected with levelling systems, or mediocrity of government. A well-grown democracy will open the best field for talent, and pay a loftier homage to genius than a mere commercial and manufacturing class has ever done. The true ideal of a democracy has not yet been reached by any people, and is seldom taught or explained. In England, however, it may be expected to grow better than elsewhere, because we live under a stimulating combination of facilities and difficulties; and more than any other nation have learnt to discriminate between licence and liberty, and know the truth of Milton's grand saying

"For who loves that must first be wise and good."

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CHAPTER XIII.

EDUCATION.

THE education best adapted to develop the child into the man, is not always the best adapted to enable that child to fill the particular part which society assigns to him. What is called " "success in life" often demands a wide departure from a normal standard of human excellence. Sometimes this departure is in kind, as where servility, or other variety of dishonesty, is required. Sometimes it is a departure in degree, as where it demands so much concentration in certain directions as to obstruct development in others. When the wealthy classes view the condition of those beneath them, with that unctuous satisfaction that often characterizes those who consider themselves specially favoured in the dispensations of Providence, we hear a good deal about unfitting people for their station, as if that very process, instead of being an evil, was not to some extent a necessary result of any education worth the name. Mankind, indeed, re