Page:A thousand years hence. Being personal experiences (IA thousandyearshen00gree).djvu/244

 How far my noble-minded and disinterested ancestor foresaw all that was ultimately to come of his novel idea, we are not told. Any way, his originating movement had very grand results. But he had at first to fight his battle against universal opposition: his own wife, as he has amusingly recorded, fighting most vigorously of all against his future fame. Although unsparing of his own means, progress at first was slow. But the idea afterwards gained ground, and, ere its author left the world, he saw the promise of its substantial success. Indeed, the subject, very soon after, assumed such importance as to become a public question, which the State incorporated with that of the general education of the people; that is to say, the State enjoined a distinctive drafting out of all young children of perfect health and form, whose high natural advantages were to be specially supplemented by all the superior educational advantages for which they showed themselves capable. The State looked, by way of reward, to the rearing of quite a superior class of subjects, and the consequently increased credit and accelerated advancement of the country.

At first, of course, only the very poorest classes submitted to be the objects of this distinctive charity, for as such it had doubtless commenced; while the title of "nature's nobility," which was early conferred upon the new order, had probably no complimentary intention. But, as generations passed, nature's nobility began to crop up all through society, and to exhibit qualities which gave to it commanding social and intellectual position. To enter the lists of the new order was no longer a contemptible object,