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151 MR. GRANVILLE BARKER AND AN ALIBI 151 project to reorganize schools on the royal lines of cathedrals, making secular teaching as sacred as the creeds, " The Church has assimilated much in her time. Do you think it wise to leave agnostic science at the side of the plate ? " "I think that this craving for common knowledge is a new birth in the mind of man ; and if your Church won't recognize that soon, by so much will she be losing grip for ever over men's minds. . . . I'm offering you a new Order of men and women who'll serve God by teaching His children. . . . Teaching, true teaching, is learning, and the wish to know is going to prevail against any creed. . . . The tradition of self-sacrifice and fellow- ship in service for its own sake — that's the spirit we've to capture and keep. Education is religion, and those who deal in it are priests without any laying on of hands." " I have only one belief myself," he adds (Trebell, remember, not necessarily Barker), *' that is, human progress — yes, progress over many obstacles and by many means. I have no ideals. I believe it is states- manlike to use all the energy you find, turning it into the nearest channel that points forward." It is a restatement of the faith on which Mr. Shaw's eyes have always been indomitably fixed, ^ but it is not an echo of Mr. Shaw. It is a new description, by a younger man, a humbler, gentler, and more generous man, of the writing on the rock which the fierce elder has laid bare ; and it is used by him with a respectful- ness, both to his art and to life, which the exasperated prophet has never had the patience to display. It is the difference, once more, between the Man of Letters and the Man of Laws. Shaw has written many plays in support of just these creeds — Misal- ' Compare, for instance, Mr. Shaw's fine declaration in the Preface to Man and Superman : ' ' This is the true joy of life — the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one ; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap-heap."