Page:Seventeen lectures on the study of medieval and modern history and kindred subjects.djvu/125

 or the opportunity of thorough courses of reading, must be valuable; and the experiments which have been tried in some of our large manufacturing towns have been successful in a remarkable degree. I do not shut my eyes to the fact that in such schemes zeal often outruns discretion, that volunteer lecturers are far more likely to spring from the ranks of the unlearned than from the class that has grown old in convincing itself of its own ignorance, and that, as I have said of writing, it may be true of lecturing, the zeal for informing other people may arise from political feeling quite as often as from the benevolent desire of teaching them what is good for them. It is most unfortunate that such teaching should be one-sided: how one-sided it could be made we learned from the history of Mechanics' Institutes; now we may hope that the exertions of the town clergy in their local societies are doing something to redress the balance; and if I could see my way to an administration on sound principles, apart from party organisation, and in the hands of competent teachers, of such a scheme as that known as the University Extension Scheme, I should be inclined to hope very great things from it. I trust that it will be so shortly.

If by these or any other plans we can induce men in authority to make the real teaching of History a part of the training of elementary schools, the first, and by no means the least, step will be taken towards furnishing the next generation of Englishmen with the means of exercising conscientiously, honestly, and judicially, the great political power which is now lodged in their hands. They will learn how to vote, and how to guard against imposture, exaggeration, and unfairness in their leaders as well. as in their opponents. And with real political awakening I shall trust that moral and religious progress will do more than keep pace. I go further; if the study of History can really be made an educational implement in schools, it will raise up a generation who not only will know how to vote, but will bring a judgment, prepared, trained, and in its own sphere exercised and developed, to help them in all the great affairs of life. Therefore let us have lectures many and good, books