Page:The probable course of legislation on popular education, and the position of the church in regard to it.djvu/8

 only now. The claimant and the possessor stand here, as elsewhere just now ill certain moving matters, face to face rather than side by side; and before the hostility becomes more determined, and one of the parties, at least, gathers force, it were well to think what we can preserve, through what we must change.

Regarding the question thus, the first thing would seem to be, that there must be a great abandonment of strongholds. The young mind must often have thought that too much was made in strategy of invincible fortresses. It is hard to see why some of them should not have been left alone in their invincibility. If any have shared this suspicion, it will have been confirmed by late political experiences.

Doubtless it must have seemed incontrovertibly absurd to push down such indications as a man's circumstances afford to his fitness for political responsibility at all lower, much less to zero, at a time when his circumstances were much in advance of his mental and moral condition. If the education and character of the lower social strata had outrun their prosperity, such process were intelligible—the property qualification might then reasonably be reduced. But when the proof is all the other way, and the necessaries of life for the many have grown much more near the comforts, than ignorance has become intelligence or conduct virtuous—to lower the franchise test, be it rate or rent, seemed to be in direct violation of the rule which should regulate it. So also it may well have seemed an inversion of order in re-arranging electoral matters, to begin with the franchise and end at redistribution! Nothing could be clearer than that the reasonable process was to arrange, first the boundaries of existing constituencies, and see how many of the worthy but excluded citizens would thus get worked up; then redistribute seats, and through active but unrepresented centres absorb many more; and then at last turn to the franchise, after these wants were supplied, and see if there was still a residuum which it was desirable to regard by a lower standard. There these fortresses still stand, their guns all in position, and their works uninjured. Only they might as well never have been. The campaign has swept far beyond, passing them by; and, though it is no more use crying over turned fortresses than over spilt milk—it is well to note the fact, that one of the great lessons of the late Session is, that strongholds, however apparently impregnable, may be disregarded.

If this is true of holds, strong in themselves and strongly held, much more is it true of positions rendered weak by imperfect conviction or irresolution. Nothing but a very stout faith and clear intelligence will avail at all, even if they will. There has been so much acting without conviction and acting against conviction of late, that half convictions are out of court altogether, and whole convictions much discredited. And if the late result forces this consideration upon us, much more so does the process by which it was attained. Both must signally influence all action on such a subject as Education. The late Reform Bill became possible through the