Page:Under Dispute (1924).pdf/164

 the morals of England; but she was perturbed by the thought that under-paid artisans should seek to be "scholars and philosophers," though they must have stood in more need of philosophy than she did.

It was Ruskin who jolted his English readers, and some Americans, out of the selfish complacency which is degenerate content. It was he who harshly told England, then so prosperous and powerful, that prosperity and power are not virtues, that they do not indicate the sanction of the Almighty, or warrant their possessors in assuming the moral leadership of the world. It was he who assured the prim girlhood of my day that it was not the petted child of Providence, and that it had no business to be contented because it was better off than girlhood elsewhere. "Joy in nothing that separates you, as by any strange favour, from your fellow creatures, that exalts you through their