to, the laws of the creation and distribution of wealth, and of the
stable equilibrium of the forces of society, it is precisely this
nation. And yet this is what these wonderful people tell their
sons:--"At the cost of from one to two thousand pounds of our hard
earned money, we devote twelve of the most precious years of your lives
to school. There you shall toil, or be supposed to toil; but there you
shall not learn one single thing of all those you will most want to
know, directly you leave school and enter upon the practical business of
life. You will in all probability go into business, but you shall not
know where, or how, any article of commerce is produced, or the
difference between an export or an import, or the meaning of the word
'capital.' You will very likely settle in a colony, but you shall not
know whether Tasmania is part of New South Wales, or _vice versâ_.

"Very probably you may become a manufacturer, but you shall not be
provided with the means of understanding the working of one of your own
steam-engines, or the nature of the raw products you employ; and, when
you are asked to buy a patent, you shall not have the slightest means of
judging whether the inventor is an impostor who is contravening the
elementary principles of science, or a man who will make you as rich as
Croesus.

"You will very likely get into the House of Commons. You will have to
take your share in making laws which may prove a blessing or a curse to
millions of men. But you shall not hear one word respecting the
political organization of your country; the meaning of the controversy
between freetraders and protectionists shall never have been mentioned
to you: you shall not so much as know that there are such things as
economical laws.