Commissary, pitching into them questions about history, and some Mr.
Lowe, as Crown Patronage Commissary, pitching into them questions about
English literature; and these young men would have been kept from the
University, as Diggs' boys are kept from their bird-scaring, till they
had instructed themselves. Then, if, after three years of their
University, they wanted to be magistrates, another pressure!--a great
Civil Service Examination before a Board of Experts, an examination in
English law, Roman law, English history, history of jurisprudence."

"A most abominable liberty to take with Lumpington and Hittall," says
Arnold.

"Then your compulsory education is a most abominable liberty to take
with Diggs' boys," retorted Arminius.... "Oh, but," I answered, "to live
at all, even at the lowest stage of human life, a man needs
instruction." "Well," returns Arminius, "and to administer at all, even
at the lowest stage of public administration, a man needs instruction."

"_We have never found it so_," I said.

The same argument was urged, in a graver fashion, in _Schools and
Universities of the Continent_.

"In the view of the English friends of compulsory education, the
educated and intelligent Middle and Upper Classes amongst us are to
confer the boon of compulsory education upon the ignorant lower class,
which needs it while they do not. But, on the Continent, instruction is
obligatory for Lower, Middle, and Upper Class alike. I doubt whether our
educated and intelligent classes are at all prepared for this. I have an
acquaintance in easy circumstances, of distinguished connexions, living