It is maintained that the whole fabric
of society will be destroyed if the poor, as well as the rich, are
educated; that anything like sound and good education will only make
them discontented with their station and raise hopes which, in the
great majority of cases, will be bitterly disappointed. It is said:
There must be hewers of wood and drawers of water, scavengers and
coalheavers, day labourers and domestic servants, or the work of
society will come to a standstill. But, if you educate and refine
everybody, nobody will be content to assume these functions, and all
the world will want to be gentlemen and ladies.
One hears this argument most frequently from the representatives of
the well-to-do middle class; and, coming from them, it strikes me as
peculiarly inconsistent, as the one thing they admire, strive after,
and advise their own children to do, is to get on in the world, and,
if possible, rise out of the class in which they were born into that
above them. Society needs grocers and merchants as much as it needs
coalheavers; but if a merchant accumulates wealth and works his way to
a baronetcy, or if the son of a greengrocer becomes a lord chancellor,
or an archbishop, or, as a successful soldier, wins a peerage, all the
world admires them; and looks with pride upon the social system which
renders such achievements possible.
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