during the Middle Age have been sinking downward, often to the rank of
mere day-labourers, and carrying downward with them--sometimes in a very
tragical and pathetic fashion--somewhat of the dignity and the refinement
which they had learnt from their ancestors.

Thus has the English nation (and as far as I can see, the Scotch
likewise) become more homogeneous than any nation of the Continent, if we
except France since the extermination of the Frankish nobility. And for
that very reason, as it seems to me, it is more fitted than any other
European nation for the exercise of equal political rights; and not to be
debarred of them by arguments drawn from countries which have been
governed--as England has not been--by a caste.

The civilisation, not of mere book-learning, but of the heart; all that
was once meant by "manners"--good breeding, high feeling, respect for
self and respect for others--are just as common (as far as I have seen)
among the hand-workers of England and Scotland, as among any other class;
the only difference is, that these qualities develop more early in the
richer classes, owing to that severe discipline of our public schools,
which makes mere lads often fit to govern, because they have learnt to
obey: while they develop later--generally not till middle age--in the
classes who have not gone through in their youth that Spartan training,
and who indeed (from a mistaken conception of liberty) would not endure
it for a day. This and other social drawbacks which are but too patent,
retard the manhood of the working classes. That it should be so, is a
wrong. For if a citizen have one right above all others to demand
anything of his country, it is that he should be educated; that whatever
capabilities he may have in him, however small, should have their fair
and full chance of development. But the cause of the wrong is not the
existence of a caste, or a privileged class, or of anything save the