tended to neglect those efforts to accumulate knowledge, and consider
how it can be most usefully applied, which should precede and
accompany action. This deficiency is happily one that can be removed,
while a want of qualities which are the gift of nature is less
curable. The "efficiency" which is on every one's mouth cannot be
extemporised by rushing hastily into action, however energetic. It is
the fruit of patient and exact determination of and reflection upon
the facts to be dealt with.

The view that it was the finest minds that ought to be most cared for,
and that to them of right belonged not merely leadership, but even
control also, was carried by the ancients, and especially by Plato and
Aristotle, almost to excess. Their ideal, and indeed that of most
Greek thinkers, was the maintenance among the masses of the military
valour and discipline which the State needed for its protection, and
the cultivation among the chosen few of the highest intellectual and
moral excellence. In the Middle Ages, when power as well as rank
belonged to two classes, nobles and clergy, the ideal of education
took a religious colour, and that training was most valued which made
men loyal to the Church and to sound doctrine, with the prospect of
bliss in the world to come. In our times, educational ideals have
become not merely more earthly but more material. Modern doctrines of
equality have discredited the ancient view that the chief aim of
instruction is to prepare the few Wise and Good for the government of
the State. It is not merely upon this world but also upon the material
things of this world, power and the acquisition of territory,
industrial production, commerce, finance, wealth and prosperity in all
its forms, that the modern eye is fixed. There has been a drifting
away from that respect for learning which was strong in the Middle
Ages and lasted down into the eighteenth century. In some countries,