honour theirs, his prosperity theirs.

But over and above this, whenever I have come in contact with this
clerk and shopman class, they have impressed me with considerable
respect, not merely as to what they may be hereafter, but what
they are now.

They are the class from which the ranks of our commercial men, our
emigrants, are continually recruited; therefore their right
education is a matter of national importance.

The lad who stands behind a Bristol counter may be, five-and-
twenty years hence, a large employer--an owner of houses and land
in far countries across the seas--a member of some colonial
parliament--the founder of a wealthy family. How necessary for
the honour of Britain, for the welfare of generations yet unborn,
that that young man should have, in body, soul, and spirit, the
loftiest, and yet the most practical of educations.

His education, too, such as it is, is one which makes me respect
him as one of a class. Of course, he is sometimes one of those
"gents" whom Punch so ruthlessly holds up to just ridicule. He is
sometimes a vulgar fop, sometimes fond of low profligacy--of
betting-houses and casinos. Well--I know no class in any age or
country among which a fool may not be found here and there. But
that the "gent" is the average type of this class, I should
utterly deny from such experience as I have had. The peculiar
note and mark of the average clerk and shopman, is, I think, in
these days, intellectual activity, a keen desire for self-
improvement and for independence, honourable, because self-