But here, at last, are six months come and gone, and the stamp question is—not settled, indeed, but I’ve undertaken to keep my man of business free of harm, if the stamps won’t do; and so at last he says I’m to have my money; and I really believe, by the time this letter is out, Messrs. —— will have paid me my 14,000l.
Now you know I promised you the tenth of all I had, when free from incumbrances already existing on it. This first instalment of 14,000l. is not all clear, for I want part of it to found a Mastership of Drawing under the Art Professorship at Oxford; which I can’t do rightly for less than 5,000l. But I’ll count the sum left as 10,000l. instead of 9,000l., and that will be clear for our society, and so, you shall have a thousand pounds down, as the tenth of that, which will quit me, observe, of my pledge thus far.
A thousand down, I say; but down where? Where can I put it to be safe for us? You will find presently, as others come in to help us, and we get something worth taking care of, that it becomes a very curious question indeed, where we can put our money to be safe!
In the meantime, I’ve told my man of business to buy 1,000l. consols in the names of two men of honour; the names cannot yet be certain. What remains of the round thousand shall be kept to add to next instalment. And thus begins the fund, which I think we may advisably call the “St. George’s” fund. And although the interest on consols is, as I told you before, only the taxation on the British peasant continued since the Napoleon wars, still this little portion of his labour, the interest on our St. George’s fund, will at last be saved for him, and brought back to him.
And now, if you will read over once again the end of my fifth letter, I will tell you a little more of what we are to do with this money, as it increases.
First, let whoever gives us any, be clear in their minds that it is a Gift. It is not an Investment. It is a frank and simple gift to the British people: nothing of it is to come back to the giver.
But also, nothing of it is to be lost. The money is not to be spent in feeding Woolwich infants with gunpowder. It is to be spent in dressing the earth and keeping it,—in feeding human lips,—in clothing human bodies,—in kindling human souls.
First of all, I say, in dressing the earth. As soon as the fund reaches any sufficient amount, the Trustees shall buy with it any kind of land offered them at just price in Britain. Rock, moor, marsh, or sea-shore—it matters not what, so it be British ground, and secured to us.
Then, we will ascertain the absolute best that can be made of every acre. We will first examine what flowers and herbs it naturally bears; every wholesome flower that it will grow shall be sown in its wild places, and every kind of fruit-tree that can prosper; and arable and pasture land extended by every expedient of tillage, with humble and simple cottage dwellings under faultless sanitary regulation. Whatever piece of land we begin to work upon, we shall treat thoroughly at once, putting unlimited manual labour on it, until we have every foot of it under as strict care as a flower-garden: and the labourers shall be paid sufficient, unchanging wages; and their children educated compulsorily in agricultural schools inland, and naval schools by the sea, the indispensable first condition of such education being that the boys learn either to ride or to sail; the girls to spin, weave, and sew, and at a proper age to cook all ordinary food exquisitely; the youth of both sexes to be disciplined daily in the strictest practice of vocal music; and for morality, to be taught gentleness to all brute creatures,—finished courtesy to each other,—to speak truth with rigid care, and to obey orders with the precision of slaves. Then, as they get older, they are to learn the natural history of the place they live in,—to know Latin, boys and girls both,—and the history of five cities: Athens, Rome, Venice, Florence, and London.