[6] Such limitation being secured by the severity of the required education in the public schools of art, and thought; and by the high standard of examination fixed, before granting licence of exhibition, in the public theatres, or picture galleries. [↑]
[7] Here is just an instance of what might at first seem to be a jest; but is a serious and straightforward corollary from the eternally true fact stated by St. Timothy: “They that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition;” and by Horace:
“Quanto quisque sibi plura negaverit
Ab Dis plura feret.”
The passage might at first be thought inconsistent with what is said above of the ‘degradation’ which perpetual toil involves. But toil and poverty are two different things. Poverty ennobles, and secures; toil degrades, and endangers. We are all bound to fulfil our task; but happy only if we can also enter into our rest. [↑]
[8] It may always import such food as its climate cannot produce, in exchange for such food as it can; it may buy oranges with corn, or pepper with cheese. But not with articles that do not support life. Separate cities may honourably produce saleable art; Limoges its enamel, Sheffield its whittle; but a nation must not live on enamel or whittles. [↑]
[9] Foolish people are continually quibbling and stupifying themselves about the word ‘machine.’ Briefly, any instrument is a machine so far as its action is, in any particular, or moment, beyond the control of the human hand. A violin, a pencil, and a plough, are tools, not machines. A grinding organ, or a windmill, is a machine, not a tool: often the two are combined; thus a lathe is a machine, and the workman’s chisel, used at it, a tool. [↑]
[10] The ghastly squalor of the once lovely fields of Dulwich, trampled into mud, and strewn with rags and paper by the filthy London population, bred in cigar smoke, which is attracted by the Crystal Palace, would alone neutralize all possible gentlemanly education in the district. [↑]
[11] See an entirely admirable paper on school-sports, in ‘The World’ for February of this year. [↑]