“Many improvements have indeed been made in the course of that time. We have improved, for instance, in the rapidity with which we travel; our roads are as smooth as a bowling-green. But our greatest improvements of all are our intellectual improvements. We have made wonderful strides in the march of intellect. England is now the first country in the world for all that relates to science and art. The cultivation of the understanding has advanced most astonishingly.
“I remember noticing when I was in India,” said Mr Primrose, “that the number of publications seemed much increased. But many of them appeared to be merely light reading.”
“Very likely, sir; but we have not merely light reading; we have a most abundant supply of scientific publications: and these are read with the utmost avidity by all classes of people, especially by the lower classes. You have no doubt heard of the formation of the mechanics’ institutes?”
“I have, sir,” replied Mr Primrose; “but I am not quite aware of the precise nature of their constitution, or the object at which they aim. Perhaps you can inform me?”
“That I can, sir,” said Mr Kipperson; “and I shall have great pleasure in so doing; for to tell you the truth I am a very zealous promoter of these institutions. The object of these institutions is to give an opportunity to artisans, who are employed all day in manual labour, to acquire a scientific knowledge, not only of the art by which he lives and at which he works, but of everything else which can possibly be known or become a subject of human inquiry or interest.”
“But surely,” interrupted Mr Primrose, “it is not designed to convert mechanical into scientific men. That seems to my view rather a contradiction to the general order of things.”
“I beg your pardon,” replied the other; “you are repeating, I perceive, exploded objections. Is it possible, do you think, that a man should do his work worse for understanding something of the philosophy of it? Is it not far better, where it is practicable, that a man should act as a rational reflecting creature, than as a piece of mere machinery?”
“Very true, certainly, sir; you are right. Ay, ay, now I see: you instruct all artisans in the philosophy of their several employments. Most excellent. Then, I suppose, you teach architecture and read lectures on Vitruvius to journey-men bricklayers?”
“Nay, nay, sir,” replied Mr Kipperson, “we do not carry it quite so far as that.”
“Oh, I beg your pardon,” replied Mr Primrose, “I had not the slightest idea that this was carrying your system too far. It might, perhaps, be a little refinement on the scheme to suppose that you would teach tailors anatomy; but after all I do not see why you should start at carrying a matter of this kind too far. The poet says, ‘a little knowledge is a dangerous thing;’ and, for my own part, I can see no great liberality in this parsimonious and stinted mode of dealing out knowledge; for unless you teach the lower classes all that is to be taught, you make, or more properly speaking keep up, the distinction.”