One other leading feature of Mr. Pattison's address was his
insisting throughout that it is the indifference of English society to true knowledge which makes our educational institutions so poor, much more than the poverty of those institutions which makes us indifferent to true knowledge. He illustrated his thesis rather happily from a speech made at the Brighton meeting of the Social Science Association, by Mr. Smith, of Halifax, who urged that the whole question of girls' education was one of pounds, shillings, and pence; and that if a father could be convinced that by spend- ing £2,000 on a girl's education he could ensure her earning five per cent, on the outlay, he would be just as glad to do it as he is to do the same thing for his boys. Evidently, said Mr. Pattison, Mr. Smith of Halifax did not consider the educa- tion as having any value in itself. He looked at the whole outlay purely as an investment. If five per cent. "was not forth- coming (as in the case of girls it was not), the education could be done without. Mr. Smith, of Halifax, did not want that." While man or woman was conceived in English homes merely as a machine for earning an income, neither schools nor Universities could embody a high ideal of education. Perhaps not, but Mr. Pattison is proving in his own person that the reaction which is to extend to our homes may begin in our Universities.
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